Black Box Report

Apparently the waters are finally warm enough. After almost months of speculation, teasing and pseudo-campaigning, Fred Thompson has decided he'll announce his candidacy Wednesday, September 6. Why next Wednesday? Oh, no reason, really. It certainly wouldn't have anything to do with this recent editorial from the conservative New Hampshire Union Leader:

FRED THOMPSON has flirted from afar with Republican voters for long enough. It's time for him to accept a date. And there is no better first date than the New Hampshire Republican Party's presidential debate on Sept. 5.
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If Thompson announces before the debate, New Hampshire voters will expect him to be at the University of New Hampshire with the other announced candidates. A no-show will be counted here as a snub.

If Thompson waits until after the debate to make his announcement, it will appear to some as if he timed the announcement just to avoid the New Hampshire debate. That would give his foes the chance to say he is either not serious about running for the nomination or is too unprepared to be considered a credible candidate.

Well, there's your answer, Union Leader. It's probably safe to say that's one newspaper endorsement ol' Fred won't get.

But I'm sure that's just a coincidence. Just like this rather convenient series of dates regarding ol' Fred's campaign finances:

It's really all about money:

- By waiting until September 6th, Thompson buys himself 15 days to officially declare his candidacy with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Fast forward to September 21.

- Then, the Thompson campaign has ten more days to officially register his campaign committee with the FEC. That magical date is October 1.

- By waiting until October 1 to be an official candidate, Thompson is not required to submit any disclosure papers until January 31, 2008. That is AFTER the caucuses in Iowa and Nevada, and the primaries in SC, FL, NH and WY.
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Republican primary voters will be forced to choose their candidate without the benefit of seeing who Thompson's donors are. And you can bet it will be a hodge-podge of special interests from all over the political map.

Ol' Fred may be ready for his closeup, but it won't be in New Hampshire. And his donors won't be ready for their closeups until next year. But again, these are just random coincidences...It just happened to take this long for Fred to test the waters, and to finally put a jamb on the revolving door that is his campaign:

Fred's campaign will be going forward with the third spokesperson in as many months, which is not exactly helping to fight the rumors of a campaign gone amok.

I don;t know about "amok." It sounds like Fred calculated his announcement pretty carefully.

Fellow GOP Senators Norm Coleman and presidential candidate John McCain has called for Larry Craig's resignation. So has Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra. Republican senate leadership even stripped him of his committee posts. The GOP is wasting no time responding to this new scandal, having learned their lesson from dragging their feet in the Mark Foley scandal last year. Or have they?

If 2006's lessons had really taught the GOP to "respond with lightning speed" to scandals, Sen. David Vitter would have faced real scorn after his prostitution scandal and Sen. Ted Stevens would have been isolated after FBI agents raided his house. But that clearly didn't happen.

Clearly not. Because what we have here is a double standard:

I can imagine distinguishing between these cases, but I would think that any difference would tend to cut in favor of Craig rather than against him, since paying prostitutes for sex is a real crime and it's still unclear to me what it is Craig's guilty of -- he mostly seems to have been brought up on charges of "being gay in the Midwest."

But maybe it's not about the double standard, or homophobia. Maybe it IS about standing on principle - political principle:

Louisiana's governor is a Democrat, and Idaho's is a Republican. Craig resigning would mean a Republican incumbent going into the 2008 election; Vitter resigning would mean another Democratic Senator. So no conservative...should get credit for standing on principle for demanding that Craig resign, and that goes triple if they haven't made the same call for Vitter.

But that won’t happen. Ever. Why? Because that would require the rightwing moralists to put their money where their mouths are:

The only kind of "morality" that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality. That is why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery: because anti-gay moralism costs virtually all of its supporters nothing (since that is a moral prohibition that does not constrain them), while heterosexual moral deviations -- from divorce to adultery to sex outside of marriage -- are rampant among the Values Voters faithful and thus removed from the realm of condemnation. Hence we have scads of people sitting around opposing same-sex marriage because of their professed belief in "Traditional Marriage" while their "third husbands" and multiple step-children and live-in girlfriends sit next to them on the couch.

For the party of family values, the defenders of "traditional marriage", being gay trumps adultery, divorce, even pre-marital sex.

It has to. If it didn't, they'd hardly have any presidential candidates left

And so the double standard continues, and there seems to be only one question left regarding the sad tale of a closeted gay senator from a red state:

Will he jump, or will he be pushed?

With the rumors of Sen. Larry Craig's impending resignation now reaching deafening levels, it appears he's been given an ultimatum. Pull the trigger yourself, or get fragged by your own party:

This is big: Republican sources are telling CNN that the Republican National Committee was all set to release a statement calling on Larry Craig to resign.

