Election Night Politics

This isn't beanbag.

2008-06-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

Is it me, or is the Obama campaign doing everything it can to avoid having a fight with the Republicans? Do they think they can dance around the ring for five months and be awarded the title?

OR-Senate: Things are Getting Weird

2008-06-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

The incumbent Republican senator is running this ad:

I've never seen anything like that.

And here's an ad from one of the Democrats in the primary:

Yeah. He's also 4'9".

John McCain is Aware of the Internet

2008-06-24T15:08:00.000-07:00

Good Television

2008-06-24T13:56:00.000-07:00

Rick Perlstein gets into it with Pat Buchanan and Mike Barnicle on MSNBC:

Good Stuff.

About halfway through, Buchanan attributes Ed Muskie's downfall in '72 to David Broder's story about Muskie breaking down in tears outside the Manchester Union Leader. This is presented as a rebuttal to Perlstein's attributing Muskie's loss, in part, to the "Canuck Letter." (Nixon's White House staff forged the Canuck Letter and sent it to the Union Leader in an effort to imply Muskie held a prejudice against his state's French-Canadian population.) That's misleading.

Undoubtedly, Broder's story had a devastating effect, but it couldn't have happened without the Canuck letter. Here's the relevant section of the '72 article:

With tears streaming down his face and his voice choked with emotion, Senator Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine) stood in the snow outside the Manchester Union Leader this morning and accused its publisher of making vicious attacks on him and his wife, Jane.

The Democratic presidential candidate called publisher William Loeb "a gutless coward' for involving Mrs. Muskie in the campaign and said four times that Loeb had lied in charging that Muskie had condoned a slur on Americans of French-Canadian descent.

In defending his wife, Muskie broke down three times in as many minutes-- uttering a few words and then standing silent in the near blizzard, rubbing at his face, his shoulders heaving, while he attempted to regain his composure sufficiently to speak.

As should be clear from that passage, Muskie's "crying speech" took as its subject none other than the Canuck Letter. Some readers will certainly respond: So what? The guy cried! He wasn't fit to be President! Well, not so fast.

Broder has since written about this episode regretfully and at length:

In retrospect, though, there were a few problems with the Muskie story. First, it is unclear whether Muskie did cry. He insists he never shed the tears we thought we saw. Melting snow from his hat-less head filled his eyes, he said, and made him wipe his face. While admitting that exhaustion and emotion got the better of him that morning, the senator believes that he was damaged more by the press and television coverage of the event than by his own actions.

Second, it is now clear that the incident should have been placed in a different context: Muskie was victimized by the classic dirty trick that had been engineered by agents of the distant and detached President Nixon. The Loeb editorial that had brought Muskie out in the snowstorm had been based on a letter forged by a White House staff member intent on destroying Muskie's credibility. But we didn't know that and we didn't work hard enough to find out.

Muskie didn't necessarily cry. It could have been the snow. At least, Broder doesn't seem willing to stand by that aspect of the story.

Broder's retrospective is worth reading as an example of how an arbitrary act of political journalism can drastically alter the course of an election. (Broder thought Muskie was a hothead, and conformed his reporting to that view. For more on that aspect, see here.) I bring it up mainly to show that (if you watch the clip again) Barnicle and Buchanan are misleading the television audience in their defense of Nixon. Muskie's speech outside the Union Leader and the White House's effort at sabotage part of the same sequence of events; the latter rather clearly prompted the former.

McCain's $300 Million Challenge

2008-06-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

Can't quote the AP, but McCain is offering $300 million dollars to the whoever can develop some sort of revolutionary battery. Depends on the battery I suppose, but a truly revolutionary transportation technology is clearly going to be worth a hell of a lot more than that to the inventor--hundreds of billions, I'd assume. Hard to see how the economic incentives for development will change much because of this. Anyway, the story reminded me of this Austin Powers scene . . .

. . . so I guess it was worth it.

Boy Oh Boy

2008-06-23T01:37:00.000-07:00

Did Bill Kristol just call MoveOn a bunch of chickenhawks?

I expect it will be written about.

Carlin Dies

2008-06-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

George Carlin is dead of heart failure in Los Angles:

Rest in Peace.

Powers Dies

2008-06-22T18:42:00.000-07:00

It appears that the elder and more respectable Francis Powers running for Staten Island's congressional seat (his son is running too) has died suddenly. Rest in peace.

Fourth Amendment to be Thrown Out With Trash

2008-06-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

House Democratic Leadership unveiled, this afternoon, a compromise version of the FISA Bill, and scheduled a vote on it for tomorrow (leaving members less than 24 hours to read and consider the 114 page document). The bill can be found here, on Steny Hoyer's website.

The compromise that the House leaders have come up with can be charitably described as an abomination. Title VIII authorizes the Executive Branch, by means of an in camera and ex parte process, to compel the Judicial Branch to dismiss any lawsuit against a telecom company alleging illegal eavesdropping. The courts are further barred from stating the grounds for such dismissals or disclosing them to adverse parties. In other words, there will come a day--presumably right soon--when a United States District Judge dismisses, without comment, every lawsuit against the telecom companies alleging that they helped the government to illegally spy on American citizens in violation of their rights under the Fourth Amendment (there are quite a few of these suits). Though we'll never be told this, these dismissals will be the unavoidable result of a secret meeting the District Judge held with an administration official at which the official will provide certain secret documents that legally compel the judge to throw the whole matter out of court and never say why. Liberty.

In any case, barring a major intervention by a presidential campaign (nudge nudge), this legislation will be passed tomorrow and will drop down the Friday afternoon memory hole.

Remembering Tim Russert

2008-06-18T19:04:00.000-07:00

"Never let them intimidate you. If someone tries, do me a favor and work just a little harder on your story...Make your story a little better."
- David Halberstam

For the better part of a week, I have struggled to put into words the impact Tim Russert's death has had on me and, more importantly, on journalism. Words have consistently escaped me but Halberstam's have been going through my head on repeat.

When I became a reporter and (eventually) found myself in situations where I was charged with asking important people questions, I realized that Russert, like Halberstam, was fearless. Russert not only held his own against some of the greatest minds and biggest personalities in the political world, but he often handed it to them. Always rooted in fact, Russert personified the journalism responsibility of holding public official accountable. And, most importantly, he took that responsibility seriously - supporting every charge with careful due diligence.

Continued at theRebuttal.com.

Big Bad John

2008-06-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

Cornyn's introduction video:

Don't know about you, but I need to go outside and wrestle a cow. Catch you all later.

(Via brownsox, whom I join in hoping Sam Elliot had nothing to do with this.)

Best Republican Ad of the Cycle

2008-06-16T19:13:00.000-07:00

From the Michigan GOP:

It's a little bit off. The message seems to be: If he's so dreamy, why won't he ask me out?! Anyway, the production is crisp and the soundtrack is good. A fine effort from a tough position.

Requiescat in Pace

2008-06-13T23:51:00.000-07:00

I note with sadness the passing of Tim Russert, who presented each Sunday morning an hour's tribute to our national faith.

The Flip Flops of John McCain

2008-06-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

2005:

The fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I have been totally in agreement and support of President Bush. So, have we had some disagreements on some issues - particularly domestic issues? Yes, but I will argue my conservative record of voting with anyone's, and I will also submit that my support for President Bush has been active and very impassioned on issues that are important to the American people. And I am particularly talking about the war on terror, war on Iraq, national security, national defense, support of men and women in the military, fiscal discipline, a number of other issues; I strongly disagree with any assertion that I have been more at odds with the President of the United States than I have been in agreement

2008:

You will hear from my opponent's campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I'm running for President Bush's third term. You will hear every policy of the President described as the Bush-McCain policy. Why does Senator Obama believe it's so important to repeat that idea over and over again? Because he knows it's very difficult to get Americans to believe something they know is false. So he tries to drum it into your minds by constantly repeating it rather than debate honestly the very different directions he and I would take the country. But the American people didn't get to know me yesterday, as they are just getting to know Senator Obama. They know I have a long record of bipartisan problem solving. They've seen me put our country before any President — before any party — before any special interest -- before my own interest. They might think me an imperfect servant of our country, which I surely am. But I am her servant first, last and always.

I have worked with the President to keep our nation safe. But he and I have not seen eye to eye on many issues. We've disagreed over the conduct of the war in Iraq and the treatment of detainees; over out of control government spending and budget gimmicks; over energy policy and climate change; over defense spending that favored defense contractors over the public good.

I disagreed strongly with the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war in Iraq. I called for the change in strategy that is now, at last, succeeding where the previous strategy had failed miserably. I was criticized for doing so by Republicans. I was criticized by Democrats. I was criticized by the press. But I don't answer to them. I answer to you. And I would be ashamed to admit I knew what had to be done in Iraq to spare us from a defeat that would endanger us for years, but I kept quiet because it was too politically hard for me to do. No ambition is more important to me than the security of the country I have defended all my adult life.

UPDATE: Jed did a video . . .

Court Reaffirms Existence of Constitution by a Five to Four Vote

2008-06-12T14:55:00.000-07:00

The most important rebuke (pdf) yet delivered to Addington and Cheney:

"The Government’s view is that the Constitution had no effect there [at Guantanamo Bay], at least as to noncitizens, because the United States disclaimed sovereignty in the formal sense of the term. The necessary implication of the argument is that by surrendering formal sovereignty over any unincorporated territory to a third party, while at the same time entering into a lease that grants total control over the territory back to the United States, it would be possible for the political branches to govern without legal constraint.

Our basic charter cannot be contracted away like this. The Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and where its terms apply. Even when the United States acts outside its borders, its powers are not “absolute and unlimited” but are subject “to such restrictions as are expressed in the Constitution.” Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 44 (1885). Abstaining from questions involving formal sovereignty and territorial governance is one thing. To hold the political branches have the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will is quite another. The former position reflects this Court’s recognition that certain matters requiring political judgments are best left to the political branches. The latter would permit a striking anomaly in our tripartite system of government, leading to a regime in which Congress and the President, not this Court, say “what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803).

These concerns have particular bearing upon the Suspension Clause question in the cases now before us, for the writ of habeas corpus is itself an indispensable mechanism for monitoring the separation of powers. The test for determining the scope of this provision must not be subject to manipulation by those whose power it is designed to restrain."

Shorter Supreme Court: No more legal black holes.

If Justice Stevens had retired last year, this case would have gone the other way. Something to ponder.

Stay Classy, Fox News

2008-06-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

Check the chyron:

"Obama's Baby Mama"? Yeah, that's objectively racist.

Earlier.

UPDATE: "poor judgment."

The More Things Change

2008-06-11T17:33:00.000-07:00

Pat Buchanan famously said, "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."

I think we may be seeing this century's progressives start down that winding road today, as DailyKos, Open Left, and the Swing State Project divvy up their fund raising and start, perhaps, to edge off in different directions.

Good Behavior on the Ninth Circuit

2008-06-11T16:33:00.000-07:00

L.A. Times:

One of the highest-ranking federal judges in the United States, who is currently presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles, has maintained a publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos.

Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, acknowledged in an interview with The Times that he had posted the materials, which included a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. Some of the material was inappropriate, he conceded, although he defended other sexually explicit content as "funny."

Perhaps recusal would be appropriate in this case.

The Flip Flops of John McCain

2008-06-10T21:10:00.001-07:00

Meticulously compiled here

Cliff's Notes:
# Rogue-state rollback (for it, then against it)
# Pledging not to raise taxes (did it, then took it back)
# Whether he considered joining Kerry's ticket in 2004 (affirmed on national television, then denied)
# Cigarette tax (championed, then opposed)
# Housing crisis remedy (warned against government intervention, then called for same)
# Balancing the budget (promised to, then said he wouldn't even try)
# Social Security privatization (made a proposal, then disowned it)
# Waterboarding ban(for it, then against it)
# Long-term presence in Iraq (against it, then for it)
# DREAM Act (cosponsored it, then opposed it)
# Immigration legislation (wrote it, then promised to vote against it)
# Lobbying transparency bill (sponsored it, then promised to vote against it)
# Difficulty of Iraq War (said it would be easy, now claims he knew otherwise)
# Criticism of Donald Rumsfeld (invented ex post facto)
# Repeal of Roe v. Wade (against it, then for it)
# Gay marriage (for it, then against it)
# Jerry Falwell (labelled "an agent of intolerance," then courted as a friend)
# Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy (against them, then for them)
# Criticizing Bush's tax cuts for bias toward the wealthy (did it, then denied doing it)
# Campaigning at Bob Jones University (opposed it, then did it)
# MLK holiday (against it, then for it)
# Ethanol (against it, then for it)
# the Confederate Flag (both for and against it)
# Henry Kissinger (explicitly shunned (2000), then appointed as national co-chair (2008))

. . . and there have been quite a few more since that post was written.

(h/t Jed)

What Happened to Jeremy?

2008-06-10T19:45:00.000-07:00

He's over here today: http://politickerme.com/

Georgia on My Mind

2008-06-10T18:50:00.001-07:00

I know, I know, I'm a little preoccupied with Georgia. But other people are noticing that it's starting to look a little closer (51 McCain, 41 Obama today . . . 4 points closer), nobody's reporting on Obama's voter registration effort down there, and third party challenger Bob Barr is from . . . Georgia. It's worth keeping an eye on.

Also, it's an excuse to post this:

Did They Have CSPAN Back in 1983?

2008-06-10T17:26:00.000-07:00

John McCain's speech on the floor of the House, September 1983:

The fundamental question is: What is the United States’ interest in Lebanon? It is said we are there to keep the peace. I ask, what peace? It is said we are there to aid the government. I ask, what government? It is said we are there to stabilize the region. I ask, how can the U.S. presence stabilize the region?... The longer we stay in Lebanon, the harder it will be for us to leave. We will be trapped by the case we make for having our troops there in the first place.

What can we expect if we withdraw from Lebanon? The same as will happen if we stay. I acknowledge that the level of fighting will increase if we leave. I regretfully acknowledge that many innocent civilians will be hurt. But I firmly believe this will happen in any event.

They had CSPAN ten years later:

(Thanks Ron Paul supporters.)

No.

2008-06-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

He's right; the banana haunts my dreams.

On the flip side, I do think the existence of the rutabaga tends to validate my belief system.

UPDATE: Someone foolishly decided to seriously engage the guy:

The banana in question is a Cavendish Banana, which actually are asexual offshoots of larger, bulkier banana plants. These supermarket mutants bear little resemblance to their progenitor, the wild banana, which is a green oval-shaped thing full of large seeds and liquid. The domestication of the wild banana began between 5000 and 8000 years ago, and only after thousands of years of farming and breeding (one can call that evolution if one wishes) did they even begin to slightly resemble their celebrated yellow hue, curved shape and 'natural' wrapper.

Christian apologetics has certainly deteriorated over the centuries. From Saint Thomas Aquinas and Rene Descartes with their long treatises to washed up child stars with poorly constructed 'common sense' appeals in only 800 years. The fruit, I suppose, has fallen far from the tree.

He Made Character an Issue

2008-06-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

I've been struggling with how to approach John McCain's extremely rich and complicated personal history. There's a principled argument that the private should not be political, and I'm still wrestling with it. That said, it's important to note that McCain is inviting us to scrutinize his life:

So, you know, we shouldn't feel so bad about bringing honor and elements of McCain's biography into this.

I will not lie
I will not cheat
I will not steal
I will report the student who does

Words for an opposition researcher to live by, I guess.

Moving on, that ad is hilarious:
1) What's with the headless rockstar? Were no actual rockstars available? Have they all endorsed Obama?
2) Incense?
3) Some school you've got there. Honor means ratting out your friends?

Reminds me of this:

Staging

2008-06-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

This ought to be interesting:

Sen. John McCain will be in New York this Thursday, and he plans to attend the first of his proposed joint town hall meetings. Barack Obama will not be there. As of now, though, a McCain adviser says that two chairs will be on stage at Federal Hall, and one of them, presumably, will be empty.

Obviously, the McCain campaign is planning to cause Obama a little trouble by forcing the media to ask Obama why he isn't showing up. This will happen; Obama will almost certainly have to answer some persnickety questions.

The other thing that will happen is the McCain campaign will present the American people with an image of John McCain being stood up and presumably throwing a little fit about it. That archetype doesn't fit in with the strong leader motif most Republican campaigns aim for, including McCain's (however kitschy that effort is).

More bluntly, the McCain camp is risking an old man on the ice floe moment here, and worse, I'm not sure they know it.

Is John McCain Ready for YouTube?

2008-06-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

Questions of Race

2008-06-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

Smartest thing I've read on the subject this whole campaign.

The Perils of Hosting an Open Community in the Age of the Excitable Right

2008-06-08T15:52:00.000-07:00

If you want to have a blog on Barack Obama's site, he lets you set one up. The obvious risk is that you, for whatever reason, go off message.

All day today, the conservative blog Little Green Footballs has been making a sport of promoting these off message blogs. They don't, however, seem to be exercising much critical judgment. Some of the blogs they post may be legitimate left-wing kookery, but some are obvious put-up jobs.

For example, take this one "Jemaah Islamiyah For Obama," which purports to be an endorsement from the notorious Southeast Asian terrorist organization posted by "Fatima" from New York, NY.

Jemaah Islamiyah For Obama

We are a group that supports social justice for our oppressed Muslim brothers all over the world. We support Barack Obama for President because he is sympathetic to the plight of Muslims. He is a man of integrity, who will not be bullied by the neo-cons and the zionists. He will stand up for our oppressed palestinian brothers and sisters, whose land is being illegally occupied by that evil zionist entity whose name I just hate to even write.

Greetings Fellow Obama Supporters!
By Fatima - Mar 31st, 2008 at 10:13 pm EDT

Welcome to Jemaah Islamiyah! My name is Fatima, and I’m thrilled to be supporting Barack Obama for President. For now, we have a man of integrity, who will fight for the rights of Muslims everywhere. Allah has blessed us with a man who will stand up to the neoconservatives and the racist zionists. I believe with all my heart that Barack Obama will stop the American occupation of Iraq. No longer will American soldiers be able to kill our women and children with impunity.

Mr. Obama will also talk to Iran’s leader Mahmoud Amadinejad, whom the current chimp in the White House has treated so badly. I mean why should American and Israel be able to have nukes but not Iran? That is very unfair. Obama will right that wrong.

Furthermore, Senator Obama will take a much more rational approach in the Middle East. No longer will that zionist entity, whose name I hate to even write be able to oppress our Palestinian brothers and sisters with impunity. If anyone can stop the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, I know it is Barack Obama!

It's hard to articulate just how non-credible this is. The author's language is hyperbolic and occasionally derisive of her own purported positions. (Actual extremists, for instance, refer to Israel as the "Zionist Entity" without feeling the need to apologize for the term each time it is employed.)

Further, the author is preoccupied with the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Iraq war, and the United States' relationship with Iran. While those may be important themes for domestic political operatives because of their salience in the presidential campaign, they would be of vanishing importance to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), whose primary grievances are with the governments of Indonesia, Singapore and the Phillippines. It stands to reason that a bona fide adherent would at least make some glancing reference to the countries JI operates in. Obama spent several years growing up in Indonesia, so there's certainly a pretext for bringing Southeast Asia into the discussion.

I could go on and on about the incongruities in the piece (e.g. "I believe with all my heart that Barack Obama will stop the American occupation of Iraq. No longer will American soldiers be able to kill our women and children with impunity." Really? Supporting a presidential candidate by taking shots at American soldiers? And the Iraqis are "our women and children" but no mention is made of the history of the United States' presence in the Phillippines?) but the implication is clear. This is not honest advocacy. The author is trying to damage Obama by (a) linking him with a foreign extremist group (one the author knows precious little about) and (b) planting, on his campaign website, inflammatory anti-American language and misrepresentations of Obama's policy. It's not difficult to see who might stand to benefit from this gambit, especially if they themselves are able to popularize and promote it.

The Obama team probably should have seen this coming. Now that it has come, they should count themselves lucky. The first shots have been amateurish and transparently fraudulent, but it's easy to imagine a much more sophisticated and subtle effort doing some serious damage. Obama's team now has an opportunity to retool how they manage their community before that attack comes; they should seize it.

What the Hell?

2008-06-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

Barack, c'mon man. Did John Kerry teach you nothing?

This is really bad:

(That's the main picture on Drudge right now.)

This was better:

Remember that? What happened to that?

. . .

Remember this?

Think on it.

UPDATE: By the way, can we stop pretending that Drudge is in the tank for Obama? With Hillary out of the race, I think their situational alliance is over.

Balance!

2008-06-06T17:52:00.000-07:00

This is funny.

AIPAC truly was a screwup.

Terrorist Fist Jab

2008-06-06T17:06:00.001-07:00

Stay classy, Fox News:

(Via.)

McCain for Obama

2008-06-06T15:24:00.000-07:00

"A Blog You Can Believe In"

Michael Goldfarb writes it. And it is a little sad.

Still Handy with the Knife

2008-06-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

Rob Andrews, the lonely rebel who challenged his fellow Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg, advertises a little dirt on the Clinton campaign (a campaign he supported):

"There have been signals coming out of the Clinton campaign that have racial overtones that indeed disturb me," Andrews said at his campaign headquarters in Cherry Hill Tuesday night after he lost his bid for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination.

"Frankly, I had a private conversation with a high-ranking person in the campaign ... that used a racial line of argument that I found very disconcerting. It was extremely disconcerting given the rank of this person. It was very disturbing."

Andrews said the phone call came after he angered the Clinton camp by making some positive comments about Obama. He would not disclose the caller's name because of the private nature of the conversation.

That elicited this blast of venom from the Arlington headquarters:

"Comments like these, coming so soon after Congressman Andrews' crushing defeat, are sad and divisive," said Clinton's chief national spokesman, Phil Singer.

It's a non-denial denial, which is provocative in itself. But, jeez, that is just vindictive. There aren't many Democrats who would suffer their spokesmen to be so publicly vicious.

