The decision leaves the fate of the state’s 211 Democratic convention delegates in limbo, with no plan on the table for determining whether or how they will be seated at the Democratic National Convention in August. Ms. Thurman said the matter would now go back to the national party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee — the same body that stripped Florida and Michigan of delegates in the first place.

Michigan Democratic party leaders on Monday proposed legislation to conduct a new primary on June 3 to allocate the state’s 156 delegates. The election would be run by the state but be privately financed.

Mrs. Clinton, of New York, has agreed to the plan; aides to Mr. Obama, of Illinois, have refused to commit to it. It is more uncertain than ever that he will: The party’s rules may disqualify anyone who voted in Michigan’s Republican primary from voting in the Democratic primary — including those who may be Obama supporters who voted Republican because his name was not on the Democratic ballot.

The Michigan Legislature then must approve any plan to conduct a statewide election, and state lawmakers are scheduled to begin a two-week recess on Thursday. Even if the Obama and Clinton campaigns endorse the proposal, it still must win two-thirds support in both the State House, controlled by Democrats, and the Senate, which has a Republican majority. The plan is also dependent on state party officials raising an estimated $10 million to pay for the new election.

But those hurdles appear surmountable compared with the chaos in Florida.

Ms. Thurman noted that the state of Florida would not pay for any new primary election, and party officials could not practically run a statewide primary or caucus. A number of counties are changing their voting technology and cannot be ready for an early June election. An additional complicating factor is that five Florida counties, because of a history of voting rights violations, must receive clearance from the Department of Justice before conducting any new election.

In an interview shown Monday on CNN, Mr. Clinton said the widespread interpretation of his remarks — comparing Senator Barack Obama to the Rev. Jesse Jackson — was “a total myth and a mugging.” Mr. Clinton added, “I think that’s been pretty well established.”

"The world is only seeing this tiny piece of him," Moss said. "This is an attempt to silence our voice."

Web sites and television news shows recalled Wright's praise of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and played a greatest-hits compilation of Wright's most incendiary comments: that Sept. 11, 2001, meant "America's chickens are coming home to roost." That former president Bill Clinton "did the same thing to us that he did to Monica Lewinsky."

Flooded with a tide of criticism, Trinity declines to condemn Wright's remarks, instead casting them as consistent with the traditions of the black church. He practices a "black liberation theology" that encourages a preacher to speak forcefully against the institutions of oppression, and occasional hyperbole is an occupational hazard, ministers said. "There's so much passion in what we do that it can overflow," said the Rev. Frederick D. Haynes III, senior pastor at Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas.

Wright left for Africa with his family last week...

Obama said he had never been in attendance for Wright's most controversial statements, and he called his comments "inflammatory and appalling."

People turn to counselors, ministers, psychiatrists and spiritual advisers in times of despair, often not thinking or realizing that these people have complicated lives as well.

The very same issue came up with Bill and Hillary Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Chelsea Clinton called Jesse Jackson and asked him to come give spiritual guidance to the family. He ultimately became the Clinton family’s spiritual adviser, ministering to Hillary, Bill and Chelsea, and at Hillary’s urging developed a special counseling relationship with their daughter. Shortly after the Lewinsky story broke Jackson met with the three Clintons at the White House. They reportedly prayed and hugged one another under Jackson’s spiritual guidance.

The night before Bill Clinton was to testify before the grand jury about Monica Lewinsky, the president called Jackson and asked him to come watch the Super Bowl with him. At first Jackson begged off, citing a previous engagement, then heeded his wife’s advice. According to Jackson “My wife said, ‘your first obligation is ministerial. It is morally right.'” And he was later quoted as saying that “The relationship between a prophet and a president, the priest and the president is a sacred one.” Jackson gave Hillary Clinton a framed photograph of himself with Chelsea, which Hillary Clinton hung in her bedroom.

The Clintons did not repudiate Jackson for his earlier comments about Jews, calling them “Hymie’s” and referring to New York as “Hymietown.” Nor did they repudiate him for recognizing the PLO or Yasser Arafat, or for embracing Arafat and Syrian Preisdent Hafez Assad, or for accepting Arab money for two of his organizations. (In fact, Hillary Clinton was roundly criticized by her New York constituents for embracing Arafat’s wife at a meeting.)

Later it was revealed that while Jesse Jackson was acting as the Clinton’s spiritual adviser during this troubled time, he was having an affair with a California State University professor Karin Stanford, a former staffer, and fathered her child. According to Stanford, Jackson tried to keep it quiet by asking her to sign a confidentiality agreement and by paying money to her from his charity organizations, hardly visiting the child at all. “An angry Stanford remarked later that “black religious leaders and congregations prayed for him (Jackson) and his ‘family’ but not for our daughter (Ashley) and me.” She then said, “Coming at a time when (former) President Bill Clinton was being crucified for lying about his affair with a White House intern, my partner was praised by the media for his honesty.”