But the RNC held back, these sources say, because they'd gotten reliable indications that the Senator was genuinely considering stepping down himself.

By threatening to release such a statement, and more to the point, by leaking word of such a statement and leaking word that the Senator is considering resigning himself, the RNC is actively pushing one of its own senior Senators out of office, basically sealing the deal on Craig's fate.

The good Dr. Taylor notes the speed and manner in which this push has developed is anything but business as usual:

Even when party hierarchies want someone to resign, they usually don't go public, relying rather on back channels and public pressure. The vehemence here is therefore surprising. Heck, the GOP establishment stuck with Mark Foley for longer than this.

Even Captain Ed doesn't think this passes the smell test:

Others serving in Congress at the moment have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors of more import than disorderly conduct without being forced to resign. If morality and credibility are at issue, why isn't Vitter being held to that standard? It's either that Louisiana's Democratic governor would appoint a Democrat in his place, or that Vitter's transgressions involved heterosexual sex and therefore are less objectionable.

...or a little of both. That and Craig's guilty plea gives everyone sufficient cover. A beard, if you will. Finally, Hot Air wonders why Criag didn't just quit earlier and save them the embarrassment:

Sounds like it was John Ensign, head of the Republican Senate re-election team, and the RNC hitting the gong in tandem that sent him off. Although he would have certainly announced next month anyway that he wasn't going to run again, so I'm not sure why he didn't just quit straightaway at the presser two days ago. Pride, I guess.

Just not gay pride.

One of these things is not like the other. In July, the White House's interim Iraq report reported 8 out of 18 benchmarks met by the Iraq government, an outcome that you would have to be generous to grade as a D-minus. But in a draft report from the independent, non-partisan Government Accountability Office that was recently leaked to the Washington Post , only 3 of those 18 benchmarks have been fully met. That’s what you call an unmitigated F. This is what it looks like when you take off the rose-colored glasses:

The point of the surge, you'll recall, was to actually reduce violence in Iraq enough to allow the government to begin working functionally. As crazy as the idea obviously was, that was the effect it intended to have. What's happened instead is that the strategy didn't work at all (a fact the American public very obviously has a right to know) and no amount of hiding the information helped made the strategy any less of a failure.

Violence against US troops is down, but violence against Iraqi citizens is as bad as ever. And then there's the violence they're not even counting:

50 people died in clashes in Karbala in the South between the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi Army. These militias represent the two largest Shi'a political parties in the South...This will have no impact on the President's measures of violence...The military's numbers don't include what is going on in the South because Shi'a on Shi'a violence is not considered sectarian.

Sectarian, no. But deadly nonetheless. Now, that might seem disingenuous, leaving out data like that when trying to present a realistic view of the situation in Iraq, but as we can see from the leaked GAO report, the administration doesn't seem to be interested in "realistic". See, there are good leaks, like last week's NIE report that had its language softened by Gen. Petraeus to take the edge off. Then there are bad leaks, like the GAO draft:

The Post...explains why someone leaked a draft copy of the report to them: the leaker was afraid it would get watered down before final publication and wanted to make sure that someone knew what the GAO really thinks. Considering what happens to most reports that go through the DoD wringer, I'd say that shows considerable foresight.

And the watering down has already begun.

They say bad news can make it halfway around the world before good news has the time to put its pants on. Hence the administration’s efforts to tie up the bad news and hide it in the basement. But stamping it down in one spot just means it will pop up somewhere else. And so, in more bad news for the rose-colored glasses set, yesterday the Pentagon announced there are so many disagreements with the level of progress in Iraq that they will not present a unified consensus report to the President next month. Seems they don't all want to participate in the empty happy talk:

Mark it down. August 29, 2007. That's the day the Pentagon announced it was done being responsible for Mr. Bush's waste of lives, time, and money in Iraq. Tonight, the Defense Department has essentially told the President, "Thanks for the war, George, but it's all you from here on out, buddy."

So things may look bleak, but I'm sure throwing another $200 billion at the problem will make everything right. We're spending over $3 billion a week as it is...we've spent over $6.5 million since I started writing this post.

Good thing there’s nothing else worthwhile we could be spending $456,000,000 on:

I can’t get accurate numbers for what has been spent and will be spent eventually to rebuild the Gulf Coast, but as of an hour or so ago, the National Priorities Project estimated we’ve spent $456,278,478,000 in Iraq (it’s hard to get an accurate estimate because the numbers mount so rapidly every minute…).