I'm of two minds about what ought to be done about the substance of Andrews' claims, which I will regard as likely true until the Clinton campaign sees fit to deny them. The conduct Andrews describes is despicable and ought to carry a stigma. Still, to pursue the story would presumably do serious harm to party unity. On the other hand, to ignore the story amounts to granting a license for the Republicans to pursue the same strategy in their downticket races (and, of course, the historical record of this contest should be as accurate as possible).

In a way, it's all academic. If the Rob Andrews of the world choose to name names, then it will be a story and the unity of the party be damned. If they keep their silence, then we'll never know much more than the current cloud of rumor.

EXCLUSIVE: Whitey Tape Revealed!

2008-06-06T12:26:00.000-07:00

**ALL REFERENCES MUST CREDIT ELECTION NIGHT POLITICS**

There's been so much debunking of the salacious rumor propagated by Larry Johnson that the nonappearance of the tape has become a story in its own right, to the point where the Democratic nominee had to take the media to task for asking him about it.

Anyway, continuing on my Hunter S. Thompson jag, I thought it would be worthwhile (beore we get to the unveiling) to point out this isn't a new tactic. In Better than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, Thompson recounted how LBJ employed it:

All I really wanted to tell you was this ancient and honorable story about how Lyndon Johnson first got elected to Congress, when his (heavily favored) opponent was a wealthy local pig farmer….

Remember that one, James? Sure you do. It’s a wonderful story, and I suspect it will cheer you up.

It goes this way: The year was 1948, as I recall, and Lyndon was running about 10 points behind, with only nine days to go…. He was sunk in despair. He was desperate. And it was just before noon on a Monday, they say, when he called his equally depressed campaign manager and instructed him to call a press conference at two or two-thirty (just after lunch on a slow news day) and accuse his high-riding opponent (the pig farmer) of having routine carnal knowledge of his barnyard sows, despite the pleas of his wife and children….

His campaign manager was shocked. “We can’t say that, Lyndon,” he said. “It’s not true.”

“Of course it’s not,” Johnson barked at him, “but let’s make the bastard deny it.”

A healthy reminder that nasty politics has often been a bipartisan affair.

Oh, and check it out, I found the whitey tape (!):

***REMINDER: MUST CREDIT ~~ELECTION NIGHT POLITICS~~ PARAMOUNT PICTURES***

Thanksgiving is Going to be So Awkward: Sophoclean Farce on Staten Island

2008-06-05T14:42:00.000-07:00

You probably know the story of Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY), the Staten Island Republican who had to fold his reelection campaign shortly after he was arrested for drunk driving and his "second" family in Alexandria, VA was quickly discovered. Tough couple weeks that guy had.

Anyway, the Republicans have been having some trouble finding a candidate to run in Fossella's stead. They finally settled on Francis H. Powers. End of story? Not so much.

We learned yesterday that Francis M. Powers (pictured), the 47 year old son of the Republican candidate, is planning to run against his father as the Libertarian candidate. There will be two men named Francis Powers on the ballot.

"This is not about my dad," said the younger Powers, 47, a master carpenter from Clifton who plays and sings with the Staten Island band Box of Crayons and runs an indie record label called Penny for the Guy Records. "I'm running against the Republican candidate."

Known as Fran, Powers is the eldest of five children from his father's first marriage, which ended in divorce 30 years ago.

Fran Powers insisted his candidacy is not a "vendetta" against his father.

"I'm not going to say that my dad treated me bad when I was a kid," Fran Powers said. "I know his policies. I'm running against someone I know."

When asked about the timing of his entry into the race, Powers said, "Me being his son gives me a different platform than normal," a platform that Powers said he wouldn't have against another candidate.

"We can't have the Republicans take this seat again," he added. "A vote for my father is a vote for the straight Republican ticket."

Strong words. But then Dad slaps back:

"I've tried very hard for many years to help my son," the elder Powers said in a statement released by his campaign.

"Unfortunately, he's rejected everyone's help to live a healthy lifestyle. Regardless of whether he wants to run for Congress, I still stand ready to help him move his life in a positive direction."

Ouch.

This has to be the coolest congressional race of all time.

Swing 'Em Home

2008-06-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

Doesn't matter who you are or where you fall on the political spectrum; something in this video will offend you:

Point taken.

Ain't No Such Things as Halfway Crooks

2008-06-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

That's reminiscent of something.

Hunter:

To a Republican, a slogan is not merely a slogan. The slogan is the campaign. A slogan can substitute for actual governance; it can even substitute for the thought expressed by, er, the slogan itself. Case in point: "Compassionate Conservatism". All you have to do is say it; after that, you don't actually need to show any compassion. You've already expressed it in the slogan: you're done.

So it is a bit depressing to see McCain so blatantly ripping off Obama's own slogan, instead of crafting one himself. Obama's slogan was "Change You Can Believe In"; McCain's new version is "A Leader We Can Believe In". Obama's omnipresent logo consists of blue over a hill of red and white; his website has a field of blue over red, with subtle "sunburst" rays in the background. McCain has chosen for his new theme a field of greenish-blue over red and white... with subtle "sunburst" rays in the background...

Hey, it's mavericky, I'll give him that. And I guess somebody's convinced him at his point that green and greenish should be his favorite colors. As a Republican, perhaps it reminds him of money. Perhaps it replaces an environmental policy -- rather than caring about the forests, perhaps we can just paint all our shopping malls a nice forest green and get on with our lives.

But I'm disappointed in McCain's slogan, ripped off or not. A Leader We Can Believe In. I'll grant him that an appeal to leadership is likely to go over well with conservatives -- a hell of a lot better than appeals to, bolt the door and hide the silver, change, shudder -- but it is so dull. So conventional. It lacks creativity, yes, but more to the point it lacks pizzazz. A proper conservative slogan should not just appeal to a wholesome conservative lust for strong centralized leadership, it must also offer assurances that this particular conservative will not fuck things up the way all the other conservatives have. It must appeal to the God-fearing, and the bigoted, and the God-fearingly bigoted (i.e. John Hagee). It must sound inspirational while at the same time recognizing that conservatives are terrified of anything but the status quo -- and waxing inspirational about the status quo is a damn difficult prospect.

Read the rest, especially his suggested slogans for McCain.

Cold Water

2008-06-04T21:11:00.000-07:00

Why do I get the feeling we're all about to learn the difference between "express support" and "endorse"?

Let's hope I'm wrong. I don't think I am.

That's Not a Speaker We Can Believe In [take a beat . . . big smile!]

2008-06-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

Uh, What?

2008-06-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

I would like someone from GE/Universal to explain why Pat Buchanan is allowed to appear regularly (indeed almost constantly) on their news channel, MSNBC. Pat wrote a book, Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World that apparently claims it would have been better to let Hitler conquer Europe so that he might have had the chance to kill some more reds.

Why is Pat Buchanan, with his bizarre views and insipid political legacy, allowed such a prominent role in shaping our political discourse? What exactly about Jeremiah Wright was worse than Pitchfork Pat? I'm really asking.

John Lukacs:

Here I arrive at the main theme of this book. How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World is only its subtitle, its main title being Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. This emphasis accords with what is—and has been for a long time—Buchanan’s view of history. The Second World War was an unnecessary war; a wrong war, especially involving Europe; it was wrong to fight Hitler; and Churchill was primarily, indeed principally, responsible. A man has, or more precisely chooses, his opinions. The choice, ever so often, depends on his inclinations. In this review it is not my proper business to speculate about Buchanan’s inclinations. I must restrict myself to questioning his arguments.

The British decision to offer an alliance to Poland in 1939 was a hasty one, replete with unintended consequences. Partly true. Hitler did not wish to destroy the British Empire. Partly true. He did want to destroy Communism and the Soviet Union. Partly true. Churchill was a warrior; he was obsessed with the danger of German power. Partly true. Hitler wanted to expel Jews from Europe but not to exterminate them, at least not while the former policy was still possible. Again, partly true. Or in other words, true but not true enough. Here is a difference between Patrick Buchanan and David Irving. The latter employs falsehoods; Buchanan employs half-truths. But, as Thomas Aquinas once put it, “a half-truth is more dangerous than a lie.”

The Second World War began in September 1939, with Hitler’s armies invading Poland. Buchanan writes that the British commitment to Poland was a stupid mistake and that the Poles should not have fought Hitler. Now here is an example of a special pleader’s method: selective quotation. Buchanan will quote A.J.P. Taylor when this suits him, as when Taylor wrote, “Only Danzig prevented cooperation between Germany and Poland.” (Taylor was wrong: all evidence shows that what Hitler wanted was a Poland bereft of any independence from Germany.) Of course, Buchanan will not cite Taylor’s four words describing Churchill: “The savior of England.”

Let me now raise the question: What would have happened if Britain and France had allowed Hitler to conquer Poland? After that he would have gone further east and then conquered the Soviet Union, with the acquiescence of the West. All to the good, Buchanan writes, since Communism was evil, more dangerous than German National Socialism. But there is—and there ought to be—no comparison here. Germany was part and parcel of European culture, civilization, and tradition. Russia was not. Stalin had a predecessor, Ivan the Terrible. Hitler had none. German National Socialist brutality was unprecedented. Russian brutality was not. Nationalism, not Communism, was the main political force in the 20th century, and so it is even now. When the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, perhaps as many as 10,000 Germans killed themselves, and not all of these had been Nazis. When the Soviet Union and Communist rule in Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989, I do not know of a single Communist, whether in Russia or elsewhere, who committed suicide.

There was a consistency in Churchill’s view of Europe and of the world. To him, and for Britain, there were only two alternatives: either all of Europe dominated by Germany or the eastern half of Europe dominated by Russia, and half—especially the western half—of Europe was better than none. Besides, Churchill said that the Russians could swallow Eastern Europe but not digest it and that Communism would disappear from Eastern Europe before long. If Hitler had won the war, German rule would have been much more enduring.

This is not the first of Buchanan’s many expressions of his visceral and intellectual antipathy to Churchill. Irving’s main method in defending Hitler is to blacken all of Hitler’s opponents, foremost among them Churchill. But then he is obsessed with what is and what is not true of the Holocaust. Buchanan is not. In this book, Buchanan deprecates Hitler: in 1942 “he was absorbed in self-pity: and he was condemning his own people.” On page 383: Hitler’s was “an evil and odious regime.” But there is a fatal contradiction in Buchanan’s theses: Hitler’s regime—including, one may think, its expansion—was evil, but warring against him was unnecessary and wrong. Either thesis may be argued, but not both.

I mean holy crap.

Don't Slow Down

2008-06-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

Few people understand the pyschology of dealing with a defeated Clinton. The average candidate will panic and soft-pedal his rhetoric in the hopes of an endorsement. This is wrong. This breeds contempt in the Clinton heart. Make the bastard chase you. She will follow. But she won't know what to make of your right blinker signal indicating you're looking for a proper place to announce your VP selection. It'll take her a second to realize she's about to make a 180 degree turn at speed, but you'll be ready for it. Brace for the G's and the fast Heel-toe.

