Earlier this week, liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org announced the winner of a contest it had sponsored. Called "Obama in 30 Seconds," the competition sought an ad that the organization could run in support of Barack Obama. Considering MoveOn's history with controversial ads and ad contests, this go-round was actually quite tame. The winning spot looked like it could have been made by any campaign, and there appeared to be no controversy about the contest.

It turns out that all was not as harmonious as it initially appeared. On Tuesday, MoveOn leaders e-mailed their membership with an apology. It seems that out of the 1,486 ads that were submitted for the contest, only one was rejected. The group apparently hoped the rejected video would never see the light of day -- the e-mail says they attempted to destroy it and complains, "While we refused to post it on our site, unfortunately the 'filmmakers' took it upon themselves to post the video directly on their website, violating very clear rules of the competition." The e-mail also calls the ad "racist, ignorant, and downright wrong," and says, "We truly apologize for any offense this has caused. It certainly was not our intention to have something like this hit the web."

The ad is indeed racist, ignorant and downright wrong -- it's positively baffling, in fact, that anyone would be stupid enough to think it should run on television. But from the filmmakers' Web site, it appears that the team behind the ad -- as media gossip blog Gawker pointed out earlier this year when it picked up on a similar spot created for Hillary Clinton that was entitled "Experience C(o)unts" -- is really an over-the-top parody of an advertising agency that makes deliberately tasteless, offensive videos. The site's founders are named as Danny Sunday and Tripp Knight, and Knight is supposed to live in Los Angeles, California, but a quick public records search showed no record of any such person ever existing anywhere in the state. Plus, the site gives two addresses for the company. One is a group of upscale stores on Los Angeles' famed Rodeo Drive. The other is the original entrance to Chumley's, a legendary speakeasy in New York City once patronized by famous writers like E.E. Cummings, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, Alan Ginsberg, William Burroughs, William Faulkner and others.

According to a rejection letter the ad's makers received -- and posted to their site -- MoveOn didn't seem to get the joke. "We received over 1,400 submissions and yours is the only one we are unable to post on our site," the letter says. "It is tasteless and downright offensive. At one point you compare Senator Obama to a Dalmatian."

Obviously, MoveOn MoveOn meant well, but by using the language of a high school hall monitor, and doing the outfit the favor of singling it out for rejection, the group only played into the prank.

The rejected ad is below.

How much you enjoy watching Chris Matthews sadistically twist the knife into the body of an unprepared political operative probably depends on whether it's your ox that is getting gored or not. But the performance on Thursday's edition of MSNBC's "Hardball" in which Matthews made right wing radio host Kevin James drown in a puddle of his own babbling ignorance was something special.

The context was Thursday's political furor du jour. While speaking to Israel's Knesset on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, President Bush made an implicit comparison between Barack Obama's willingness to meet with the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and British Prime Minister's Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler.

Them's fightin' words, and Democrats have been on the warpath all day. But during "Hardball," Matthews asked James a simple question: What exactly did Chamberlain do that was so wrong? (The following is a close paraphrase of the ensuing exchange.)

Well, he was an appeaser, James exclaimed.

Yeah, but what did he do?

He was an appeaser!

Kevin, what exactly did Chamberlain do?

He appeased!

It gradually became clear, as the two men shouted at each other, that not only did James not have a clue as to what Neville Chamberlain may or may not have done, but it's not all that obvious that he even knew what the word "appeaser" means.

Finally, Matthews declared: "You don't know what you're talking about, Kevin," and after a little more back and forth, James conceded that he doesn't actually know what Chamberlain did, upon which Matthews gave him a little history lesson.

What Chamberlain did wrong, most people agree, Matthews said, is stand by and let Hitler gobble up half of Czechoslovakia without lifting a hand to stop him. But there's a difference, said Matthews, between talking with someone as opposed to doing nothing while they invade another country.

That's a key distinction, and credit goes to Matthews for drawing it out. As for President Bush, who dared liken a political opponent of his party to a Nazi "appeaser" while speaking in Israel, well, it's hard to conceive of how much lower he can go.

Think Progress has the video.

Given that the California State Supreme Court's decision to overturn the state's ban on gay marriage comes in the middle of a presidential election year, the ruling could potentially have major implications for the campaign. But for the moment, the political world is fairly quiet, and statements from the three presidential campaigns -- as well as additional comment to Salon provided by Barack Obama's campaign -- seem to indicate that, for the moment at least, the major players in the upcoming presidential race would like to stay away from the issue.