Can’t help wondering how much farther along the rebuilding would be, how much more could be spent to improve public education, insure the 43 million Americans without health insurance, ad nauseum if those bucks were being spent here.

Great legacy you’re leaving, George.

$447,340,069,278 spent on Iraq at the time of this post!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Because no one could have predicted the Bush administration would screw up the reconstruction in Iraq the Gulf Coast.

None of the 115 "critical priority projects" identified by city officials has been completed.
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The delays have affected the poor the most — those dependent on government assistance to rebuild their lives. While middle- and upper-class neighborhoods have rebuilt using private insurance and contacts, residents of low-income areas such as the Lower 9th Ward and Holy Cross — roughly 20,000 of them — for the most part remain scattered throughout the region, their return uncertain.
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The flooding that began after Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005, delivered an estimated $150 billion worth of damage to the Gulf Coast region, making it the worst disaster in U.S. history. Of the $116 billion appropriated by Congress to Gulf Coast recovery, $34 billion has been earmarked for long-term rebuilding. But less than half of that has made its way through federal checks and balances to reach municipal projects.

Throughout the Gulf Coast, residents are asking why their government — at every level — hasn't done more to streamline the process and bring more rebuilding dollars to the region.

Scenes of the continued plight of New Orleans and other stricken areas of the Gulf Coast are so awful, so stomach-wrenching that you almost have to turn away, unable to cope with the sense of such complete devastation. And for two years many have. And in that gap of attention not paid, where we thought perhaps the government would make good on its commitment to do what it takes, little has happened save for the predictable:

Awash in corruption, cronyism and incompetence, the reconstruction effort is a mess. Billions of money designated to the effort is not getting to those in need -- 42% of funds set aside for rebuilding and relief has not even been spent. The federal H2B "guestworker" visa program was set up for employers to hire people for the rebuilding effort. Because of the lack of oversight, abuse of workers, kidnapping and even modern-day slavery is occuring on the Gulf Coast.

And when the political cronies and hacks the administration sent to rebuild New Orleans aren't rifling the pockets of a dying city, they're making things worse:

That these BushCo hacks allowed all those Americans to suffer and die in New Orleans - and then rezoned the entire area to push out the survivors in favor of high-end developers - well, that tells you everything you need to know about their character.

No, you also need to know THIS about the conservative character:

I really feel for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. But the bottom line is that they were living off of the government before the hurricane, they looked to the government to evacuate them, they looked to the government to shelter them in the interim, and they are still looking to the government for help. Isn’t it time for the victims of Katrina to help themselves?
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It is a matter of attitude. Many of the victims of Katrina were dependent on the government before the hurricane and they still are. These people will never amount to anything because they can do nothing on their own. At least not unless the government tells or shows them how.

I like to consider myself mostly immune from some of the more craven points of view from rightwing blogs. But every now and then I come across something that just leaves me gobsmacked and speechless. Words can't describe how disgusting I find that sentiment. The ones I have aren't suitable for television, or this blog. Nevermind the phony sympathy, or the racist referense to "these people"; in quoting a Denver Post article for the source of his poor-bashing, he makes a blatant contradiction that displays a stunning ignorance (emphasis mine):

As for the displaced, they are still waiting—looking to the government for help.

Private citizens, not the government, deserved the credit, they said - a source of grim humor among those laboring to mend the neighborhood.

“Of course, we should also thank George Bush, Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin,” resident Robert Counce said sarcastically as a recent meeting of the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association wrapped up.

Those damn poor, leeching off of the benevolent largesse of the government - even though they are the only ones actually getting anything accomplished. It IS a matter of attitude - those who are trying to prevent the wholesale abandonment of huge stretches of New Orleans for the sole crime of being poor have the right attitude.

Mr. Charles Wilson of The Right State - yours sucks.

But this is what we can expect from those who disguise they're war on the poor by advocating less government:

The tragic lesson of Katrina is what will happen when men and women who openly despise our government -- who brag they plan to weaken it until they can drown it in a bathtub -- are allowed to govern… Choose your leaders wisely; these neo-GOP idiots couldn't run a rib-joint, let alone the United States of America. And sooner or later, given the chance, it will be your town they drown in the bathtub.

"Less government" = less services and less protection for those who have less.

I don't know how much of this conservative government's help and sympathy the N.O.'s 9th Ward can take.

...has become a loud hum.