(Apologies to Hunter S. Thompson.)

. . . Adding: This is worth noting. Hillary Clinton's leverage in the party is based on a claim that she speaks for 17 million voters. But in her very populous home state, in the middle of the largest city in the country, on one of the most momentous nights of the campaign, her campaign chose to book the basement gym at Baruch College?? The den of the Mighty Mighty Bearcats?

In politics, you book the largest room you can fill. Obama has booked the Xcel Energy Center in Minneapolis tonight. If Hillary Clinton--in New York City!--is booking a subterranean cement box, then her leverage with the people is overstated.

Xcel:

Baruch College:

UPDATE 2: Like Rich Lowry, I read John McCain's speech before he delivered it and thought it was pretty good. Now that I'm actually hearing it, it's terrible. The crowd is dead. Their applause is scattered. Their laughter is derisive and forced. Their cheers die aborning. And the candidate's delivery is disorganized and seriously skeevy, especially when he slowly deploys that yellow smile after the theme "that's not change we can believe in." John McCain has good speechwriters, good signs, and a lot of open field to run on. John McCain's problem is himself.

. . . and NBC just cut McCain off. Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. We live in interesting times.

Chart: Get Up and Pour Yourself a Strong Drink

2008-06-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

(Click chart for larger, more legible version.)

That's a chart showing the amount of money the Federal Reserve has loaned to private institutions through the years. It does not look good.

This isn't exactly a political issue yet, but you can bet it's going to be.

AP Calls the Nomination for Obama

2008-06-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

Here.

It all seems a bit excitable to me. Wait for the polls to close, people.

Trust but Verify

2008-06-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

Is Hillary dropping out? I'll admit there's a lot of smoke:

She's spending Tuesday in New York . . . she's making her staff turn in expense reports . . . Vilsack says she should . . . so does Rendell . . . Bill said it might be his last day campaigning . . . Rahm is herding superdelegates . . .

BUT . . . she's openly talking about challenging Michigan . . . Ickes told the donors to hold tight . . . the donors called on her to stay in (allegedly spontaneous) . . . she made statements about turning supers back her way . . . she's traveling with that Virgin Islands guy who flipped twice . . .

Doesn't matter.

None of that should give anyone any confidence that Hillary is dropping out. Nor should it indicate she's staying in. We don't know. Clinton herself probably doesn't know. For anyone in professional politics, it would be malpractice to assume that Clinton will do anything other than whatever would be most annoying to you personally.

If you're Obama, expect her to try to poach your delegates however she can all summer. If you're a superdelegate, expect her supporters to make your life miserable. If you're a Clinton staffer, expect her to drop out, stop paying you, and then get right back in late July--just when you're supposed to start that lucrative job in Manhattan.

If you've seen the movie Shogun, you know what I mean. You don't turn your back on Yabu-san until his head is actually off his shoulders, and you don't turn your back on Hillary Clinton until the convention adjourns . . . or--better yet--until Barack Obama takes the oath of office. If nothing else, she has earned that measure of terrified respect.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." From now until January 20th, that is also the price of political sanity.

UPDATED: McCain's Favored SecDef Appears to be a Squish on Israel

2008-06-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Ben Smith, my source for this video, has now removed it from Politico's site and issued a correction because he believes the editing is misleading. I tend to agree, but I'll leave the video up in case anyone's interested to see what the fuss is about. Smith's full correction is below.

Has any presidential election been as much about the concerns of Jewish voters as this one?

I don't mean any offense to Israel. It's just important to recognize that we have lots of de facto allies who are in tough scraps of one sort or another (Taiwan, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Georgia, etc.), but I bet you couldn't tell me John McCain's attitude toward the dispute over Abkhazia or the significance of China's new nuclear submarine base on Hainan Island. I doubt John McCain could tell me.

It's tempting, of course, to believe that history has paused outside the line of countries that stretches from the Khyber to the Levant. Unfortunately, the game is deeper than that.

. . . Okay, here's Ben:

CORRECTION: I missed an edit in the middle of the video, which I shouldn't have posted, and have removed from above. It cut a crucial passage in which Smith said he sided with Truman in the dispute. The full transcript is after the jump, and the edit undermines the point the video is trying to make.

In the full video, Smith says that Truman made the "right decision," but that Marshall was "prophetic" -- words that still might give pause to some, but put him on the other side of the issue.

Full transcript after the jump.

FRED SMITH: But Marshall was the architect of the victory worldwide, not just in Europe. I think Marshall`s greatest contribution when Roosevelt made him chief of staff was to go down sometimes two and three deep in the officer ranks and take the people that had talent that he had trained in the inner war years, and it was that group of leadership, including Eisenhower, and Marshall`s amazing managerial capabilities that really was the most important element in winning World War II, I believe.

CHARLIE ROSE: But he advised Truman against recognizing the state of Israel.

FRED SMITH: Well, in retrospect, there would be a large body of thought that would have said that Marshall was correct in what would precipitate from that recognition, which is now 60-some-odd years of war.

CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly 60 years.

FRED SMITH: Yes. So I think Truman made the right decision. But Marshall`s job was to advise ...

CHARLIE ROSE: So he was prophetic about the problems that might come about.

FRED SMITH: He was certainly prophetic as to the problems that would come.

Re: Clinton's Popular Vote Strategy

2008-06-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

I would add a couple points.

The "popular vote" is a flawed metric. The nomination is decided by a contest for delegates instead of aggregate vote totals for a simple reason: The differing rules for primaries and caucuses from state to state make the popular vote an unreliable measure of in-state support. Some states hold open primaries where anyone can vote, some states hold closed primaries where only registered Democrats can vote, some states hold caucuses that place further burdens on voters, several states do not even record the popular vote. The way the Democratic party has chosen to deal with this smorgasbord of rules is to provide each state with a quantity of delegates based on its population and allow the state to apportion those delegates as it sees fit. As a result, even if two states with the same population have totally different contest rules, one state won't be able to get disproportionate power in the nominating process by virtue of its rules. For example, if we simply aggregated the popular vote, Missouri's primary would have four times as much power as Minnesota's caucus, even though those two states are roughly the same size and Minnesota has more Democrats.

Neither campaign sought at the outset of this campaign to optimize their popular vote totals. Both saw this race as it is defined by the DNC, as a race for delegates, and expended time and resources accordingly. It would have been absurd to do otherwise--the equivalent to playing a poker tournament with the aim winning the most hands rather than gathering the most chips.

Further, it's important to note that (however flawed the concept) any popular vote count which seeks to include every state has Obama in the lead. Clinton's numbers for the popular vote are faulty because they exclude at least four states (Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington), a defect which gives the lie to the pretense that Clinton is interested in counting every vote.

Clinton's Popular Vote Strategy

2008-06-02T10:12:00.001-07:00

A friend and I had the following exchange over the weekend about Clinton shifting her strategy from focusing on delegates to focusing on the popular vote. My friend, like many, started out torn between Obama and Clinton but has becoming increasingly frustrated with Clinton and impressed by Obama. I tried to answer all the questions but I wanted to see if anyone else had any thoughts about it.

Jeremy,

I keep forgetting to ask your opinion about a particular primary issue, and would dearly love to ave it. How is it that nobody is "remembering" or talking about the fact that Hilary was all about delegates and super delegates being the deciding factor in the primary, way back at the beginning of the race, when there were fears that Obama's skyrocketing popularity might capture the vote? (Was there really a beginning, it sure seems endless.) Now it's all about her having the popular vote, forget about the delegates, as well as insisting that Florida and Michigan "count" when ALL including Hilary, had agreed that they didn't. (I won't even get into the
Clinton camp's ideas on the Michigan / Florida division of delegates)

Do they actually believe that we have that small of an attention span? It seems that there is no right or wrong here, just "How can I make the current situation work for me, no matter what I agreed to, or said before." THAT to me is what is wrong with politics. Integrity is only something that you talk about, but certainly don't have to
demonstrate.

As a woman, I am so disappointed in Hilary. At the beginning of the race, I liked both candidates, but preferred Barack for reasons that we have discussed. Now I can barely look at Hilary on the news. Her behavior in the last many months has exhibited the ethics of convenience. Those are the politics unfortunately so prevalent in our system, the politics that made me an Independent for so many years, the politics that turn potential activist citizens away in disgust.

My response:

Hi,
Thanks for your note - all good points....You're absolutely right - Clinton's message focused on delegates early in the campaign. And you're right that this was entirely because they were worried about Obama's popularity. This strategy, I think, was devised when it looked like Clinton would wrap up the nomination on Super Tuesday. The idea was that she would secure all the delegates she needed early, so the overall popular vote wouldn't matter. This strategy is also why Clinton neglected the caucus states (except for Iowa and Nevada) - she thought she wouldn't need them.

This strategy was completely turned on its head when Obama won Iowa and outperformed her on Super Tuesday going into his victory in Virginia, which, at least to the conventional wisdom, made him the presumptive nominee. After Virginia, and especially after North Carolina, it became clear that Clinton could not catch Obama in delegates. It was around this time that Clinton began shifting her message towards the popular vote - a shift that was complete by North Carolina.

To answer your question: Yes, the Clinton camp does believe your attention span is at short. And in a campaign where multiple stories are produced in a day, the media's attention span is that short, too. There is no question Clinton is acting like the typical politican here, and many believe all of her actions nowadays are part of a plan to sabotage Obama's chances - clearing the way for her in 2012.

There is also no question that Clinton feels as though the Democrat party owes her - or at least her family. And, in a very large sense, I think it does. It is important to remember that in 1991, many political experts were questioning whether the Democratic Party would ever have a successful presidential candidate again. Those experts thought the future of the Democrats would be only in Congress. And I think Kerry and Gore's failures - Gore for running away from Clinton and Kerry for pretty much everything in his campaign - have only reminded party loyalists how impressive Bill was. This is likely the reason why so many Democratic superdelegates haven't jumped to Obama. They are still afraid of crossing the Clintons.
None of this accounts for Hillary's integrity problem. And the rules and bylaws committee meeting yesterday was a disaster for the Democrats, but I don't think it is entirely fair to blame Harold Ickes and Clinton for it. The Democrats did this to themselves in many ways: First, they should have done more to keep Florida and Michigan from moving up their contests. Second, they should have NEVER opened up the possibility of seating any of the delegates in either state. I understand the arguments against Clinton here, but granting Obama delegates in Michigan to achieve some sort of satisfactory parity with its Florida ruling when his name wasn't on the ballot is absolutely ludicrous.

Anyway, I hope that provides some context and my thoughts on the issue. Simply put: Clinton shifted her message to one that was more political advantageous for her. That, unfortunately, is par for the course in politics. It is also worth noting that there are several problems with Clinton's popular vote argument. The most glaring is that in doesn't include the caucus states. There are many others - but that is for another
e-mail...

Any other thoughts? Did I miss anything?

Duffy to McClellan: Why You Such a Rat?

