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First let me confess that I am now and have for many years considered myself a friend of Sidney Blumenthal's, the senior advisor to Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Salon columnist. I should also acknowledge here for the record that, like a number of his other friends, I receive daily e-mails from him on a wide variety of topics. Those e-mails, which have included everything from Doonesbury cartoons to YouTube videos, screen captures, poll results, right-wing screeds and the occasional scholarly article, must number in the thousands by now because sending those blasts has been a Blumenthal habit since long before he joined the Clinton campaign earlier this year.

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As the Rev. Jeremiah Wright gleefully tours the airwaves, inflicting severe political damage with almost every utterance, he is proving that racism isn’t the only obstacle to a black president. That historic prize is almost within the grasp of one of the most talented politicians America has ever seen. Yet what seems most likely to frustrate Senator Barack Obama now is not white prejudice but the frivolity, egotism and pettiness of those who should be his most serious and dedicated supporters.

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There is nothing remarkable in the sudden reappearance of right-wing con man Floyd Brown, whose latest venture is an inflammatory television ad now airing in North Carolina that attempts to blame Barack Obama for gang murders in Chicago (and international terrorism, too). Nobody familiar with Brown would expect him to resist smearing an African-American presidential contender.

-- Nobody with a functioning memory should be too quick to condemn Jimmy Carter for daring to speak with the leadership of Hamas, as nearly everyone along the American political spectrum suddenly has felt obliged to do. From Condoleezza Rice and John McCain to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, along with every Congressional backbencher in both parties, expressions of disapproval have rained down upon the former president, who is old enough and tough enough to pursue his own beliefs to their logical conclusion.

Joe will appear as a panelist at the L.A. Times Festival of Books on Sunday, April 27 at 10:30 a.m. in the Ackerman Grand Ballroom on the UCLA campus.

He will also be signing books at Nation Books, Booth 346 on the festival grounds at UCLA, 2 p.m.-3 p.m.

For more information, please visit the festival's website here.

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The sorry performance of ABC anchors Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos in this week’s final Democratic primary debate should serve as a signal of the coverage to come. Playing gotcha with Democrats and patty-cake with Republicans will remain basic operating procedure for the mainstream media this year, no different from the past half-dozen presidential campaigns -- except that the additional bias in favor of John McCain may make a bad situation worse.

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It is hard to blame John McCain for mocking Barack Obama as an “elitist” following that silly remark about bitter folks who cling to guns and religion. Rarely does the Arizona senator—one of the wealthiest members of Washington’s most exclusive club—encounter such a tempting chance to masquerade as a populist.

In the April issue of Glamour, Joe writes that although in vitro fertilization helped him and Elizabeth conceive their beautiful twins Eleanor and Edward, serious issues persist in the wild west of fertility medicine. Read the article here.

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"He's not who you think he is" is likely to serve as the Republican rap against Barack Obama, if and when the inspiring orator from Illinois secures his party's presidential nomination. Yet precisely the same complaint can and should be made against John McCain, who is neither as moderate nor as principled as his publicists in the press corps tell us.