Scott Reed, a Republican strategist, was at a dinner in Philadelphia on Monday night when his cellphone and Internet pager began beeping like crazy. Only later did he learn why. His party was buzzing with news of a sex scandal involving a Republican United States senator — again.
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“The real question for Republicans in Washington is how low can you go, because we are approaching a level of ridiculousness,” said Mr. Reed, sounding exasperated in an interview on Tuesday morning. “You can’t make this stuff up. And the impact this is having on the grass-roots around the country is devastating. Republicans think the governing class in Washington are a bunch of buffoons who have total disregard for the principles of the party, the law of the land and the future of the country.”

Well, at least we agree on something...

You can almost hear Republican politicians, donors and strategists muttering to themselves over that extra drink, "It wasn't supposed to be like this..."

The irony is, this was supposed to be a year of recovery for the GOP. Last year was a humiliating fiasco, with Abramoff, Cunningham, Ney, Foley, Harris, DeLay, Wedlon, and Burns (among others). The voters awarded Dems both chambers, Republicans learned a valuable lesson, and 2007 would help the GOP take a long look in the mirror and get back on track.

Uh-huh. Wrong track. Poor Mel Martinez.

The 2006 mid-terms were supposed to be as bad as it got for the GOP. The "Culture of Corruption" hung 'round their necks, they took their lumps, lost both houses and had nowhere to go but up, or so it seemed. But with multiple sex scandals, ethics committee investigations, FBI investigations, shady land deals, Abramoff links, oil company ties...the hits just keep on coming.

So what's the tally this year so far? Well, there is, of course, 1) Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) and 2) Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) with their sex scandals (the attempted restroom tryst and numerous successful hotel room trysts, respectively).

But then there's the much greater toll of just plain ol' corruption. 3) Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and 4) Rep. Don Young (R-AK) are under investigation for their ties to the oil company Veco (though that's just the tip of the iceberg for Young). 5) Reps. Tom Feeney (R-FL) and 6) John Doolittle (R-CA) have found themselves the focus of a reinvigorated Abramoff investigation (though Abramoff is in prison, he's still busily cooperating). 7) Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) had his house raided. 8) The FBI is investigating Rep. Gary Miller's (R-CA) land deals.

And then there's 9) Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) whose land deal with a businessman and campaign contributor became such a scandal that she finally just sold back the plot of land.

(Update: Thanks to a TPM Reader for pointing out that I omitted 12) Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and 13) Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) in my original round-up. Both are facing ethics committee investigations for their calls last October to former U.S. attorney David Iglesias about his office's investigation of a state Democrat.)
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And there are a couple holdovers from 2006, of course; scandal figures who've stuck around and managed to keep a relatively low profile. 10) Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) is still apparently under federal investigation. And 11) Rep. Ken Calvert's (R-CA) land deals are still winning scrutiny.

And let's not forget Rep. Bob "$20" Allen (R-FL Restroom).

Of course, the immediate rejoinder you get from conservatives when you start reading them the litany of GOP scandals is "But what about William Jefferson?!?!? Huh? What about him?" I admit, the first time someone used this clever tactic on me I was at a complete loss. "My god," I thought, "my theory of serial Republican corruption is destroyed! Lo! And I am hoisted on my own petard!" Then another nanosecond passed and I pointed out the bloody obvious - one congressman does not a "Democratic Culture of Corruption" make.

But just for the record, let's spell it out for those who insist on comparing apples to Fabergé Eggs. We'll stick to just the Senate and the House for this comparison of Republican Vs Democratic scandals (we could include state & local politicians and national party apparatchiks, but you don't wanna go there).

So first, the Republicans:

2006

Ex-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) (Abramoff lobbying scandal - Retired)
Ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) (Bribery / lobbying scandal- Convicted)
Ex-Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) (Abramoff lobbying scandal - Convicted)
Ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) (Sex scandal - Retired)
Ex-Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) (Cunningham lobbying scandal – Defeated in re-election bid)
Ex-Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) (Lobbying scandal – Defeated in re-election bid)
Ex-Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) (Abramoff lobbying scandal – Defeated in re-election bid)

2007

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) (Ethics investigation connected to the removal of New Mexico U.S. Attorney Iglesias)
Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) (Ethics investigation connected to the removal of New Mexico U.S. Attorney Iglesias)
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) (Cunningham lobbying scandal)
Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) (Abramoff lobbying scandal)
Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) (Abramoff lobbying scandal)
Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) (Crooked land deal)
Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA) (Crooked land deal)
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) (Payoffs from Veco Oil Co.)
Rep. Don Young (R-AK) (Payoffs from Veco Oil Co.; numerous other scandals)
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) (Crooked land deal)
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) (More Crooked land deals)
Rep. Bob Allen (R-FL) (Sex scandal)
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) (Sex scandal)
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) (Sex scandal)

And now...The Democrats:

Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) (Bribery, Fraud)

Shall we count again?

21-1

I hope that was enlightening.