2008-06-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

Trent Duffy, former aide to Scott McClellan:

Please forgive me, Scott, if this sounds personal, but you've just filleted me and everyone who worked with you, for you and for George W. Bush for being propagandists, manipulators and lemmings. That isn't exactly a bank shot. Since you have set the standard that it's honorable -- indeed, that it's in the public interest -- to harshly critique one's former boss in public, allow me to refresh your memory if some of the above doesn't come quickly to mind.

[. . .]

All that aside, the revelations that you are "intrigued by Senator Obama's message" and that you don't know if you are a Republican anymore make me wonder if you ever had any convictions. If you were just drinking the Kool-Aid at the White House, have you now switched flavors with your newfound friends?

Perhaps you have had an epiphany. Maybe it is better to appease terrorists and let them fight us here instead of taking them on overseas. Maybe we should return our public education system to factories of mediocrity run by teachers unions instead of demanding and delivering educational excellence for our children. Maybe we should let the government ration health care and get between us and our doctors. And maybe we should raise taxes, punish individual enterprise and destroy the incentive for hard work to pay for more government programs.

Think about it. You may not be able to now, since you have conceded your inability to think clearly and independently inside a bubble atmosphere, be it at the White House or while on a media-frenzy book tour.

But do it anyway. On your own, without a publisher around. And let me know what you figure out.

It's all in the game, I suppose.

To the Credentials Committee

2008-05-31T15:58:00.000-07:00

Well, we live in interesting times.

John McCain Reprises Howard Dean on Foreign Policy

2008-05-30T22:57:00.000-07:00

June 2003, Howard Dean thought there were around 135,000 troops in Iraq when in fact there were 146,000:

Dr. Dean estimated that there were 135,000 American troops in Iraq and said there should be more. The actual number is 146,000. Mr. Russert told him that there were 9,000 on duty in Afghanistan. Dr. Dean said he would increase that to "at least between 30 and 40,000 additional troops" but said they did not all need to be Americans. Dr. Dean said that as his campaign advanced, he would hire military advisers who would inform him on such matters.

"For me to have to know right now to participate in the Democratic Party primary how many troops are actively on duty in the United States military, when that is actually a number that is composed both of people on duty today and people who are National Guards people who are on duty today, is silly," he said. "That's like asking me who the ambassador to Rwanda is."

Mr. Russert said: "There's concern about your awareness and positions on national security. You must acknowledge that."

May 2008, John McCain thinks there are less than 132,000 troops in Iraq when in fact there are approximately 150,000:

“I can tell you it is succeeding,” Mr. McCain said. “I can look you in the eye and tell you it is succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr City are quiet.”

Mr. McCain’s remarks, however, differ from the numbers available. There were 132,000 troops in Iraq before President Bush dispatched an additional 21,500 combat troops, including five Army brigades, that comprised the so-called “surge.” In addition, some 8,000 support forces were sent to Iraq.

Three of the five Army brigades have left Iraq, along with some additional Marines who were sent as part of the troop buildup. The remaining two brigades are scheduled to leave by July, at which point General David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq has recommended a “pause” in troop drawdowns to reassess the situation on the ground.

Even then, however, the Pentagon has said the troop levels in Iraq are expected to be at 140,000, about 8,000 more than they were prior to the troop buildup, because some of the support troops sent to Iraq would be needed.

It remains to be seen whether Russert will be equally tough on McCain.

One Article, Multiple Points to Make

2008-05-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you are just surprised by how many ideas one article highlights. Today's WaPo piece on McCain and Obama's "jousting" on Iraq by Jonathan Weisman - one of the best reporters around - is one such piece. So, let's go through it.

First, let me just say - and I know Southpaw will disagree with me - that I think the Obama camp is misplaying this will he visit Iraq or won't he debate. I understand that the Obama campaign thinks a dialogue on Iraq benefits their candidate and polling appears to support that (more on that in a second). However, I can't help but think Obama is getting bullied. This whole exchange, to me, has played out this way:

McCain: Obama hasn't seen the improvements on the ground in Iraq because he hasn't been there recently. I have gone there many more times, so I know more.

Obama: Yeah? I am going to go to Iraq soon so I can figure out how best to bring the troops home.

Isn't that a tacit acknowledgement of that McCain's charge is right? What do you think?

Ok, back to the WaPo article. These grafs are particularly interesting:

...new public opinion polling suggests the war is more a wild card than a slam dunk for either side. While voters still see the invasion of Iraq as a mistake, they are divided about the current course of the war and where to go from here. McCain continues to be favored as the candidate most trusted on the issue -- albeit with a statistically insignificant edge. But most Americans favor Obama's central position, withdrawing combat forces.

"What's surprising to me is that a Republican is doing better than a Democrat on this issue at all," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which released a new national poll on the election yesterday. "That really says something about the lingering doubts and concerns voters have with Obama."

Republican strategists think the fight over Iraq may be the strongest ground for McCain to fight on. If nothing else, it pulls the campaign away from the domestic issues that voters want addressed but which favor the Democrats.

The Pew poll found McCain and Obama to be in a virtual tie over which candidate would do a better job handling the war, with 46 percent favoring McCain and 43 percent siding with Obama. That deadlock comes despite Pew polling last month that found that 56 percent favor withdrawing U.S. troops either immediately or over the next year or two.

More people still think that McCain would do a better job handling the war than Obama. I was talking to Southpaw the other day about political strategy. One of the key rules of campaigns, according to a couple books that, admittedly, may not be applicable anymore, is not to engage in dialogue on an issue that your opponent or his/her party owns. National security has been a GOP owned issue so Obama should stay away, this reasoning would say. This year's election is certainly more complicated because of the electorate's extreme dissatisfaction with the Bush administration and theirhandling of the Iraq war. But, nevertheless, it is something to consider, especially with a war hero like McCain as the GOP nominee.

OK, one more point from the article. Check out this quote:

"I think he's very susceptible to the question of whether he is indeed in touch with what's going on on the ground, whether he is aware of the implications of defeat in Iraq," said Pete Hegseth, an Iraq war veteran and chairman of Veterans for Freedom, an independent group whose Internet advertisements last weekend began goading Obama to visit the country.

Wait, huh? The Vets for Freedom? Really? If this organization isn't just a schill for the McCain campaign, as Southpaw has pointed out, it is certainly very close and could be violating some election laws. One anonymous commenter wrote this about the group in response to Southpaw's post:

VFF has a pac that it is running everything through. So, that means they are
good to go. PAC's can criticize candidates all they want. Check it out
www.fec.gov.

I looked at fec.gov and I still can't make sense of the rule. Can anyone shed any more light on it?

Regardless, I'm not sure that quote should have been in the article at all, let alone as an independent arbiter of Obama's knowledge of Iraq.

Wanted: Credible Colorado GOP Senate Candidate (Great Perks, Start Immediately)

2008-05-29T22:29:00.000-07:00

Bob Schaffer of Colorado is a chucklehead.

I'll Keep You My Dirty Little Secret

2008-05-29T21:51:00.000-07:00

The ACLU has been pushing the CIA to release their detainee treatment regords. Here's their payoff(click to enlarge):

That's pretty twisted.

Full document (pdf).

Count Every Vote!

2008-05-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

Star Telegram:

It was a localized version of the Michigan/Florida debate in Grand Prairie today and once again, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters were at odds.

Local Clinton supporters advocated Thursday for unseating ALL of the Democratic delegates from Collin County because their senate district conventions were held on the wrong day.

Officials with the Collin County Democratic Party said they chose to hold the convention a day late because there wasn't a large enough venue in the county available for the scheduled date of Saturday, March 29. Party officials warned at the time that the eligibility of their delegation may be challenged.

The results in Collin County?8th Congressional District: Obama 108, Clinton 55 30th Congressional District: Obama 9, Clinton 7

Chuck Todd Rules

2008-05-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

Laura McGann, editor extraordinaire over at the Washington Independent, passes along this fantastic Chuck Norris-esque site full off great Chuck Todd one liners. MSNBC's "Goateed Guru," as Howie Kurtz called him, deserves all the praise he receives for reining in Matthews and Olbermann on primary nights.

Here are some of my favorites:

Chuck Todd once played guitar for Led Zeppelin - Tim Russert was on bass.
Give Chuck Todd a slide rule and enough black coffee and he'll be able to accurately predict presidential elections (district by district) through 2052.
Chuck Todd doesn't wear a watch, he just knows what time it is.

And, my favorite:

If you replace "Jesus" with "Chuck Todd" the Bible makes more sense.

The Cultural Divide

2008-05-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

For Obama:

For Clinton:

Maybe what superdelegates are encountering is the classic dilemma of FM Radio: On the one hand you have a song that's quite good, and on the other you have a song that's . . . in English. Which do you put on your air?

(via Chris Hayes)

Hand in Glove?

2008-05-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

Vets for Freedom is a nonpartisan 501(c)(4) organization which focuses primarily on educating the American public about the importance of achieving success in the Global War on Terrorism by applying our first-hand knowledge to issues of American strategy and tactics. Vets for Freedom PAC is a federal political action committee which aims to support those candidates who recognize the importance of achieving success in the Global War on Terrorism. Vets for Freedom and Vets for Freedom PAC are separate organizations.

www.vetsforfreedom.org/

I'm not enough of an expert on election law to know what exactly 501(c)(4) organizations are allowed to do in a campaign (more than 501(c)(3) organizations and somewhat less than 527s, I think). The FEC tends to take a kid gloves approach to these matters; their pattern is to wait until after the election to go after lawbreaking organizations in civil court. So while pressing this issue might help to puncture John McCain's image somewhat (and deflate his recent gambit of planning Obama's travel schedule), I doubt there will be any real consequences for anyone.

New York to Welcome Out of State Gay Marriages

2008-05-28T21:46:00.001-07:00

Wow:

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada.

In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”

David Paterson, everybody; he's moving awful fast.

Stone for McCain-Crist

2008-05-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

Roger Stone is doing image correcting pseudo-scandals now?

Stone:

"A dandy by disposition who boasts of having not bought off-the-rack since he was 17"

Crist

The Gaffe That Didn't Bark

2008-05-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

John McCain, yesterday:

Many believe all we need to do to end the nuclear programs of hostile governments is have our president talk with leaders in Pyongyang and Tehran, as if we haven't tried talking to these governments repeatedly over the past two decades.

Since April 7, 1980, we haven't "tried talking" to Iranian leaders at all. Not about their nuclear program. Not "repeatedly." Not once.

Since that day twenty eight years ago, it has been the stated policy of the United States of America not to have diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Generally speaking, if we have something we want to say to the Iranians, we tell the Swiss and they pass it along. If the Iranians have something they want to tell us, it gets filtered through Pakistan. (The Bush administration has initiated some low level discussions, since 2001, about Iraq and Afghanistan issues.)

Hilzoy:

Personally, I think being wrong about official US policy towards Iran, and about whether recent history shows that negotiating with them won't work, is more serious than being wrong about precisely which Nazi concentration camp your great-uncle helped liberate.

In fairness, John McCain hasn't made opposing talks with Iran a centerpiece of his campaign, and this issue is not quite so manifestly relevant to U.S. policy as the whereabouts of Barack Obama's great uncle in 1945.

