Actually, Cleveland has been incredibly tame compared to Austin.
Hillary gets a tedious question and seems to stumble on it. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone openly challenge the tax returns issue and the more she talked about it the shadier it seemed. I honestly didn’t think much of it until now.
Now Obama is stumbling. A simple “I reject his support” about Farrakhan would have been the best route there and Russert is clearly jumping on his weak turn here, as well he should. It seems like he’s getting his footing back now, though, speaking about a return to a Jewish/black coalition.
Hillary jumps in to give her opinion. I would expect her to take more of a hardline on Farrakhan, but I’m not sure why she’s giving her side, unless she’s going to call out Obama on being somewhat wishy-washy. It would be a good point for her to make, honestly, to challenge the fact that Obama didn’t just flat out reject Farrahkhan’s support…and she just did, but I don’t know if it landed…
…and Obama just spun it in his favor, doing as she said and saying that he both denounces AND rejects Farrakhan’s support.
More coming after this commercial break.