But it's not just the houses of Congress that the steady drip, drip, drip of Republican scandals is threatening, but the big enchilada as well:

Stolberg goes on to list the GOP operatives for Giuliani (Thomas Ravenel, state treasurer of South Carolina, cocaine), McCain (Bob Allen, state representative in Florida, soliciting sex in a public restroom - what, you think Craig was first?) and Romney (Larry Craig, Idaho, ditto) who have had to quit in disgrace.

The context here is a year and a race where the GOP is hardly excited about their prospects.

Hardly excited? Try despondently morose, or clinically depressed. This is what happens when one party constantly lays claim to the moral high ground ("Idaho-lier than thou"), legislating that morality it pays lip service to while many of its members stand hip-deep in the muck. The GOP can't win without the evangelical right - especially after Rove went all in on that particular gambit - and it's an understatement to say Republicans have been disappointing them as of late:

Dennis Hastert's former press secretary, John Feehery...says that "(if) we had a coach, the coach would take us in the locker room and scream at us."...

John, you're wrong. If you had a team performing this badly, the coach would throw out the team and get players who weren't so obviously unfit to wear the jersey.

Well, look at it this way...It can’t get any worse for the GOP.

Can it?

Who will be the unlucky politico to step into 'Fredo's shoes? Will it be......

Michael Chertoff?

Orrin Hatch?

Interim AG Paul Clement?

OK, maybe forget Chertoff...

What about Patrick Fitzgerald?

...yeah, yeah, I know. Maybe James Comey, then?

PROS: Instant credibility with Senate Democrats who view the Republican Comey as a straight-shooter who isn’t afraid to stand up to the White House.

CONS: Instant credibility with Senate Democrats who view the Republican Comey as a straight-shooter who isn’t afraid to stand up to the White House.

......

......

......Joe Lieberman?

Six and a half long years, and some people are still sitting, like Linus in the pumpkin patch, awaiting the arrival of Bush the Uniter. Like the Great Pumpkin, some people are just sure that the man who-as-governor-of-Texas-knew-how-to-reach-across-the-aisle-and-work-with-Democrats will suddenly emerge, serene, and right the wrongs that his incompetenty, unworthy staffers have brought upon his house and the country as a whole. Scooter's commutation and the offers of private, off-record interviews in place of sworn testimony fade away like distant memories, and the eternal optimism of bipartisan compromise dances like sugarplums in the head of sleepy-eyed journalists who dare to dream.

With the recent resignation of his longtime friend and enabler Alberto Gonzales, it's time for a new Attorney General. Will the president pick someone with bipartisan support?

Will he pick a non-divisive nominee who will sail through senate confirmations and begin to restore trust in the Justice Department?

Will pigs fly?

There's simply no reason in the world to believe he's anxious to turn over a new leaf. Bush doesn't want to "salvage his relationship with Capitol Hill"; he wants to smear his critics and bury his enemies. He likes the "partisan tension."

With every re-shuffling of the deck chairs, with each resignation of another scandal-ridden or incompetent staffer, some people still have the optimism that this time, Bush will appoint someone qualified, impartial, a true servant of the public.

Other people, however, have stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy:

Everytime something bad happens with this administration we get new articles saying...Bush now has some great opportunity to do...something less bad...

I used to do this too. I'd wrack my brain trying to think what the best thing for the president to do would be and then I'd write it up as a kind of advice piece. I don't do that anymore. I try to learn from experience.

So what kind of person will Bush appoint? Red State has just the solution: Same car, same engine...but now with racing stripes!

With the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the President has an opportunity to do something with the justice department. The President needs to appoint someone who believes strongly in the foreign surveillance program, he needs to appoint someone who will go into the justice department, not with a new tone, but someone that will clean house of the endless career bureaucrats that been undermining the administration.

John Cole calls this the radical, outside-the-box-thinking that wins awards:

Why didn’t I think of that? The solution to the problems at Justice is clearly to insert more “yes-men” and some more cronyism. Nevermind, I know why I didn’t think of that. I’m not a blithering idiot.

I think we can safely rule out a Fitzgerald or Comey. Ditto anyone outside the administration, because who wants to leave a cushy job in the private sector to jump on this sinking ship? It won't be someone new, an up-and-comer; they'd either not want the job in the hope of not ruining their young careers, or they'd be so into the kool-aid that they'd never pass the confirmation hearing.

That leaves someone already in, tangentially at least, the administration. Someone who's made their bones; someone who has likely served the president in some past piece of political skullduggery; someone the president can trust to throw themselves on their sword for him, like Gonzales, should the need arise. Someone with a John Roberts veneer of reasonability, but a Bush team player through and through.

