Blowhard News Report for Saturday.

Blowhard Beck Dons Soviet-Style Hat With Obama

Thinkprogress:

Thursday, CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck joined in on the right-wing meme that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) may be a Marxist. As proof, Beck showed his guest, National Review contributing editor Jonah Goldberg, some things he had “found on the Internet.” These “things” included a poster of Obama that looked like “revolutionary art” and one of his campaign workers allegedly with a Che Guevara flag.

But perhaps the most ridiculous moment came when Beck pulled out a hat one of his listeners had sent him. The winter hat had earflaps and a red star, similar to Soviet insignia. It also said, “Obama ‘08.”

It's Time for Another Obama Race Speech

By JUAN WILLIAMS

Now what? How does Barack Obama, fresh from claiming the Democratic nomination, put Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger behind him, before they ignite yet again and blow up his general election campaign?

How does he pre-empt advertising images, sure to be circulated by his opponents, that link him to outrageous racial rhetoric and fears that he is open to the most radical left-wing ideas – including using the power of the White House to exact racial vengeance?

There is no doubt that Rev. Wright's inflammatory racial rants hurt Sen. Obama badly during the primaries. His once-ascendant popularity with white men faded in a flash after Rev. Wright emerged as a walking contradiction to the candidate's claim to be above the old racial divides. Even this week, at Mr. Obama's moment of historic triumph, a quarter of voters in Montana and a third of voters in South Dakota said the senator's 20 years of membership at Trinity United Church – the scene of racial rants by Rev. Wright and Father Pfleger – was an important issue for them. In both states, more than half of these voters voted against him.

McCain campaign launches new blog

John McCain's campaign launched a spiffy new blog on Friday, stepping up an effort to catch up to Barack Obama's web dominance. McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds sent reporters a statement hitting several Internet priorities:

The blog will offer a fresh perspective and will include quotes, the candidate's schedule and photos not available anywhere else. As a part of our continual effort to reach voters, allow unprecedented access and bring greater transparency to American politics, our blog 'The McCain Report' will provide a sounding board for all.

The first two posts are cheeky. Michael Goldfarb, a campaign blogger and former Weekly Standard reporter, tells readers the blog almost sported a lime-green decor, and tweaks Obama for being "so changey." (Is "changey" the new flip-flop? I hope not.) The McCain campaign has always trailed Obama in online campaigning, lagging in fundraising, social networking, list-building and YouTube outreach, but it has repeatedly tried to engage the Internet community on its own terms. Conservative bloggers talk directly with the candidate via regular conference calls, which is more access than any Democratic candidate ever provided the (larger) liberal blogosphere. The McCain campaign's official sites are also open to commentators of all stripes, providing a more open dialogue than Hillary Clinton's websites, as The Nation documented in March.