Gina McCauley's blog on African-American women in pop culture has never attracted this kind of attention.

The 3-year-old site has a mostly African-American audience. But she launched a new Michelle Obama Watch blog in June to monitor and critique media coverage of the potential first lady, and since then, feminists of all colors have been linking and commenting.

"I think new bridges are being built, and I'm excited about that," said McCauley, 32, of Austin, Texas, who noted the response to the new blog has been exponentially greater from feminist bloggers around the country.

Her experience reflects what some hope will become a trend--that interest in ensuring fair coverage of Michelle Obama will bring together black and white feminists who have often had different goals and visions for the feminist movement.

Obama, who speaks openly about the challenges of balancing a successful career with the responsibilities of raising two young daughters, has the potential to reach a wide spectrum of women. Lately she's been hit by a spate of unflattering--and some say sexist--media portrayals.

Conservative pundits accused her of being unpatriotic. One blogger circulated unsubstantiated rumors that Obama gave a speech about the sins of "whitey." Fox News, in on-screen text that was quickly removed, called her a "baby mama," a derogatory term for an unwed mother. The conservative journal National Review wrote a cover story tagging her as "Mrs. Grievance."

Sen. Barack Obama clarified his position today on mental-health exceptions to late-term abortions, saying he supports such exceptions and that comments he made during a recent magazine interview shouldn't be interpreted as opposing them.

As I wrote in an earlier posting, Obama raised eyebrows with an interview in Relevant magazine in which he said he opposed "mental distress" as a reason for aborting a fetus at or after roughly 22-weeks into a pregnancy, a so-called late-term abortion.

In saying that, it appeared that Obama was placing himself at odds with Roe v Wade and subsequent Supreme Court rulings which have upheld the constitutionality of mental-health exceptions.

But in a press availabilty on his campaign plane today on the flight from Butte, Mont. to St. Louis, Obama clarified what he meant.

Here's a transcript of the interchange as provided by the campaign.

Reporter: You said that mental distress shouldn't be a reason for late-term abortion?

I don't think that is how it has been interpreted. My only point is that in an area like partial-birth abortion having a mental, having a health exception can be defined rigorously. It can be defined through physical health, It can be defined by serious clinical mental-health diseases. It is not just a matter of feeling blue. I don't think that's how pro-choice folks have interpreted it. I don't think that's how the courts have interpreted it and I think that's important to emphasize and understand."

Here, on the weekend that we celebrate the successful armed rebellion by America's founders, is the thought question of the day.

For years, anti-gun activists and others have whispered that the National Rifle Association, the most powerful gun lobby in the nation and one of the most powerful Washington lobbies on any issue, has really never wanted the Supreme Court to define the Second Amendment.

Why? Well, the theory went that a ruling such as the one the court handed down last week in District of Columbia v. Heller could dent the group where it hurts the most: fundraising.

After all, the NRA became the powerhouse that it is today largely because of the basic proposition it offered the American voter: The government wants to take your guns away.

by Frank James

Jan Crawford Greenburg, our former Chicago Tribune colleague, now legal correspondent at ABC News, has a very valuable posting on her Legalities blog that should be causing teeth-gnashing over at Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign this weekend.

Jan picked up on an interview Obama did with Relevant Magazine in which the senator from Illinois said he opposed the mental-health exception that allows abortions to be performed in some cases after fetuses become viable.

As Jan writes:

Obama's remarks are printed verbatim in the interview, published yesterday in Relevant Magazine. Read them -- there's no mistaking that Obama says he no longer will support what's long been a cornerstone of the abortion rights debate: The Court's insistence that laws banning abortions after the fetus is viable (now about 22 weeks) contain an exception to allow doctors to perform them if necessary to protect a pregnant woman's mental health.

This has been a central battleground issue in the Supreme Court going back 35 years, to Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, when the Court ruled a woman had a constitutional right to abortion. The decisions said state's can ban all abortions after the fetus is viable -- but that any restrictions must include exceptions to protect a woman's physical and emotional health.

Jan is right to say wow. This is something of a bombshell.

Barack Obama's campaign to fight damaging Interent rumors with his own Web-based viral counter-offensive appears to be building.

The Obama campaign last month unveiled a web site, www.fightthesmears.com, that rebuts rumors about the candidate. The candidate has been the target of many damaging rumors, most notably that Obama is Muslim. (The candidate is, in fact, a Christian who embraced his faith as an adult after being raised by a secular mother.)