In other words, the guy who they've already got his foot in the door:

You might say he's... a conservative. Primarily a legal scholar an attorney in private practice, Clement clerked for two of the most conservative judges in the country, Lawrence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He came to the solicitor-general's office in 2001 as the deputy SG on the strength of serving on John Aschroft's Senate staff, and for helping construct the winning argument in Bush v. Gore.
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Indeed, at his Senate confirmation hearing in 2005 to become solicitor general, Clement received high praise from leading Bush-administration inquistor Russ Feingold (D-WI) for his "superb" 2003 defense of Feingold's campaign-finance reform before the Supreme Court. Feingold vouched for Clement's "professionalism and integrity" even when the two men disagreed.
.......
Clement's views of the president's wartime powers appear to be broad. He's argued that the administration can hold American citizens as enemy combatants, without guarantees of trial. (When asked by hyper-conservative Judge J. Michael Luttig if he really was prepared to say the U.S. is a "battlefield" in the war on terrorism, Clement replied, "I can say that, and I can say it boldly.")

Ladies and Gentlemen, my pick prediction for the permanent replacement of Alberto Gonzales.

[UPDATE]

Memories... like the corners of my mind...

If he did nothing wrong, why did he plead guilty?

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men’s public restroom, according to an arrest report obtained by Roll Call Monday afternoon.

Craig’s arrest occurred just after noon on June 11 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the Hennepin County District Court. He paid more than $500 in fines and fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed. He also was given one year of probation with the court that began on Aug. 8.

Let me be clear, Sen. Larry Craig's sexuality is not, or shouldn't be, an issue here. However, his rank hypocrisy is fair game:

The schadenfreude runs very deep here; a man who has consistently voted against basic civil rights for gays and lesbians while being, himself, a closeted gay man is a man whom it's hard to muster much sympathy for.

In a series of events reminiscent of recent GOP laughing stock Bob Allen (R-FL Restroom), Craig tried the classic "don't you know who I am?" gambit, with similar results:

Here's what they all have in common; They pretend it didn't happen. They try to buy people off to shut them up. They cry that they've been victimized. And then they continue to persecute everyone else by:

Voting YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage.
Voting NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes.
Voting NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation.
Voting YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage.
Voting NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation.

They generously fund the coffers of the vice squads and the surveillance creeps— the very people who later catch them in the act.

Pam's House Blend was on this story early yesterday, and reminds us of the pitfalls that Bob Allen faced when confronted with his inadvertant outing:

He pleaded guilty, folks. This was kept under wraps for some time. The question is, will he take pointers from Florida State Rep Bob Allen when he discusses his public foray into man-on-man action for the press? It's all a big misunderstanding, you know. I wonder if there were any scary black men or lightning storms near the airport.

Despite Allen's failure to convince anyone that what happened didn't happen, Craig seems intent on following the same script:

If Craig's actions in the restroom were misconstrued and he was not involved in any inappropriate conduct, as he said in a statement Monday, then why did he plead guilty?

Craig says, in hindsight, he should not have pleaded guilty and "should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter." On the surface, it seems implausible that any educated professional — much less an elected official — would face criminal proceedings without hiring an attorney.
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Why did Craig not come forward after the June 11 arrest? Did he honestly think this would never become public?

Maybe he should have stuck with the "threatening black men" defense. AMERICAblog notes that Craig's hypocrisy doesn't just extend to his legislation:

Craig hates himself, and that is sad, no matter how you slice it. His explanations for the events in Minnesota are so ridiculous, they defy logic and credibility…..

By putting out such ridiculous statements, Craig makes it obvious - he'd rather be thought of as an idiot than be thought of as gay. He hates his own orientation that much. How truly sad.

Now, for most people, hypocrisy may be reason to vote someone out of office, but grounds for resignation? If we held every politician to that standard we'd have no one running the country. Unless of course you're part of the rightwing base - or it's prominent spokesman Hugh Hewitt - and you've just let slip that your Big Tent Republican party isn't quite that big:

Senator Craig Should Resign

Today. I realize that I did not say this about Senator Vitter, but Craig's behavior is so reckless and repulsive that an immediate exit is required.

I don't believe him. Read the statement by the arresting officer. He must think the people of Idaho are idiots.

But even if I did believe him, this would make his judgment too flawed to be in the United States Senate in a time of war. He has to go.

