New York Times Chides Clinton To Debate Tasini

The New York Times added its voice to those calling on Sen. Hillary Clinton to debate her Democratic challenger Jonathan Tasini.

The Times said New Yorkers need to hear from the one anti-war candidate in the race.

Presuming she wins the primary, Mrs. Clinton will go up against a weak Republican candidate this fall. Anything can happen in an election, but there is a very good chance she could coast all the way to November without being tested on any important issue. Right now is a good time to make sure that does not happen.

- The New York Times

The Times joins the New York Post, the Albany Times Union and Newsday among the major papers in the state to call on Clinton to debate Tasini.

Tasini, on his campaign Web site, had an "any-time-any-place" type of response.

Meanwhile, the New York Post today examined the Tasini campaign, trying to determine why the blogosphere has not jumped on board the way it did to vault Ned Lamont - another anti-war candidate - to the Democratic nomination for senator in Connecticut. Tasini says in the article it's because even the netroots are hesitant to take on the Hillary machine.

Speaking of Ned Lamont...

He'll be in New York City this week attending a fundraiser for Hurricane Katrina victims. The event is being sponsored by MoveOn.org, which organized its own relief effort last year after the catastrophe.

At the event, MoveOn.org will release for sale its book about the relief effort "It
Takes A Nation: How Strangers Became Family In the Wake of Hurrane Katrana."

The book tells the stories of MoveOn host families who housed 30,000 hurricane evacuees.

All proceeds from the event and the book will go to the hurricane relief effort now one-year-old and counting.