...how is it possible that a man who has made judgment the centerpiece of his presidential campaign has shown so little of it in this matter?

One possible answer to these questions is that Obama has learned to rely on a sycophantic media that hears any criticism of him as either (1) racist, (2) vaguely racist or (3) doing the bidding of Hillary and Bill Clinton.

In a certain sense, I am sympathetic toward Obama.

When he said of Wright, "Because of his life experience, [he] continues to have a lot of anger and frustration, and will express that in ways that are very different from me and my generation," anyone who knows anything about the black experience in America has to nod.

The 66-year-old Wright was born when blacks were still being lynched, when Jim Crow ruled the South -- and when raw bigotry prevailed virtually everywhere else. He knows a different America from the one familiar to most whites.

So for Obama, Wright posed a dilemma. The minister is well known and respected and, clearly, adored by Obama. His language of resentment, even of hate, has a certain context to Obama. It does not shock. I understand, really I do.

...also with his relationship with Tony Rezko, the shadowy Chicago political figure. Obama last week submitted to a grilling on this matter by the staff of the Chicago Tribune and was given a clean bill of health. I accept it.

As I wrote in that column, the manifest abilities and stunning political talents of Barack Obama still recommend him to the presidency. But he has been less than forthright or responsible about Wright. This does not disqualify him from the White House, but it does suggest that if the vaunted red phone rings at 3 a.m., there might be times when he will simply not answer.

Just days before the five-year anniversary of the war's start, Mrs. Clinton said Mr. McCain and the vice president are responsible for a war that has reduced U.S. military and economic strength, damaged America"s reputation abroad and could ultimately cost more than $1 trillion.

"They both want to keep us tied to another country's civil war, a war we cannot win," the Democratic presidential aspirant said in a speech at George Washington University in the District. "That in a nutshell is the Bush-McCain Iraq policy: Don't learn from your mistakes, repeat them."

The senator from New York said she wants to begin bringing U.S. troops home within 60 days of her taking office in January and took aim at Mr. McCain, who recently said U.S. troops could remain in Iraq for 100 years, just as in South Korea, Japan and Germany.

"Senator McCain and President Bush claim withdrawal is defeat. Well, let's be clear, withdrawal is not defeat. Defeat is keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years," she said.

Why Are Reverend Wright Videos Disappearing from YouTube?  [Greg Pollowitz]

I had a really good post all ready to go.  There was a video posted by the Trinity United Church of Christ, which I found on their YouTube page, of Louis Farrakhan being honored with the Jeremiah A. Wright Trumpeter award.  It's gone from YouTube.  And there was a video of disgraced Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick receiving a similar award.  It's gone from YouTube, too.

But the one I'm really mad about is the one of the church's new pastor, Otis Moss III, talking about gangster rap and crack cocaine.  They pulled that one, as well. 

Bear Stearns vs. Alex Rodriquez  [Greg Pollowitz]

Funny line making its way around NYC today...

The New York Yankees paid more for A Rod than J.P. Morgan did for Bear Stearns.

When polls compare who voters trust to handle issues, McCain generally runs ahead of his party.

Part of the reason could come down to likeability. While no one confuses John McCain with a loveable teddy bear, he does quite well with Americans on the question of favorability. In fact, as the campaign progresses, his numbers continue to rise on this critical measure. The most recent Gallup poll shows he is better liked than both Senators Obama and Clinton. Further, the survey finds the Arizona Senator’s likeability is at an eight-year high.

Will these numbers hold up as the campaign progresses? And will McCain’s favorability pull his party’s brand up or will the sullied GOP image drag him down? Too soon to tell, but these questions bear close watching as McCain transitions from a Republican candidate for president to the leader of his party post-nomination.

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway....

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

President Bush defined the end of the war as an Iraq that can sustain, govern and defend itself and become an ally in the larger war. But the enemy defines victory differently. Consider this principal example. On January 26, 2005, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei defined the war from the enemy’s standpoint. 

Khamenei spoke as the head of the government that is the principal sponsor of terrorism. He talked of a great “Islamic awakening” that portends the fall of the West:

"The U.S. and the western imperialists have finally concluded that Muslim countries and nations, especially those of the Middle East, form the core of this awakening and resistance to their plans for global domination. they foresee that if they fail to control or suppress this Islamic awakening in the next few years with political and economic measures, through propaganda, and as a last resort through military aggression, all their plans for absolute global hegemony and control of the most vital oil and gas resources, which constitute the sole powerhouse of their industrial machinery and [the sole] cause of their material edge over the rest of humanity, will come to nothing…If that happens, the big Western and Zionist capitalists, who are the real backstage players in all imperialist governments, will fall from the height of their power and their domination over the nations."

The contrast between the President’s definition of victory and Khamenei’s is comprehensive: they bear no relationship to each other. The next president’s principal challenge will be to resolve the difference into a new strategy to both defeat the enemy and unite our nation around the necessity to do so.