So, commit a felony by patronizing a hooker and no resignation is necessary, as long as the sex is heterosexual. But soliciting anonymous gay sex, no cash involved, just a msidemeanor? Un-acc-eptable. The Republican party is rife with the H-word, and this time I don't mean hypocrisy:

If one compares Vitter and Craig, and decides that the latter is guilty of "repulsive" behavior that requires an "immediate exit" because this is a "time of war," it sounds an awful lot like homophobia.

No, it sounds exactly like homophobia. Just keep your eyes on the ones who complain about the gay the loudest.

I had almost given up...

I was convinced Alberto Gonzales could eat a cat on live television and the President would claim the feline was depressed and had committed suicide.

Not since Don Rumsfeld set the bar for how inept, mendacious and generally out of touch you could be for the longest stretch of time and not get fired from the Bush adminstration has there been a public servant so stubbornly clinging to office without reason. Rumsfeld set the bar high, and while Albert Gonzales may not have been a poet like Rumsfeld, when it came to being the totally wrong guy for the job, no one did "incompetent" like 'Berto.

There was really no way for his critics to defend him, short of sticking their fingers in their ears and repeating "La-La-La-La-La-La-La-I'm-not-Listening!" (See President Bush doing just about that here.) You either recognized that Gonzales prevaricated, twisted and flat-out lied through mutliple congressional hearings, or you chose to believe that he was telling the truth - and therefore had to be the most inept, incompetent administrator in the history of the Justice Department. There was no third option.

He was 'Fredo, 'Berto, "Gonzo" and "the turture guy." He was a Yes-man and and an I-don't-recall loyalist. Singularly cagey and brazenly ignorant, he could - and did - argue that while the Constitution specifically prohibited taking away one's right of habeus corpus, since it didn't expressly grant that right in its language, then the right to habeus corpus simply did not exist.

As Mom would say, he was a piece of work.

There is almost no limit to material for how bad Gonzales was. So, while there are certainly other aspects to the story of Gonzales long-overdue resignation - like who's goiing to replace him (and why) - let's savor this with a leisurely stroll through the blogospheric reactions. Someone with such a unique place in American history as the most incompetent, truthfully challenged public servant ever to abuse the position of Attorney General deserves nothing less.

Moderates hated him too!

Whining to the end that he has been treated unfairly and (isn't this rich) was being hounded out of office by partisan politics, Gonzalez leaves an extraordinary legacy: A disdain for the rule of law - whether it had to do with torture, civil rights or fair elections - that bordered on the obsessive.

And let's not forget his obsession with not telling the truth. Wonkette catches him going out the way he sevred - lying through his teeth:

Even until the bitter end, Gonzo was lying about every goddamn thing he could:

Mr. Roehrkasse said Sunday afternoon that he had telephoned Mr. Gonzales about the reports circulating in Washington that a resignation was imminent, “and he said it wasn’t true, so I don’t know what more I can say.”

That’s his own spokesman he lied to. For no discernible reason at all. The man lies about what he wants for breakfast in the morning. He tells his dog she’s good but doesn’t mean it.

Anyway, Democrats won, hooray, and all they had to do to win the resignation of a criminal they should’ve impeached was agree to sign away all of our rights in a wiretapping bill that they were angry with Fredo for illegally trying to enforce in the first place.

But don't cry for 'Berto. Pam's House Blend reminds us the rewards that await such incompetence:

When shall we expect to see him to receive a Medal of Freedom from Dear Leader?

That's probably more than he expects, and certainly more than he deserves. Gonzales is probably just happy enough to be able to slink off into obscurity instead of being the laughing stock of his peers and the country:

As for why this is happening, I imagine Gonzales is tired of being a punching bag, tired of his boss saying, "Stick around! I want to fight these people! So go out there and get beat up for me!"

Now, before we get into the creme de la creme, I wanted to present some opposing viewpoints. First, Blogs for Bush, doing the blogging other Americans don't want to do, can't imagine why anyone would have a problem with that nice, loyal puppy dog Attorney General who was just doing the good Lord's President's work:

The Democrat Smear Machine Claims Another Victim

Democrats may be patting themselves on the back right now, but this just another example of Democrats repeating a lie over and over and over enough that the lie was accepted as conventional wisdom...Republicans needs to start fighting back against the Democratic Smear Machine.

Sometimes I think that B4B isn't really a blog written by actual humans, but an automated computer program that just spits out random RNC talking points based on keyword alerts in Google News.

Mr. Benen, rebuttal?

No, it wasn’t the AG’s criminal incompetence, breathtaking dishonesty, and multilpe scandals that “distracted” the Justice Department; it was Gonzales’ critics who had the audacity to point these problems out. Got it.