Republicans have, in the recent past, used court decisions like this one -- and subsequent initiatives and referendums at the ballot box -- to motivate their party's base to come out and vote. They'll most likely try the same thing in California. A coalition opposed to gay marriage had, even before the decision, already submitted more than 1.1 million signatures in favor of putting an initiative on California's ballot this November that, if passed, would amend the state's constitution and override this decision. But the actual value Republicans could gain from doing this in a state like California, which is dependably blue when it comes to voting for a president, seems small. And there'll be little chance to use the California decision effectively elsewhere: There are only so many times you can have voters decide these sorts of questions, and most of the key swing states have had similar measures on their ballots during one important national election or another this decade.

Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain could use some support with his party's social and religious conservatives, and could conceivably make a play on this issue in hopes of bringing them more firmly into his campaign. But, as of right now, there's no indication he will end up doing so. On Wednesday, previewing the likely political effects of the then-impending ruling, the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder wrote, "McCain, as you'll recall, opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment on federalism grounds but has hinted that he might change his mind if state courts start overturning people-initiated decisions on gay rights." Thursday's decision did in fact overturn a law voted on directly by the people of California, offering the McCain campaign its opening, but its response was tepid. In a statement, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said, "John McCain supports the right of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution sanctioning the union between a man and a woman, just as he did in his home state of Arizona. John McCain doesn't believe judges should be making these decisions."

Ultimately, the major political effect might be that it paints Democrats -- and especially Barack Obama, who's looking more and more like the party's eventual presidential nominee with every passing day -- into a very tight corner. Public opinion is shifting fairly quickly on the issue, but supporting same-sex marriage is still seen as deadly to a candidate's political aspirations. In a March 2007 Newsweek poll, 38 percent of respondents said that, by itself, a presidential candidate's strong support for same-sex marriage would cause them to vote against that candidate. Civil unions, however, are relatively popular -- or at least not dramatically unpopular -- and have come to be the preferred alternative for many politicians, including Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The problem is in the way some Democrats (and on this issue, especially Obama) have justified their support for civil unions but not for same-sex marriage. The "gay debate" that LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign sponsored in August 2007 exposed the rhetorical and logical holes in some of those justifications, and Thursday's ruling only opened those holes further by saying that civil unions do not really provide equality under the law. Though he referred specifically to conservatives, in a post he wrote Thursday, at right-wing blog Hot Air the blogger "Allahpundit" did a good job of summing up the problems inherent in arguing for civil unions instead of same-sex marriage:

[I]t leaves you with no substantive reason for drawing any distinction in the first place. Yes, (some) conservatives seem to be saying, gays can go ahead and have civil unions that grant them all the benefits married couples have -- but for god's sake, don't let them call themselves "married." To which a court can only reply, "Why not?"

Obama's had a difficult time explaining his answer to that question. At the debate, he said, "[I]t is my strong belief that the government has to treat all citizens equally. I come from that in part out of personal experience. When you're a black guy named Barack Obama, you know what it's like to be on the outside. And so my concern is continually to make sure that the rights that are conferred by the state are equal for all people... my view is that we should try to disentangle what has historically been the issue of the word 'marriage,' which has religious connotations to some people, from the civil rights that are given to couples."

That provoked a question from HRC president Joe Solomonese, who -- referencing the landmark Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson -- asked Obama, "On the grounds of civil marriage, can you see to our community where that comes across as sounding like 'separate but equal'?" The senator responded:

Well, look, you know, when my parents got married in 1960, '61, you know, it would have been illegal for them to be married in a number of states in the South.

So obviously, this is something that I understand intimately, it's something that I care about.

But I would also say this, that if I were advising the civil rights movement back in 1961 about its approach to civil rights, I would have probably said it's less important that we focus on an anti-miscegenation law than we focus on ... all the legal rights that are conferred by the state...

