Former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton, who spent three decades in the House of Representatives, served as the top Democrat on the 9-11 Commission, and co-authored the December 2006 blueprint for disengaging from Iraq, endorsed Barack Obama yesterday. Hamilton has extensive foreign policy experience and served as chair of both the International Relations and Intelligence Committees. Said Hamilton: "Barack Obama has the best opportunity to create a new sense of national unity and to transcend divisions within this country, not by ignoring them or smoothing them over, but by working together with candor and civility to meet our challenges." The Hamilton endorsement will help Obama in the Indiana primary and undermines Hillary Clinton's repeated charge that he does not have the foreign policy experience to be president.
From the deep red state of Wyoming (my wife's home state) Governor Dave Freudenthal also endorsed Obama. He said he was impressed with the enthusiastic crowds that turned out to see Obama when he visited Wyoming before last month's caucuses. Those who participated in the Obama events in Wyoming Governor Freudenthal said were "trying to be part of an America that's bigger than just their own self-interest. And you hope it can work. Because something has got to dig us out of this morass that we've gotten into, where it's sort of 'gotcha' politics."
While Fox News runs never-ending tape loops of Reverend Jeremiah Wright to try to scare conservatives, Obama has won the endorsements of one of the most conservative Democratic governors in the nation, as well as a senior Democratic foreign policy insider. These latest endorsements, which came on the heels of those of Governor Bill Richardson and Senator Bob Casey, means that James Carville (Mr. Mary Matalin) will have to spend a great deal of time denouncing more superdelegate "Judases."