The campaign encouraged supporters to go to the web site and e-mail the rebuttals to friends, a classic viral-marketing technique to further spread the campaign's message.

An e-mail recently received by a friend of The Swamp now suggests the anti-rumor effort is organized and growing.

The email is an invitation to join a "blog force that will spread the truth," organized with volunteer leaders recruiting groups of 7 to 10 friends and associates to troll the Internet for "lies" and rebut them with campaign-supplied "links to the truth."

"Are you volunteering to be part of the blog force that will spread the truth?" reads the email. "We need you to give links to the truth wherever you see the lies. And we need you to recruit more volunteers to do the same. We recommend a ratio of one leader/7 - 10 volunteers, and our volunteer mantra is 'respect, empower, include.'"

While it's unclear how the campaign will track the volunteers' activities, the email indicates the Obama campaign has set up an incentive structure to reward those most active in rebutting anti-Obama rumors.

"Top volunteers get perks on scale with top donors (plane trips with Barack, phone calls, speaking opportunities, etc)... so let everybody know, please, that we take your work very seriously," the email adds.

President Bush used his weekly radio address this morning to talk about an American creed. The Democrats are using theirs to talk about Republican filibusters and the Medicare bill.

"Just last month, they blocked bills to combat global warming, halt the mortgage meltdown and bring down fuel prices," says Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois. "Last week, Republican Senators blocked a bill protecting the ability of many Medicare beneficiaries to see the doctor of their choice. The bill would have cancelled a 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors."

That cut, which went into effect this week, affects active-duty and retired military members and their families, Durbin says, because their TRICARE health insurance is tied directly to Medicare payment rates.

"There will be a lot of talk about patriotism over this Fourth of July weekend and many Senators will rightfully praise our military," he says. "But true patriotism means honoring the men and women in uniform who defend our freedoms -- not just with words and flag lapel pins, but with actions befitting their great sacrifices."

The complete address follows.

We're inside four months from the Nov. 4 presidential election, and state-by-state polling suggests a big lead for Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain.

State polling numbers compiled by electoral-vote.com show the Democrat from Illinois winning 26 states for a total of 320 electoral votes. That's a 102-electoral-vote margin over the Arizona Republican. It includes seven states Democrat John Kerry lost to President Bush in 2004: Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Montana and New Mexico.

Speaking of Kerry, here's a huge caveat for Obama fans: The Web site's numbers on this date four years ago predicted a Kerry win in the electoral college.

Here's another: Obama's lead in several states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania, is narrow. A shift of a few percentage points across the Rust Belt would tip 52 electoral votes to McCain and give him the 270 he needs for the White House.

The numbers suggest that whoever wins will have a Democratic Congress to deal with. They predict a 55-45 Democratic margin in the Senate after Elecction Day, due to GOP seats flipping in Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico and New Hampshire.

Of course, there's a lot of campaigning to be done over the next four months - running mates to pick, conventions to stage, debates to be conducted. So we'll ask you: What do you make of these polls, what trends do you see, and what final score (in electoral votes) do you predict for November?

In his final Fourth of July weekend in the White House, President Bush takes a stab today at defining the American creed.

"In the United States, we believe in the rights and dignity of every person," he says this morning in his weekly radio address. "We believe in equal justice, limited government, and the rule of law. And we believe in personal responsibility and tolerance towards others."

Bush takes the opportunity to talk about the citizenship ceremony he attended Friday, and traces the service of American soldiers from Bunker Hill to Baghdad.

The complete address follows.

Before he reinvented government, Al Gore revolutionized the way vice presidents are made.

When he joined Bill Clinton's ticket, it violated the old rules. Regional diversity? Not with two southerners from neighboring states. Ideological balance? A couple of left-of-center moderates. Age? Both younger than Barack Obama is today.

And yet, Gore is widely regarded by strategists in both parties as the best vice-presidential pick in at least 20 years.

"Everything about that ticket communicated change," say Michael Feldman, who worked in the campaign and became a senior Gore aide. "In an election that was very much about change, it was a winning combination."

Change is in the air again this year. Does that mean John McCain and Obama can -or should-- come up with a Gore-like choice?

If they do, it will be a surprise.

In this week's National Journal, political insiders were asked to identify the biggest weaknesses about candidates John McCain and Barack Obama.

Here are some examples of what the Democrats said about Obama and what the Republicans said about McCain.

Obama's vulnerabilities

Inexperience 69 percent
Liberal voting record 56 percent
Race 25 percent

"No matter how he tries to paper it over, [inexperience] is on people's minds," one Democratic insider told the magazine.