[A]s I've proposed it, [civil unions] wouldn't be a lesser thing, from my perspective. And look, you know, semantics may be important to some. From my perspective, what I'm interested is making sure that those legal rights are available to people

The California Supreme Court's opinion specifically rejected this sort of argument. Chief Justice Ronald George wrote:

Whether or not the name 'marriage,' in the abstract, is considered a core element of the state constitutional right to marry, one of the core elements of this fundamental right is the right of same-sex couples to have their official family relationship accorded the same dignity, respect, and stature as that accorded to all other officially recognized family relationships. The current statutes -- by drawing a distinction between the name assigned to the family relationship available to opposite-sex couples and the name assigned to the family relationship available to same-sex couples, and by reserving the historic and highly respected designation of marriage exclusively to opposite-sex couples while offering same-sex couples only the new and unfamiliar designation of domestic partnership -- pose a serious risk of denying the official family relationship of same-sex couples the equal dignity and respect that is a core element of the constitutional right to marry. As observed... at oral argument, this court's conclusion in [a previous case] that the statutory provision barring interracial marriage was unconstitutional undoubtedly would have been the same even if alternative nomenclature, such as "transracial union," had been made available to interracial couples...

[B]ecause of the long and celebrated history of the term 'marriage' and the widespread understanding that this term describes a union unreservedly approved and favored by the community, there clearly is a considerable and undeniable symbolic importance to this designation. Thus, it is apparent that affording access to this designation exclusively to opposite-sex couples, while providing same-sex couples access to only a novel alternative designation, realistically must be viewed as constituting significantly unequal treatment to same-sex couples....

Second, particularly in light of the historic disparagement of and discrimination against gay persons, there is a very significant risk that retaining a distinction in nomenclature with regard to this most fundamental of relationships whereby the term "marriage" is denied only to same-sex couples inevitably will cause the new parallel institution that has been made available to those couples to be viewed as of a lesser stature than marriage and, in effect, as a mark of secondclass citizenship.

The Obama campaign has released a statement on the decision. It reads, "Barack Obama has always believed that same-sex couples should enjoy equal rights under the law, and he will continue to fight for civil unions as President. He respects the decision of the California Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage." Salon asked an Obama spokesman for additional comment regarding the contradiction between the sentiment expressed in the first sentence of that statement and the court's decision; via e-mail, the spokesman said only "[Obama] continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage."

As for Clinton's position on the issue, this is one situation in which her reputation for being calculating and nakedly political could actually make her campaign's job easier. In some ways, her logic on the question is as confused as Obama's. But at that debate, she was at least honest about the situation, essentially admitting that one reason she supports civil unions, and not marriage, is because the former is politically feasible. (It's hardly a wonderful position, but it's an easier one for the campaign to defend, as it avoids the logical twists and turns Obama might have to make if faced with this issue on the trail.) Asked for reaction to the California decision, the Clinton campaign provided Salon with a statement that reads:

Hillary Clinton believes that gay and lesbian couples in committed relationships should have the same rights and responsibilities as all Americans and believes that civil unions are the best way to achieve this goal. As President, Hillary Clinton will work to ensure that same sex couples have access to these rights and responsibilities at the federal level. She has said and continues to believe that the issue of marriage should be left to the states.

If Californians don't like Thursday's state Supreme Court decision that struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage, they'll probably have an opportunity to overrule it this fall. Organizations opposed to same-sex marriage have collected more than 1.1 million signatures in favor of putting an initiative on the ballot in November that would, if passed, add an amendment to the state Constitution that reads: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

At least 694,354 of the signatures must be declared valid for the initiative to go to the voters in November; that count will reportedly be finalized at the end of June. One of the laws struck down by Thursday's ruling had been passed by ballot initiative in 2000, with 63 percent of the vote. According to Andrew Sullivan, recent polls have shown the state about evenly divided on the issue.

These kinds of state initiatives and referendums were key to Republican turnout efforts in recent years, as they were used to ensure that the base would come out to vote. Some Republicans are already considering the potential implications in California. One senior Republican strategist told Salon that the GOP wants to try to find a way to put California in play in the general election; the strategist expressed some optimism that the decision might be helpful to the party.

The state seems very unlikely to vote for a Republican for president, but national Republicans could use the initiative to make the Democratic nominee uncomfortable and force the Democrats to pay more attention to the state than they otherwise would.

In a statement, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, "I respect the Court's decision and as Governor, I will uphold its ruling. Also, as I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court ruling."

(Post updated below -- update 2 -- update 3)

On Thursday, the California Supreme Court handed down a decision that legalized gay marriage in the state. A press release accompanying the decision says:

The court concluded that permitting opposite-sex couples to marry while affording same-sex couples access only to the novel and less-recognized status of domestic partnership improperly infringes a same-sex couple's constitutional rights to marry and to the equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the California Constitution.

The decision directs state officials who supervise the enforcement of the state's marriage laws to ensure that local officials comply with the court's ruling and permit same-sex couples to marry. The decision becomes final in 30 days unless that period is extended by court order.

I'm still reading through the opinion -- it's quite long -- so I'll have more on this later, but for now my first impression is that the political implications here could be big for November and beyond. (This is, after all, a political blog, so that's what I'll be focusing on here.) First, this decision will undoubtedly be used by the Republican Party to try to reenergize its base. Second, it puts the Democratic Party in an uncomfortable position. The party has largely tried to split the baby by opposing outright legalization of gay marriage, which is still very dangerous politically, and supporting civil unions as an equitable solution. But this decision says civil unions are not the same thing as marriage and shouldn't be treated that way. It'll be very interesting to see what the reaction is from the party and the presidential candidates.

Update: Here at Salon, we've already gotten our first statement from a religious conservative group outraged by the decision. The statement comes from Concerned Women for America, and is headlined "California Supreme Court Betrays 'We the People' on Marriage." CWA uses the by-now-familiar, expected arguments against the decision; the statement reads, in part:

Today the California Supreme Court imposed, through judicial fiat, so-called "same-sex marriage" on Californians, thus totally disregarding the sanctity of marriage and the will of the people ...

Matt Barber, CWA Policy Director for Cultural Issues, said "The California Supreme Court has engaged in the worst kind of judicial activism today, abandoning its role as an objective interpreter of the law and, instead, legislating from the bench. It's absurd to suggest that the framers of the California state constitution could have ever imagined there'd be a day when so-called 'same-sex marriage' would even be conceptualized, much less seriously considered ...

"So-called 'same-sex marriage' is a ridiculous and oxymoronic notion that has been forced into popular lexicon by homosexual activists and their extremist left-wing allies.

"If people who engage in homosexual behavior want to dress up and play house, that's their prerogative, but we shouldn't destroy the institutions of legitimate marriage and family in order to help facilitate a counterfeit."

I've contacted both Democratic campaigns for reaction, which should be coming soon. Also, the press release I referenced above does a good job of summarizing some key portions of the decision, which comes in at 121 pages. Here's a little more detail from the release about the part of the decision I think will be key to the political implications of this decision for Democrats:

Although the opinion acknowledges that the recent comprehensive domestic partnership legislation enacted in California affords same-sex couples most of the substantive elements embodied in the constitutional right to marry, the opinion concludes that by assigning a different name for the family relationship of same-sex couples while preserving the historic and honored designation of "marriage" only for opposite-sex couples, the California statutes threaten to deny the family relationship of same-sex couples dignity and respect equal to that accorded the family relationship of opposite-sex couples and thereby impinge upon a same-sex couple's right to marry as protected by the California Constitution ...

The opinion explains that the exclusion of same-sex couples from the designation of marriage clearly is not necessary to protect all of the rights and benefits currently enjoyed by married opposite-sex couples: permitting same-sex couples access to the designation of marriage will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage inasmuch as same-sex couples who choose to marry will be subject to the same obligations and duties that are currently imposed on married opposite-sex couples. The opinion further observes that retaining the traditional definition of marriage and affording same-sex couples only a separate and differently named family relationship will, as a realistic matter, impose appreciable harm on same-sex couples and their children, because denying such couples access to the familiar and highly favored designation of marriage is likely to cast doubt on whether the official family relationship of same-sex couples enjoys dignity equal to that of opposite-sex couples, and may perpetuate a more general premise that gay individuals and same-sex couples are in some respects "second-class citizens" who may be treated differently from, and less favorably than, heterosexual individuals or opposite-sex couples.

Update 2: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is holding a conference call with reporters to explain his reaction to the decision. Newsom, as you may remember, made the decision that was essentially the catalyst for the court's opinion when in 2004 he allowed same-sex couples to marry at San Francisco's City Hall. During the call, Newsom said, "We couldn't be more proud and exhilarated ... It's significant because this court, represented by six out of seven Republican-appointed judges, also represents the largest state in our nation."

Update 3: As Newsom notes in the above quote, the court that made this ruling is composed of seven judges, six of whom were appointed by Republicans. The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice Ronald George, who was appointed by former Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican. Two of the court's other Republicans joined that opinion, as did the lone Democrat. One of the Republicans also wrote a separate concurring opinion.

All three of the dissenters are Republican appointees; they produced between them two opinions, both of which concur in part and dissent in part with the majority opinion. Here's part of the section of the court's press release that summarizes the first of those opinions:

In his concurring and dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Chin, Justice Baxter explains that although he agrees with several of the majority's conclusions, he disagrees with the majority's holding that the California Constitution invalidates the statutes -- including an initiative measure recently adopted by the voters -- that define marriage as an opposite sex union. In reaching this decision, Justice Baxter contends, the majority "violates the separation of powers, and thereby commits profound error." Citing the legislative progress that gays and lesbians have already achieved in California, Justice Baxter urges that the future definition of marriage should also be decided by the democratic process, not by the courts.

And here's part of the section of the press release that summarizes the second opinion:

In her concurring and dissenting opinion, Justice Corrigan states at the outset that although "[i]n my view, Californians should allow our gay and lesbian neighbors to call their unions marriage," "a majority of Californians hold a different view, and have explicitly said so by their vote."

Justice Corrigan believes the court's ruling exceeds the bounds of judicial authority: "This court can overrule a vote of the people only if the Constitution compels us to do so. Here, the Constitution does not."In explaining her position, Justice Corrigan notes that, under California law, domestic partners have virtually all of the substantive legal benefits and privileges available to traditional spouses, and states, "I believe the Constitution requires this as a matter of equal protection."

Her separate opinion goes on to explain, however, that "the single question in this case is whether domestic partners have a constitutional right to the name of 'marriage,'" and on that point Justice Corrigan disagrees with the majority's conclusion, finding that the majority improperly denigrates domestic partnership by describing it "as 'only a novel alternative designation... constituting significantly unequal treatment' and 'a mark of second-class citizenship.'"

In a big speech on Thursday morning, John McCain laid out his vision for what he hopes to have done by the end of his first term as president, if he's elected to the job.

The speech painted a rosy picture, to say the least. With McCain as president, in just four years the war in Iraq will be won and most U.S. troops will have come home, the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, will be stopped, the American economy will be growing, quality of life across the world will be up, the world food crisis will be over, U.S. public schools will be "much improved," healthcare will "become more accessible to more Americans than at any other time in history," the U.S. will be well on its way to energy independence, the country's southern border will be secure, the practice of using presidential signing statements to hamstring legislation the president doesn't like will have ended, ugly people will become more attractive, sunsets will be more colorful, the air will smell sweeter, lines will be eliminated and massage booths installed in DMVs across the country.

Out of the whole speech, it was McCain's message on Iraq that has gotten the most attention so far. That message was:

By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role.

All of this sure would be nice, of course, but McCain added no specifics on how he would accomplish it. And, at Democracy Arsenal, Ilan Goldenberg points out that even before the U.S. invasion, McCain was making rosy predictions about the short-term future of Iraq that have turned out to be badly off.

The McCain camp has also released an accompanying ad, which can be viewed below.

On Thursday, President Bush spoke to Israel's Knesset -- the country's parliament -- as part of the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Israel's declaration of independence. Part of his speech, however, may have been directed closer to home, as he appeared at one point to take a shot at Barack Obama for his foreign policy positions.

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

To many observers, this seemed like a reference to Obama and his stated position about negotiating with countries like Iran. CNN's Political Ticker blog has reported, "White House aides privately acknowledged the remarks were aimed at the presidential candidate and others in his party." At a briefing, though, White House press secretary Dana Perino denied that Bush's remarks were aimed at Obama. "It is not [directed at Obama]," Perino said. "And I would think that all of you who cover these issues and have for a long time have known that there are many who have suggested these types of negotiations with people that President Bush thinks we should not talk to. I understand when you're running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you -- that is not always true and it is not true in this case."

Obama has already hit back at Bush. In a statement released to reporters, Obama said:

It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power -- including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy -- to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.