Oh, wait.

Put on a Helmet and Pads and Get in There

2008-05-28T11:23:00.001-07:00

John Cole on the Rules and Bylaws Committee:

Seating only half the delegations per DNC rules will provide those in the fantasy land that is the Clinton camp the opportunity to file appeals, turn this into a credential fight, and allow them to fight bitterly all the way to the convention. Rather than ending this, this will assure us we will get more Florida 2000/Zimbabwe/Civil Rights gibberish from team Clinton over the next few months, as the Clinton team prepares to wrestle away the nomination somehow, anyway they can, at the convention. Or hope that “something happens” in between now and then and the supers will abandon Obama.

The only thing that will stop this is if the supers immediately swarm to Obama after the last vote on June 3rd, but I have seen nothing to indicate that will happen- they have indulged Hillary’s bullshit to date, why stop now? And even if they do rush over and put Obama over whatever new number the Clintons dream up, they still will not concede. They will continue campaigning, continue to make statements and raise money and tour the country and take potshots at Obama and suck oxygen out of the room and make her supporters more antagonistic towards Obama until he is officially the nominee at the convention. They don’t care what the outcome is, this is about Hillary becoming President in 2008, and if that fails, in 2012.

And you are fooling yourself if you think anything else will happen, regardless of the result at the Rules Committee on May 31st. This is who the Clintons are, and it would be nice if some of you figured that out sooner rather than too late. Apparently only Rachel Maddow and I have figured this out.

He's right. The Clinton campaign isn't going to end until someone muscles up and ends it, probably at significant personal risk. If no one in the Democratic party is prepared to take that kind of risk, they'll have earned their comeuppance.

The Labelling of a Snitch is a Lifetime Scar

2008-05-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

You'll always be in jail, Scott, just minus the bars.

UPDATE: "Total crap"

Two Ways to Go on McCain

2008-05-27T19:12:00.000-07:00

1. McBush:

"I just had the privilege of visiting with Felicitas Rosel and Francisco Cano at their home here in Las Vegas.

Today, John McCain is having a different kind of meeting. He’s holding a fundraiser with George Bush behind closed doors in Arizona. No cameras. No reporters. And we all know why. Sen. McCain doesn’t want to be seen, hat in hand, with the president whose failed policies he promises to continue for another four years."

2. McDither:

Which works better?

Dear George

2008-05-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

Remember Scott McClellan? He's that charmingly useless White House Press Secretary who came between Ari Fleischer and Tony Snow. You know--the one who always looked like he might have to run out of the press room and throw up. Well, he's got a book out, and it seems that perception wasn't far off:

• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.

• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.

• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”

• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.

• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

This will get obviously get interesting.

UPDATE: This is hilarious:

Decrying the Bush administration’s “excessive embrace of the permanent campaign approach to governance,” McClellan recommends that future presidents appoint a “deputy chief of staff for governing” who “would be responsible for making sure the president is continually and consistently committed to a high level of openness and forthrightness and transcending partisanship to achieve unity.

A Deputy Chief of Staff for Governing? Presidents following George W. Bush should elevate the task of governing to the level of a Deputy Chief of Staff? How bold. Perhaps the president could devote, say, 20% of his time to it as well?

I picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue.

Brooks Weighs in on the Veepstakes

2008-05-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

The New York Times often dubs David Brooks the conservative liberals listen to, and if there was ever a Brooks column Democrats should read today's was it. Rather than focus on what their VP choice will bring them in the election, Brooks says both candidates should focus on a VP that will help them govern and, in so doing, help them get reelected. Here is the key grafs with regards to Obama:

If Barack Obama is elected, his chief challenge will be that he hopes to
usher in a new style of politics, but he has no real strategy for how to do
that.

He will find himself surrounded by highly partisan Democratic politicians,
committee chairmen and interest groups thrilled to finally seize power. Some of
them might have enjoyed his lofty rhetoric about change, but in practice, these
organization types have no interest in changing politics. They just want to take
the money and patronage that has been going to Republican special interests and
give it to Democratic special interests.

These entrenched Democrats are more experienced than Obama. They know how
to play the game better. The effect of their efforts will be to turn his into a
Potemkin administration filled with great speeches but without great
accomplishments or influence over legislation.

Obama will need a vice president who knows the millions of ways that power
is exercised and subverted in Washington. He’ll need someone who can be a
senior, authoritative presence in a cabinet that may range from Republican
Senator Chuck Hagel to the labor leader Andy Stern. He’ll need someone who can
supervise his young reformers and build transpartisan coalitions more
effectively than Obama has as senator.

Sam Nunn and Tom Daschle seem to fit the bill. Nunn is one of those senior
Democrats (like David Boren and Bob Kerrey) who left the Senate lamenting the
dumbed-down nature of modern politics. Daschle was more partisan as majority
leader, but he is still widely trusted and universally liked. As experienced
legislators, both could take Obama’s lofty hopes and translate them into
nitty-gritty action.

Brooks is spot on here. I think Daschle is too partisan and too similar to Obama ideologically, but maybe that's attractive to the Illinois senator.

What Would Liz Trotta Have To Do To Get Fired?

2008-05-27T00:34:00.000-07:00

Liz Trotta still has a job after this:

Looks like I picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue.

Keepin' it Civil

2008-05-26T20:23:00.001-07:00

John McCain wants Obama to take a lil' vacay:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Republican John McCain on Monday sharply criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for not having been to Iraq since 2006, and said they should visit the war zone together.

"Look at what happened in the last two years since Senator Obama visited and declared the war lost," the GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting told The Associated Press in an interview, noting that the Illinois senator's last trip to Iraq came before the military buildup that is credited with curbing violence.

"He really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time," the Arizona senator added.

My prediction? Pistols at dawn.

Hillary Clinton's Campaign is Trying to Make Your Head Explode

2008-05-26T17:09:00.001-07:00

1. So you thought Hillary Clinton invoked Robert F. Kennedy's tragic death to justify staying in the race and ought to apologize for it?

No. Noooooo. Gentle reader, why should she apologize? It is you who are wrong. She was merely teaching history: These campaigns last a long time, you see, sometimes even into June. Bobby died in June, so it's like a mnemonic device. RFK was killed in June . . . dropping out in May is far too soon!

Anyone who thinks otherwise is a villain or just out of touch with Hillary's deep affection for Senator Obama.

2. So you thought the election in Michigan wasn't going to count at all?

No. Nooooo. It should count double! According to Lanny Davis, Hillary shouldn't just get all the delegates she would have won if Michigan had held a sanctioned contest with precisely the same result; she should get half the Uncommitted delegates too. She'll end up with about 100 delegates and Obama will receive around 30. Justice!

All snark aside, this is worth making clear: If Lanny Davis had offered the pale imitation of legal reasoning that appears in his Politico column to an actual court in this country, he would probably be disbarred.

The Theory Behind the Taboo

2008-05-25T20:05:00.001-07:00

"Well, both, if we could . . .heh heh heh heh."
-- Liz Trotta, Fox News Contributor (see below)

A couple observations about the fallout from Hillary Clinton's Friday comments:

From what I could see, everyone was at first pretty well agreed that what she said was inappropriate. Absent any consideration of motives, there is a strong taboo against politicians raising the specter of political violence. That Hillary Clinton had seemed--and this is obviously hot disputed at the moment--to be explicitly making the potential for violence a part of her political calculations made it all the worse.

After the initial storm of criticism, there was obviously a felt need in the Clinton camp to defend Senator Clinton from the worst inferences being made about her. That imperative made impossible the abject apology that so many people were demanding. I think that's why the Clinton campaign settled on their current approach, which involves (a) a limited statement of regret from the candidate if anyone is offended and (b) a strong insistence that Senator Clinton had been taken out of context, has said nothing wrong, and that the Obama campaign is in some way at fault.

(a)

(b)

Some saw that as a suggestion that the same thing could happen to Obama, who leads Clinton in the race for the party nomination. The Clinton team vehemently denies that was her intent, pointing out that she was simply naming lengthy primary campaigns of the past when she mentioned Kennedy.

"She was talking about it in a historical context," Wolfson told host Bob Schieffer. "To claim that she was making any other kind of reference," he said, " is wrong. And I think some in the news media did overhype this."

The press isn't the only one to blame, he suggested.

"The Obama campaign did put out a statement almost immediately condemning the remarks," he said. "I think what the Obama campaign did on Friday was unfortunate . . . to attack Sen. Clinton's remarks without knowing fully what she had said."

Now, in a way, this is all predictable. Hillary Clinton wants to win; so does her well-paid and ambitious staff and her dedicated cadre of supporters. None of them want to see the coup de grâce of her campaign delivered as the result of a single word. So they attack the taboo: It's an innocuous comment interpreted in a pernicious way. Hillary wishes she had put it a different way, but honestly, what's the big deal?

Well, the big deal is that it leads to moments like this:

That's Fox News contributor Liz Trotta--after misspeaking--laughing approvingly about "somebody knocking off" Barack Obama (along with Osama Bin Laden). Hillary Clinton's comments, and her campaign's subsequent attempt to defend them, made that terrible moment possible on a mainstream television station. They have made the possibility of assassination a part of our discourse--a topic of normal discussion--and a predicate for mordant humor. Further, it is reasonable to fear that the normalization of this pernicious discussion will give license and tactical cover to actual extremists.

That's why the taboo exists in the first place. Because while Hillary Clinton may not mean anything by it, someone like Liz Trotta could--in effect--say "from your lips to God's ears," and a more malign listener could take the encouragement seriously. That's why politicians don't, and shouldn't, talk about the potential for political violence. It's a taboo worth preserving. Let's hope the Clinton campaign understands that.

Also, the Secret Service should make an example of Liz Trotta. This has to stop here.

UPDATE: Paul Krugman, right on cue, illustrating this unfortunate dynamic:

It is, in a way, almost appropriate that the final days of the struggle for the Democratic nomination have been marked by yet another fake Clinton scandal — the latest in a long line that goes all the way back to Whitewater.

This one, in case you missed it, involved an interview Hillary Clinton gave the editorial board of South Dakota’s Argus Leader, in which she tried to make a case for her continuing campaign by pointing out that nomination fights have often gone on into the summer. As one of her illustrations, she mentioned that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June.

It wasn’t the best example to use, but it’s absurd to suggest, as some Obama supporters immediately did, that Mrs. Clinton was making some kind of dark hint about Barack Obama’s future.

It's really not about whatever was going on inside her head.

UPDATE 2, Trotta apologizes:

Newsweek Edits Out McCain's Most Recent Cancer Surgery

2008-05-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, John McCain allowed a few reporters to view his medical records for a few hours. The AP report which emerged from that session reported that McCain had had an undisclosed surgery in February of this year--while he still had at least one rival in the GOP nominating contest:

McCain's most recent exams show a range of health issues common in aging: He frequently has precancerous skin lesions removed, and in February had an early stage squamous cell carcinoma, an easily cured skin cancer, removed. He had benign colon growths called polyps taken out during a routine colonoscopy in March.

In Newsweek magazine's version of the story, which is credited to the AP, this fact does not appear:

McCain's most recent exams show a range of health issues common in aging: He had benign colon polyps removed during a routine colonoscopy in March, growths that are common with age and that sometimes turn cancerous unless taken out.

He takes medication to keep his cholesterol in check and just switched from the controversial Vytorin that made headlines this winter to a proven standby, simvastatin.

The Vietnam veteran has degenerative arthritis from war injuries that might mean a future joint replacement.

[. . .]

The documents include mundane personal details, such as the fact that he had earwax removed earlier this year and the dermatologist showed his wife, Cindy, how to monitor possibly suspicious skin spots hidden by his waistband. Though he's known as temperamental, the doctors made a point of repeatedly writing in the documents that he was "pleasant."

Also revealed: He has occasional momentary episodes of dizziness, when he gets up suddenly. McCain first told a doctor about them in 2000 — the visit that also uncovered the melanoma — and intense testing concluded they were harmless vertigo. He didn't report any episodes at his most recent exam."

Despite recounting McCain's earwax treatment this year, Newsweek omitted any mention of the February surgery to remove a squamous cell carcinoma. Neither the AP report nor Newsweek's account has been corrected since first published.

Doppio?

2008-05-24T00:11:00.000-07:00

None dare call it elitism.

Extraordinary

2008-05-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

The impact of virulent falsehoods.

UPDATE: More evidence.

The Last Decalogue

THOU shalt have one God only; who
Would be at the expense of two?
No graven images may be
Worshipped, except the currency:
Swear not at all; for, for thy curse
Thine enemy is none the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will serve to keep the world thy friend:
Honour thy parents; that is, all
From whom advancement may befall:
Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
Do not adultery commit;
Advantage rarely comes of it:
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When it's so lucrative to cheat:
Bear not false witness; let the lie
Have time on its own wings to fly:
Thou shalt not covet, but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.

Arthur Hugh Clough

Parsley

2008-05-22T17:22:00.001-07:00

ABC News connects the dots.

An Irresponsibly Confident Tour of What Will Happen in the Next Few Months

2008-05-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

1. Hillary Clinton will dominate the next three weeks, whipping her supporters into a fervor with ever more daring theatrical and procedural gambits (and ever more legalistic/litigious ones too) to win a contest she's already lost. This sound and fury will give Obama supporters like myself high blood pressure. The outlook for Obama will be pronounced: Bad. It will signify nothing. Hillary Clinton will, formally or informally, drop out at some point.

2. Clinton's supporters will--at different rates--(a) deny it's over (look for various lawsuits to play a large role in this), get angry (misogyny!), demand her rightful place on the ticket (never happen), be sad, and come around to Obama.

3. As Clinton's supporters trickle over to him and the depressant effect of her presence on his numbers dissipates, Obama will open up big leads in states where McCain had been thought competitive. California will be the first state to move out of reach, then the Pacific Northwest, New Hampshire. Obama will lead in the rust belt, Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado. The outlook for McCain will be pronounced: Bad.

4. Two things will then happen, though their order is uncertain. (a) Barack Obama will make a Significant Gaffe, and (b)John McCain will make a show of "taking the gloves off" (they were never really on). McCain will be resurgent, and the numbers will again predict something approaching an electoral college tie.

5. Both candidates will enter their conventions and the fall campaign essentially even in the polling, though the fundamentals of the election will still favor Obama (and McCain will have Big Mo).

6. Obama will win.

It's a theory, anyway.

UPDATE: A darker view.

Bank on It.

2008-05-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

That is all.

A Beautiful Campaign

2008-05-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

“You should not have won. I had the first move. My play was perfect. The game is flawed.”

The Passion of Marc Ambinder

2008-05-22T01:06:00.000-07:00

Following the Marc Ambinder's reporting today (example) on the departure of Linda Douglass from the National Journal to join the Obama campaign, I can't help but get the sense that Marc is sort of shocked and a appalled by the turn of events. Since the Douglass news struck me as sort of epically ho-hum, I'm curious why it has provoked such a strong reaction in Ambinder. A couple thoughts drawn from years of following Ambinder's writing:

--Ambinder, like (seemingly) most journalists who have to deal with Obama's press operation on a daily basis, has tended to voice a healthy skepticism of the candidate, his appeal, his consistency, and the general width and breadth of the Obama movement. Douglass, from what little I know, tends to do more long form journalism, and thus has been insulated from whatever peculiar insipidness is poisoning the relationship between the Obama campaign and its beat reporters. (The deficiencies of the Obama press shop have been a theme of mine and Jeremy's in the past, and this whole Iran back and forth has only added to my concern about them. More on that some other day.)

--Ambinder sometimes seems to view the profession as an elevated priesthood, surveying politics from a position of intellectual and moral superiority. That may begin to explain the dislocation he senses from a colleague deciding to actually join the hurly-burly of politics.

--Ambinder's best sources this cycle seem to be emanating from the Clinton political shop and GOP opposition research; they may see profit in pushing the "liberal bias" element of the story. That element is, frankly, trumped up; people leave industries of all sorts to join political campaign and in so doing reveal personal preferences--not bias (unless one takes the farcical position that journalists are supposed to have no political opinions at all). Nevertheless, you can imagine that Ambinder--who broke this story--might start to see the theme as newsworthy after getting aggrieved and outraged emails about it from some of his most potent sources.

--Maybe he really just likes Douglass personally and doesn't want to see her move into an adversarial role.

In any case, it's an interesting example of the media getting quite exercised over a story that seems destined to cause hardly an electoral blip (I'd bet, though I've been wrong before).

(The attention Ambinder's given to this story conforms to a long held theory of mine that political coverage is often shaped by the fact that political journalists don't love politics the way sports writers love sports. This lack of enthusiasm for the subject tends to tilt their news judgment steeply toward the trivial.)

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Clinton Campaign

2008-05-21T17:42:00.000-07:00

If you didn't notice, Hillary Clinton visited Palm Beach, Dade, and Broward counties in Florida today. That's an evocative itinerary to be sure, and not one that presages a graceful resolution to the Democratic nomination fight.

Rachel Maddow:

She is sending a message that is not being received... There is nothing that she is saying that is signifying that she's getting out of this race. If the Obama people and Obama supporters believe that something organic is going to happen after another magical two week period passes, they are deluding themselves. If they want her out of the race, they're gonna have to push her. If her only way to get the nomination, if her only way to win, is to win at the convention... then it is a matter of strategic importance for Obama to figure out a way to get her out of the race even if he looks mean doing it.

As John Chait noted, Clinton and her supporters have developed a samurai-like "culture of perseverance" that holds--even when victory is no longer a possibility--that surrender is morally inferior to defeat. There will never come a time when Clinton says to herself, "Well, okay. The voters made the call." She will remain in the race because it remains in her interest to do so. Moreover, she will remain so long as she can avoid a loss of face that she would perceive as worse than conceding defeat.

It follows that no amount of niceness and courtesy will persuade Clinton to pack her bags; that's not a pleasant reality, but it's the one we face.

Congratulations

2008-05-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

Jeremy P. Jacobs, the blogfather here, is graduating from Columbia Journalism School--probably at this very moment. I wish him all the best.

I am now statutorily required to quote H.L. Mencken:

"All successful newspapermen are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else."

"Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice."

Give 'em hell, Jacobs.

VoteVets on McCain

2008-05-20T22:10:00.001-07:00

Hard-hitting.

Barack Obama Leads Hillary Clinton in Pledged Delegates and Superdelegates

2008-05-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

“If Appalachia was a country, Hillary Clinton could be President.” -Ron Reagan wins the night.

I Have to Ask, Yet Again

2008-05-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

Why is the only reporter who stands on MSNBC's election night broadcast also the only one who is pregnant?

It boggles my mind.

UPDATE: Okay, okay. Chuck Todd is on his feet too. Still, Chuck Todd is superhuman, so I think my point stands . . . so to speak.

2008-05-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

This modern world (click for larger image):

Kentucky exit poll:

Was the race of the candidate important to you?
Yes 21% (81% Clinton, 16% Obama) No 78% (61% Clinton, 35% Obama)

See also:

KY: Betting against SUSA

2008-05-20T14:56:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry, but when numbers are this stable, there's usually something wrong with them:

Clinton Obama SUSA, 3/28-30: 58 29 SUSA, 4/12-14: 62 29 SUSA, 4/26-28: 63 27 SUSA, 5/03-05: 62 28 SUSA, 5/09-11: 62 30 SUSA, 5/16-18: 62 31

And Ben Smith is reporting that turnout is skewing toward Obama's territory. There's no way he wins Kentucky, but if Obama makes it closer than--say--20 points, that'll be covered like he did win.

We'll see in a few minutes.

UPDATE: With 71% in, it's 65% Clinton to 31% Obama. That means I was wrong. I am duly chastened. I guess Kentucky folks made up their minds and just stuck with it.

John F. Kennedy: Civil Rights

2008-05-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

Golden Oldie:

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What's Up With That?

2008-05-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's May 20th, all the campaigns are required by the FEC to make their April financing disclosures by midnight. As of 5:15p, none of them have.

Here are my theories:

- Obama has a good number and wanted to save it to help counteract the negative coverage of his expected loss in Kentucky (an entire media arc that's now been totally overshadowed by the news about Ted Kennedy).

- Clinton has a bad number and wanted to shield the voters of Kentucky from knowing and Oregon of exactly how long her odds have become.

- McCain I can't figure out. He might have a bad number that he's planning to drop quietly during the election results, hoping that the KY and OR news would drown it out. He might have a good number that he wants to kick off the general election fight against Obama with. It's hard to say.

Airplane Crashes into Something Happened to a Building in Sao Paulo

2008-05-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

Just breaking now on MSNBC . . . updates as I learn more.

UPDATE: According to David Shuster, Reuters is now backing off the assertion that the cause of the large conflagration was a plane crash. In any case, they've got tv footage, and something substantial is definitely on fire in Sao Paulo.

Kennedy

2008-05-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

Word out of Mass General this afternoon is that Senator Ted Kennedy has a brain tumor. I'll update as I find out more . . .

Update 1: Here's the AP story

BOSTON -- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's doctors [sic] has a malignant brain tumor, according to his doctors.

Doctors for the Massachusetts Democrat said tests conducted after Kennedy suffered a seizure this weekend show a tumor in his left parietal lobe. His treatment will be decided after more tests but the usual course includes combinations of radiation and chemotherapy.

UPDATE 2: The more tests, I'd assume, are probably going to focus on determining whether the tumor is operable. It's an open question with a parietal lobe tumor, and they're going to have to map a lot of brain activity and circulatory structures to answer it.

UPDATE 3: The tumor has been further identified as a glioma, which is bad news. Glioma's arise from glial cells, which are the little support cells that provide nutrition to neurons, form myelin, maintain homeostasis, and handle most of the non-signaling functions in the brain. Because glia are so pervasive throughout the brain, and so intimately linked with neuronal structures, they generally won't form a tumor that can be isolated surgically. That leaves Senator Kennedy's doctors with fewer treatments options: radiation, chemotherapy, and experimental medicines.

