A couple of particular items:

1. Penn appears to have "stepped down" from his role in name only. Even the campaign said he'd still be involved, and as has been reported elsewhere (though not on TPM), the very Monday after he was "sacked," Penn was on the campaign conference call. Doesn't seem like much of a step down.

2. Obama won Texas.

Aside from that, it is indeed interesting to see the much-criticized ad was in fact less dirty than Penn proposed. Says just a little bit more about the man.

Spine of Steel - Ready from Day 1

[Nyt]WASHINGTON — With a fresh strategy team in place, the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton sought Monday to reassure supporters, contributors and Democratic delegates that her candidacy would withstand and be rejuvenated by the second leadership shakeup in two months.

This post reminds me of the Huckabee press conference....

So why are they leaking this news just now.

Doesn't it make Hillary look like a spineless wimp who did not get rid of Penn even after they were well aware that he was doing more harm than good.

They have not even dropped him as of today.

They also knew that he worked for Blackwater and Countrywide, yet they had to be forced by Big Labor to even put on a charade of having removed him, and they clearly have not. Does Hillary ever tell the truth, or is she even capable of doing so.

Penn is a sleaze not because he was involved with the Clinton's who obviously love the guy, but because of what he stands for.

To say he is responsible for sinking Hillary chances is bogus.
She runs the darn thing and truth of it is she is just a poor candidate.
She has name recognition and that's all.

Throw in the powerful and elite money people that own the Clinton machine and she was able to get this far.

Except something happened along the way.
She ran into a more intelligent more inspirational and more organized candidate.

While she flounders in a campaign that would insult anyone with integrity, Senator Obama has withstood attacks from the media and from the Clintons that have questioned his patriotism and accused him of being a racist,weak on security, etc.

She is not only a disgrace to herself but epitomizes the traits of character that I personally find offensive.
The raging ambition,her sense of entitlement ,the lying , using then discarding others for personal gain, her no principled attitude that winning at any cost is ok,,actually it nauseates me to list the rest.

Hopefully she has been so damaged that she is forced to retreat from American politics.

And I cant think of a single reason why that would not be a good thing.

I, for one, am delighted that Senator Hillary Rambo Clinton,
The Heroine of Tuzla, has made a full recovery after undergoing Steel Spine replacement surgery to replace her natural one that got crushed back in 1993 by the Health Care Industry Steam Roller.

I am sooooo confused!

Apparently Penn was on the Clintons' daily conference clown show (albeit the Double Secret one)

With a campaign such as the Clintons have run, the very notion that she's remotely "electable" is grotesquely risible

How much further from anything meaningful, how much more detached from actual politics, how much deeper into the nuances and shades of complete and utter bullshit is a campaign allowed to dive before it's seen as what it is?

How much more crap are Clinton supporters going to swallow before they finally gag, throw up and come to their senses?

And don't give me more crap by telling me, "this is politics." No, this is not politics. It is crap. At its very best it is crap desperately pretending to be politics.

I'm following election campaigns in three quite diverse countries apart from the U.S.. In none of them would so much of the crap that passes for politics in the U.S. be viewed as anything other than the crap it is. What the hell is the matterwith some of you people?!

Penn is still on the payroll. Penn and his firm are still part of the campaign. Penn is still CEO of a massive PR and lobbying firm. Hillary doesn't get it.

JadeZ putting aside her predilection to make stuff up, her disastrously mismanaged campaign and the turn toward the delusionally darkside she's taken she's really not a bad candidate.

She's a pretty good debater, is comfortable in her own skin (unlike Gore and Kerry), can deflect dumb questions from preening media clowns and can recite
her policy positions forwards and backwards in front of 10 people or a national teevee audience.

BTW, Obama has lobbyists on his campaign but he gets a free pass.

Do a little research on your do nothing wrong candidate if you do not believe me.

Josh has the truth about the latest accused lie on the front page but I can't do your reading for you.

I must be a moron because I don't make as much money as this despicable fool.

Penn is now free to turn his attention to aiding McCain's quest for the White House unfettered and open the pathway for Clinton to fulfill her destiny as McCain's Vice Presisent.

From the Been Obvious for Months Dept

In the days and weeks ahead, the Barack Obama campaign is going to pose a simple question to the undecided voters and undeclared superdelegates who will decide the Democratic nomination for president: If Hillary Clinton can’t run a good primary campaign, how is she ever going to run a good campaign against the Republicans.....And while she says she is ready from Day One to be president, she is at something like Day 430 into being a presidential candidate and her campaign seems to be going from bad to worse to train wreck.

Roger Simon
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=2B1AEBEF-3048-5C12-0074D4AF8CF7B8BB

When Mike Huckabee tried to play this game, the media collectively laughed their asses off.

I have a better understanding of the anger of folks like Grunwald and Ickes now. It seems that Penn was more interested in running a republican-lite campaign then the rest of the crew. Focusing on "experience" and "leadership" is simply not a winning combination for a junior Senator with less than 8 years in public office. If Hillary were to secure the nomination, she'd be fodder for McCain on those points.

Besides, we all know that Hillary's greatest vulnerability is that she comes off as robotic. Humanizing her would have benefited her greatly. But any value of Penn's departure, such as it is, is a day late and a dollar short. The polls in PA are tightening dramatically, NC is looking like an Obama blow-out, and Obama is going to do a bus tour in IN which should boost his standing in the working class regions of that state. Any attempts to change the narrative at this point wouldn't have an opportunity to succeed. It's like planting your tomatoes a week before the first frost.

"Mr. Penn, care to comment on the fact Obama still managed to win Texas despite your underhan...er, cunning strategy?"

"Bo shuda! Bring me Solo and the Wookiee. They will all suffer for this outrage!"

This is EXCELLENT NEWS!

FOR HILLARY!
~

I'm sorry, dudes, it's right. Obama's campaign is living on race-baiting. Like that accusation of the Clinton campaign circulating that Kenyan picture, on the word of Drudge! If his campaign handlers couldn't raise race all the time, since New Hampshire, would there be a campaign there at all? What's his policy on anything?

Hi Swift63. After you're finished shouting "Get offa my lawn, you obama-lovers", can I assume you will join the rethuglican party and trouble us no more?

Tanx in advance, dood.
~

I find it amusing that after so many months of campaigning Clinton's strategists are still trying to "humanize" her. The taming of the Hilldebeast is an onerous task.

I wish to comment on a related opinion piece from a couple of days back on TPM for which I believe comments are not being taken. The piece asked whether Penn has been removed or just "gelded." I heard it from two women and was pointed to a couple of web sites where posters discussed the use of "gelded" as reflecting and feeding a nasty impression of Ms Clinton as a "castrating bitch" to put it bluntly. I am not suggesting that there was overt misogyny here, but when you look at media coverage of Ms Clinton's campaign, the more overt sexism of some (quite calculated in some cases, I take it) and the subtle recurrence of such themes in non-negative accounts and commentaries, it seems clear that the "background noise of culture" is tilted against Ms. Clinton's campaign.