CLINTON GOES ON ATTACK IN DEBATE WITH OBAMA

From the story: Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama veered from collegial to clenched and combative in a debate on Thursday, with Mrs. Clinton turning especially aggressive as she all but accused Mr. Obama of plagiarism and derided his political message as “change you can Xerox.” MORE: “I think it’s important for a lot of Americans to do what I have never been able to do: learn another language,” Mrs. Clinton said. She noted that she opposed making English the official national language, but also said it should remain a “common unifying” language for all Americans (New York Times). Meanwhile, Peggy Noonan is asking some big questions of the Obamas. A sample:

Are the Obamas, at bottom, snobs? Do they understand America? Are they of it? Did anyone at their Ivy League universities school them in why one should love America? Do they confuse patriotism with nationalism, or nativism? Are they more inspired by abstractions like "international justice" than by old visions of America as the city on a hill, which is how John Winthrop saw it, and Ronald Reagan and JFK spoke of it?

Have they been, throughout their adulthood, so pampered and praised--so raised in the liberal cocoon--that they are essentially unaware of what and how normal Americans think? And are they, in this, like those cosseted yuppies, the Clintons?

Why is all this actually not a distraction but a real issue? Because Americans have common sense and are bottom line. They think like this. If the president and his first lady are not loyal first to America and its interests, who will be? The president of France? But it's his job to love France, and protect its interests. If America's leaders don't love America tenderly, who will?

Compare Noonan’s column to the story by Ben Smith at The Politico, “Obama Once Visited ‘60s Terrorists.”