By the way, the quote Bush used about talking to Hitler was from Sen. William Borah, a Republican from Idaho. It has come into vogue recently, at least in part because of its use by conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, who has employed it often over the past 20 years in writing about several other countries he saw as the next Nazi Germany; he used it, for example, to describe China in 1989 and North Korea in 1994. It's also stripped from some relevant context -- Borah wasn't saying that solely out of naiveté, as Bush, Krauthammer and others have implied. He was a prominent isolationist and an admirer of Hitler. In 1938, speaking of the German dictator, Borah said, "There are so many great sides to him." After Hitler occupied the Sudetenland, Borah said, "Gad, what a chance Hitler has! If he only moderates his religious and racial intolerance, he would take his place beside Charlemagne. He has taken Europe without firing a shot."

In the fall of 2007, the United Steelworkers, which claims to be the largest private-sector union in the U.S., endorsed John Edwards for the presidency. But Edwards has been out of the race for months now, and on Wednesday he announced that he's supporting Barack Obama. On Thursday, the union came over to Obama's camp as well.

In a statement, the union explained its decision by saying:

When the presidential primary contests began last year, our Union felt strongly that because of Senator John Edwards' deep commitment to working people and because of our shared beliefs, he deserved our strong endorsement ...

Today, by virtue of a unanimous vote of our International Executive Board, we find ourselves once again in agreement with Senator Edwards, this time with his decision last evening to endorse Senator Barack Obama ... Senator Obama's call for a significant change of direction amounts to far more than a compelling rallying cry. It is buttressed by his record of consistent support for workers, by his call for sweeping changes to our health care system, by his unflinching support for Employee Free Choice, and by his insistence that America’s trade policies must, first and foremost, serve the interests of America’s working families ...

All of us, including we hope Senator Clinton for whom we have the utmost respect, must now do everything we can to ensure that Barack Obama is the next President of the United States. Now is the time for contention and division to cease, and for us to unite behind the changes for which Senator Obama and our members are calling ...

Those of us who are committed to changing the direction of the country [cannot] afford any more racial profiling of an election, when either Democratic candidate would be far superior to Senator McCain's lock-step commitment to four more years of the broken Bush economy and the broken Bush foreign policies.

On Wednesday, NARAL Pro-Choice America's political action committee endorsed Barack Obama. It wasn't, ultimately, the most prominent announcement of the day -- John Edwards stole that spotlight -- but it's proving to be the controversial one. Following the endorsement, some supporters of Hillary Clinton's publicly condemned the group's decision. Now, there's dissension within NARAL's own ranks as well.

The Washington Post's Garance Franke-Ruta reports on several NARAL state affiliates that have come out publicly against the endorsement and stated their desire to remain neutral in the Democratic race:

Since yesterday's announcement, NARAL groups in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Oregon, Washington, Texas and New York -- Clinton's home state -- have issued statements signaling their continued neutrality in the Democratic race and emphasizing that the national group did not speak for them on this matter. These groups represent nearly a quarter of NARAL's state chapters ...

NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri felt so strongly about staying neutral its president recorded a robocall in the wake of the announcement, which the group then sent to 8,500 households emphasizing its neutrality.

According to a statement released by NARAL Pro-Choice New York, the endorsement decision "was made internally by NARAL Pro-Choice America, based in Washington D.C., and without the consultation of the NARAL state affiliates across the country."

John Edwards' wasn't the only prominent endorsement that went against Hillary Clinton on Wednesday. As I mentioned in an earlier post, NARAL Pro-Choice America's political action committee threw its support to Barack Obama earlier in the day.

The group is part of a natural Clinton constituency, and its decision prompted some negative publicity for her. So it wasn't surprising that some of Clinton's female supporters were angry about the announcement, and took their feelings public.

The first to condemn NARAL's action was Ellen Malcolm, the president of EMILY'S List, a pro-choice Democratic group that has been backing Clinton. In a statement, Malcolm said:

I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton -- who held up the nomination of a FDA commissioner in order to force approval of Plan B and who spoke so eloquently during the Supreme Court nomination about the importance of protecting Roe v. Wade -- to not give her the courtesy to finish the final three weeks of the primary process. It certainly must be disconcerting for elected leaders who stand up for reproductive rights and expect the choice community will stand with them.

Later in the day, more than a dozen congresswomen who support Clinton gathered at the headquarters of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for a press conference about the endorsement. According to the Politico, they didn't hold back in criticizing NARAL. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said, "We feel abandoned by this organization today," and Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., called the endorsement "a betrayal."