McCain's vulnerabilities

President Bush's unpopularity 66 percent
Economy 42 percent
Age 31 percent

"In the fall, he must completely divorce himself from President Bush," one Republican insider told the magazine.

To see full results and a list of the 173 political insiders, visit the National Journal.

The Republican consultant had it all figured out.

His candidate: The hero. Wounded in war, stand-up guy, the real face of a generation. His opponent: No military service. Suspicious activity in his past.

He had an unofficial slogan in mind: The patriot vs. the punk.

He said this in 1996, when Bob Dole, the last leader of the World War II generation to seek the presidency, was facing Bill Clinton, who avoided the draft during Vietnam and protested against the war, in a race that Dole would lose by a near-landslide.

by Frank James

President Bush was heckled today by anti-war and civil-liberties protestors at an Independence Day naturalization ceremony he attended at Thomas Jefferson's old slave-plantation home, Monticello.

As the president started his speech protesters, at least one of whom appeared to be from the group Code Pink, started shouting "war criminal" and "fascism" at the president.

Bush, who doesn't even generally like to be interrupted by cell phone ring tones while he's talking, appeared to take the interruption in stride.

In fact, he adeptly played off the protestors to make a point about American democracy.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, and happy Fourth of July. (Applause.) I am thrilled to be here at Monticello. I've never been here before. (Audience disturbance.)

To my fellow citizens to be, we believe in free speech in the United States of America. (Applause.)

That Bush had never been to Monticello before was perhaps the biggest news of the event. Monticello is right up there with George Washington's Mount Vernon in terms of places that are must-sees on the list of presidential sites. For a man who has a helicopter at his disposal, it seems he would have made what's around a 100 mile trip as the crow flies a lot sooner than the last few months of his second term.

Of course, a president doesn't really plan his itinerary; the staff does. In any event, we're glad he got to Monticello and we hope he took the tour. Jefferson was quite the innovator. For instance, he designed a dumbwaiter that brought wine up from his basement wine cellar into the dining room and placed a bed where a wall separating two rooms, his study and bedroom, would normally be, allowing him to roll out of bed to either area, depending on what he wanted to do.

You can view the entire speech or read the transcript.

It's a federal holiday and (this year) a three-day weekend to boot. But not everyone is taking the Fourth of July off - including a whole bunch of teachers.

Today in Washington, more than 9,000 members of the National Education Association are continuing their Representative Assembly, a sort of smaller-scale national political convention complete with speeches, floor votes and strict parliamentary procedure.

The NEA's web site says the delegates will celebrate America's independence today and tackle "a full agenda of Association business." They'll honor an Idaho elementary school teacher who launched into space on the shuttle Endeavor last summer, along with their Education Support Professional of the Year.

"The day set aside to celebrate the nation's democratic tradition is also an important election day for the Association," the Web site continues. "Delegates will elect a new Secretary-Treasurer, choose two new members of the NEA Executive Committee, and decide whether to reccomend to NEA members the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States."

There's little drama in that last question -- the NEA is a perennial supporter of Democratic presidential candidates. It's also America's largest professional union, with some 3.2 million members. Most of whom are gladly taking today off.

by Frank James

Jesse Helms, a conservative stalwart who for decades enraged liberals and African Americans, died this morning at age 86.

During his time in the Senate, Helms was one of that chamber's more larger-than-life characters, with his take-no-prisoners style and views he often seemed to express with a slight sneer.

A former journalist, he was one of the most hawkish senators during his tenure in that chamber during the Cold War years. He was also famously known as Senator No because of his opposition to many social-spending programs and cultural issues like gay rights.

What's more, he had, fairly or not, a reputation as one of the Senate's most retrograde members on race issues.

Helms was more complicated on racial issues than the caricature he became for many Americans. He actually had African Americans on his staff including James Meredith who integrated the University of Mississippi.

But he was a master at racial politics. The Village Voice once reported that before Helms allowed a photo to be taken of him during an interview, he got up and removed a photo that included a black man from the wall behind him, explaining that some people in North Carolina might not understand.

Helms was definitely an irascible American original who left his mark on our national politics and culture.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, (R-Ky), Senate Minority Leader, issued the following statement:

"Today we lost a Senator whose stature in Congress had few equals. Senator Jesse Helms was a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in. Jesse and Dot were great friends to Elaine and me. We mourn his passing and extend our deepest sympathies to the extended Helms family.

Fox News Channel had the following lengthy report: