John Heilemann: Obama should look to Bill Clinton for economic guidance

Heilemann argues that Obama needs a compelling economic narrative, similar to Bill Clinton's "Putting People First" message in the 1992 campaign: "For Obama... telling the right kind of story about the economy will not only allow him to trump McCain on a subject where the latter has barely the faintest clue. It will offer him perhaps his very best chance to prove he is what he claims to be."

Kathleen Parker: Obama's "bitter" comments will haunt him

Parker observes: "Americans don?t really insist that their presidents be as 'ordinary' as they are. Only pollsters think they do. But voters do like to feel respected, and Obama?s San Francisco remarks sounded like contempt."

Howard Fineman on the Pennsylvania primary stakes

Fineman, appearing on NBC's "Today," discusses the Pennsylvania primary stakes along with his new book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," as it relates to the 2008 presidential race.

Andrea Mitchell on the Petraeus hearings and the '08 stakes

Mitchell reports that the way in which Clinton, Obama and McCain handle the Petraeus hearings "could determine how the Iraq war is viewed by voters in the fall election."

David Ignatius: CIA is in serious trouble

Ignatius says remaking the intelligence agency should be the next president's top priority: the CIA is "caught in a reorganization of intelligence that has brought more confusion than clarity, added more bureaucracy than efficiency, and increased the bloat of the intelligence community. "

David Brooks on political progress in Iraq

Brooks: "In a society like [Iraq's], political progress takes different forms. It?s not top down. It?s bottom up. And this is exactly the sort of progress we are seeing in Iraq. While the Green Zone politicians have taken advantage of the surge by trying to entrench their own power, things are happening at the grass-roots."

David Ignatius on the perils of protectionism

Ignatius: "Given the mounting economic worries here [iin Pennsylvania] and across the country, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be talking about the future more as a threat than as an opportunity. But such radical pessimism about the U.S. economy is a mistake, at least over the long run -- and there's no state in the country that proves the optimists' case about America better than Pennsylvania."