This is all incredibly sad.

If Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) was a Democrat

2008-05-19T19:59:00.000-07:00

. . . think of all the fun Matt Drudge and Chris Matthews would have with this Washington Post Story about his wife's hair care product, Blo & Go:

[. . .] In 2004, [Mrs. Laurie] Coleman was pictured in this newspaper wearing a corset and garter -- and posing poutily in front of a four-poster bed -- all in the name of promoting her acting career. Coleman no longer is acting, she says, but "if something fun would come up, I'd pursue it."

Against the backdrop of this kind of marketing savvy, it is hard to believe that the name Blo & Go was not chosen to, at the very least, amuse. This, after all, is a world in which the term "wide stance" churns up easy chuckles.

Coleman's voice registers shock -- and dismay-- that anyone would make such a connection. "I didn't think of that," she says. And then she goes further to point out that the name wasn't even her idea. It came out of a committee. It was all in the brainstorming, during which "Freedom Styler" was rejected. And so it went: You get your hair blown out. You need a blowout. You get blown . . . out. And then you go. Bingo: "Blo & Go!"

The photo of Mrs. Coleman (this is a family blog).

Unfortunately, Norm Coleman is not a Democrat, so it's not a story.

Sen. Corker (R-TN) to TN GOP: Lay Off Obama's Wife

2008-05-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

Corker's Chief of Staff:

After the Republican National Committee damaged our campaign with their infamous ‘Call Me’ ad — which we immediately denounced — we have strongly encouraged the national party and state parties to absolutely refrain from getting involved in negative personal campaigning, and we have asked the state party to remove their You Tube ad from their Web site.

Republicans will be in much better shape if we spend our time focused on issues like reducing federal spending, lowering the cost of health care and creating a coherent energy policy.

There's some potential here for an incredibly schismatic campaign on the Republican side, where each candidate runs--to some extent--against Bush and the hacks at party headquarters, McCain runs against the Republican Congress, and most members run against McCain.

For The Record

2008-05-19T08:52:00.000-07:00

The notoriously thorough and evidence-based Bill Kristol writes in today's New York Times:

On Tuesday night, while the G.O.P. Congressional candidate was losing in a Mississippi district George Bush carried in 2004 by 25 points, Barack Obama was being trounced in the West Virginia Democratic primary — by 41 points. I can’t find a single recent instance of a candidate who ultimately became his party’s nominee losing a primary by this kind of margin.

Well.

Arkansas

Huckabee 61% (136,216)
McCain 20% (45,563)

Utah

Romney 90% (255,218)
McCain 5% (15,264)

Colorado (caucus)

Romney 60% (33,288)
McCain 19% (10,621)

Wyoming (caucus)

Romney 67%
McCain 0%

Look harder!

Rube Goldberg Politics . . . or How John McCain Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb

2008-05-18T21:42:00.000-07:00

(A) John McCain has this lobbyist problem, which (B) leads a subtle-minded McCain spokesman to raise Barack Obama's Bill Ayers problem, which (C) provokes a liberal blogger into bringing up McCain's own domestic terrorism problem. If you haven't heard, McCain voted against a federal ban on bombing abortion clinics.

All in all, quite a Sunday evening.

UPDATE: And the hits just keep on coming . . .

They Have Rallies

2008-05-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

75,000 at the Portland waterfront.

Slightly fewer at the Maker's Mark distillery--but kudos on the choice of location.

The Dirty South

2008-05-18T14:25:00.001-07:00

Another story* emerged on Friday that's likely to get less attention than it deserves: Obama is trying to open up a front in the South.

Ambinder:

Did you know that a half a million African Americans in Georgia are eligible to vote but haven't registered? The Obama campaign knows this. And they plan to register these voters by November, campaign folks say.

Here's a kos diarist outlining a "10-10-10" strategy for Obama to make Mississippi competitive. And here's kos himself suggesting that Texas is in play based on Noriega's strength in his race against Cornyn.

To be clear, this is the foundation of the Republican electoral coalition (and the political promise of an African-American nominee). If a small cadre of Deep South states (or Texas itself) actually goes for Obama, he'll win in a landslide (see for yourself). If the Republicans are forced to squander their limited resources this year keeping the south solid--a more likely scenario--Obama should be able to rout them in the more traditional swing states with the brute force of his money. If voter registration numbers in the South start expanding dramatically over the summer, maybe Republican donors should start thinking about 2012.

__________________________________________________

*To recap, the US announced on Friday plans to build a big permanent prison in Afghanistan--"a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come." That's a big story. But the Friday Effect and Ted Kennedy's health scare totally swallowed it.

UPDATE:
To expand on the significance of the Georgia initiative . . . (this gets a bit technical)

Start with two fairly safe assumptions: (1) John McCain will not bring as many white evangelical voters to the polls as George W. Bush did, (2) Barack Obama will bring more African American voters to the polls than John Kerry did.

George W. Bush's margin over John Kerry in Georgia?
548,105.
Bush: 1,914,254
Kerry: 1,366,149
Total Votes: 3,280,403

African American turnout in Georgia in 2004?
25% of the electorate (approx. 820,000 total votes: 88% Kerry, 12% Bush)

White Evangelical turnout in Georgia in 2004?
35% of the electorate (approx. 1.1 million total votes: 84% Bush, 16% Kerry)

Imagine that (all other things being equal) Obama registers enough African American voters to get 300,000 more of them to come to the polls (60% of the goal). You'd have about 3.6 million total Georgia voters--31% (1,120,000) of whom are African American. That's a voting bloc that is just as strong numerically as the white evangelicals of 2004. And Barack Obama is going to win more than 84% of African Americans.

If Obama won 95% of African Americans in that new electorate, he would have improved on Kerry's performance by about 340,000 votes. John McCain, meanwhile, would get about 42,000 fewer African American votes than George Bush did.

So in this optimistic (but, I think, plausible) scenario, we'd see a swing toward Obama of about 380,000 votes within the African American demographic. That alone would narrow the whopping 19% Republican margin (548,000 votes) to a nervous 4.7% (168,000 votes). In that case, McCain has to scramble to keep virtually all of George Bush's other voters or find voters to replace them. If none of those Dubya voters defect to Obama, McCain can't afford to have more than 168,000 (15% of white evangelicals) stay home. If none of the Dubya voters stay home, McCain can't afford to have more than 84,000 (7% of white evangelicals) defect to Obama.

Remember: John McCain is not popular among evangelicals or Bush loyalists (see page 2); both groups went strongly for Huckabee. Those groups are a big part of the reason why McCain lost the Georgia primary.

McCain could probably manage to hold Georgia under the circumstances I laid out, but it would be tough--a real county-by-county battle that requires a lot of money, a lot of hand-holding, and a lot of favors. A battle like that would necessarily take dollars, time, and chits away from traditional swing states.

The upshot of all this is that if you see Obama announce around convention time that he's on his way to registering 350,000 new African American voters in Georgia, then Georgia--Georgia!--is a battleground state.

What's Tom Davis Up To?

2008-05-18T13:24:00.000-07:00

Representatives who aren't running for reelection tend not to write 21-page memos (pdf) about how the GOP needs to reform. They tend not to find their way into ~1000 news stories inspired by the results of a by-election in Mississippi. Davis already declined to challenge Mark Warner in the Senate race. Does he want the State House in 2010? Is he looking at the White House in 2012 and needs an electoral perch to run from?

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It's irresponsible not to.

Another One Gone and Another One Gone . . .

2008-05-18T12:39:00.000-07:00

Another one bites the dust:

Former Rep. Thomas G. Loeffler, a Texan who is among the McCain campaign’s most important advisers and fundraisers, has resigned as a national co-chair over lobbying entanglements, a Republican source told Politico on Sunday.

It’s at least the fifth lobbying-related departure from the campaign in a week.

Loeffler, in addition to being entangled as a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia, appears to have lied about whether he ever lobbied McCain in that capacity:

Loeffler last month told a reporter "at no time have I discussed my clients with John McCain." But lobbying disclosure records reviewed by NEWSWEEK show that on May 17, 2006, Loeffler listed meeting McCain along with the Saudi ambassador to "discuss US-Kingdom of Saudi Arabia relations."

This all feeds into MoveOn's campaign to get McCain to fire chief strategist Charlie Black.

From a technical standpoint, that's a very well executed ad. That said, I question the overall electoral value of making McCain fire a bunch of his guys. Is this really going to move voters or is it just a matter of some (well deserved) score-settling?

Still, it's hard to deny that the drumbeat of these stories has the McCain campaign rattled and seems to be bearing fruit.

(Via Hilzoy, Yglesias)

Pushmi - Pullyu

2008-05-17T13:32:00.001-07:00

As this week comes to a close, it's worth noting that John McCain intended to spend it trying to claim to the mantle of bipartisanship for himself. As McCain said on the morning of President Bush's Knesset speech:

"I'm not interested in partisanship that serves no other purpose than to gain a temporary advantage over our opponents. This mindless, paralyzing rancor must come to an end,"

And on the same day, you have the President launching partisan attacks on the floor of a foreign legislature, and White House aides making leaks like this one to Ed Henry:

"While the president didn't name names, administration officials are privately acknowledging this was a shot at Barack Obama and other Democrats."

I think that highlights what a strange moment the Republican party is in right now. The Republican president feels comfortable stepping on the Republican nominee's message and dragging him in a far more partisan direction. And the Republican nominee ends up following that path:

'It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don't have enemies. But that's not the world we live in. And until Sen. Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe,'' McCain said in a speech to the National Rifle Association in Louisville, Ky.

Lord, give me chastity and bipartisanship, but not yet.

McPatriotism: Seinfeld Edition

2008-05-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

How Important Will Independent Voters Be?

2008-05-17T10:36:00.001-07:00

I try to answer that question in my latest story at The Washington Independent. Enjoy.

Veepstakes Continues

2008-05-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

MSNBC has breaks down an article in National Journal this weekend that lays out possible Obama VP's. Here they are:

-- The Dream Ticket: Hillary Clinton
-- The Targeted Pick: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine
-- Reinforce the Message (regarding change): Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius
-- Balancing the Ticket (with Washington experience): Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn
-- Out of the Box: GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel

My take: I think Clinton is still a real long shot, although the CW seems to coming around on the idea of a unity ticket the longer she stays in the race. Webb is too undisciplined; he can't play second fiddle to anyone and would have a hard time sticking to the campaign message (trust me on this, I covered Webb for a year and the reasons why he would be a poor VP choice are the reasons I like him). Sebelius is too boring and brings nothing. Biden has some of the same problems as Webb, though he is more experienced. But he too brings little electorally.

Strickland and Kaine would be beef up Obama's religious credentials. Kaine was also one of Obama's first backers, he introduced him at the Virginia JJ dinner what seems like years ago. And Nunn would bring experience.

What is most interesting about the MSNBC post is how many of the reader comments pick Hagel. Hagel! I have a hard time thinking Obama will pick Hagel, who is just simply not liked by his colleagues (or his staff for that matter). I see the symbolism, but I would be shocked.