And then there's the Rolls Royce of conservative wingnuttery. When you want to come to a conclusion diametrically opposed to logic, the boys at Powerline are at your service (emphasis mine):

I’ve never been a fan of Gonzales, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him. The “scandal” that led to his demise—the firing of the U.S. attorneys—appears to involve no wrongdoing on his part. Moreover, the underlying decisions and process appear to have been the product of the White House, not Gonzales. His defense of the decisions was hardly stellar, but if I’m correct, he was handicapped by the fact that they were not really his decisions.

Gonzales’s only real offense seems to have been mediocrity. But mediocrity in an Attorney General is nothing new (think Janet Reno), and any blame for this occurrence properly attaches to the White House.

And if you're not correct, John?

This is from Powerline's John Hinderaker, who previously had this to say about the man in that selfsame White House:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

And therefore, QED, since Bush is a misunderstood genius, then this whole affair is actually a brilliant ploy and Alberto Gonzales is vindicated! Huzzah!

Alternatively, if you aren't trying to be willfully ignorant, then the reason Gonzales' scandals "appear to involve no wrongdoing" is because he demonstrably lied about his and others' involvement and we have yet to hear the truth*.
(*See "Scooter" Libby)

But back to the obituaries...

Andrew Cohen has been law blogging on Gonzales longer than he would care to, as no one public servant should ever be involved in so many ethical dilemmas as Gonzales' has. And after lo these many months and years, Cohen has made quite the case against him:

He neither served the longstanding role as "the people's attorney" nor fully met and tamed his duties and responsibilities to the Constitution. He was a man who got the job not because he was supremely qualified or notably well-respected among the leading legal lights of our time, but because he had faithfully and with blind obedience served President George W. Bush for years in Texas (where he botched clemency memos in death penalty cases) and then as White House counsel (where he botched the nation's legal policy on torture).

For an administration known for its cronyism, and alas for an alarmingly incompetent group of cronies, Gonzales was the granddaddy of them all. He lacked the integrity, the intellect and the independence to perform his duties in a manner befitting the job for which he was chosen. And when he and his colleagues got caught in the act, his rationales and explanations for the purge of the U.S. Attorneys were so empty and shallow and incoherent that even the staunchest Republicans could not turn them into steeled spin. Devoid of any credibility, Gonzales in the end was a sad joke when he came to Capitol Hill.

Or if that's too dry for your tastes, you can get it straight, no chaser, from The Left:

...everybody can appropriately heap scorn on this useless, recently resigned halfling and his legacy of incompetence, politicization, and unfamiliarity with basic Constitutional principles. Like Karl Rove, I think his family-oriented retirement should be riddled with numerous subpoenas.

As they say, read the whole thing. Norbizness at his non-happy, non-furriest.

And so we bid a fond farewell to the one and only "Master of Disater," the latest adminstration hack who held service to his friend the President in higher esteem than service to the Constitution or his country:

We may never see his like again. Well, at least not until the confirmation hearings for his successor.

Or until the subpoenas are served, whichever comes first.

Putting out the fire with gasoline...

Something had to give, and love him or hate him, DNC Chairman Howard Dean is not a passive kind of guy. In an attempt to put a stop to the every-state-for-themselves jockeying to have the earliest - and most influential - primary, The DNC has given a very public smackdown to the Florida Democratic Party for their proposed January 29 contest. If Florida delegates go ahead with holding their primary a week earlier than they had agreed to last year in the DNC's primary schedule, then come next summer in Denver, the Florida delegates can sit by the pool or stay home for all it matters - they won't be allowed on the convention floor.

Granted, the move to shift Florida's primaries was taken by the Florida legilasture, controlled by Republicans. Florida Democrats fought the move, but to no avail. Rules are rules, and Captain's Quarters says the DNC is right to enforce them, even at their own peril:

For once, Howard Dean is right, and he's likely to pay a large price for it...The national parties have to take control over the irrational one-upmanship of the state organizations over primary schedules. Right now, the only way to do that is to enforce the national-committee rules over scheduling, and the only way to do that is to invalidate state delegations where those rules have been violated. Nothing else would be meaningful enough to put a stop to the shenanigans.

Pity he had no such words when the aforementioned GOP-controled Florida lawmakers decided to move their states' primaries up a week and the Republican National Committee chose the ineffectual measure of stripping only half of the Florida Republican Party's delegates from participating in their convention. The RNC's timid slap will not stop Republican candidates - and the almighty campaign $$$'s - from coming to their state. So while Florida may not be as fully in play during the selection for the GOP nominee, it's role in the general election will be unchanged. If the DNC gets its way, Democratic candidates will be barred from campaigning in the Sunshine state until February, giving the GOP a free run there for 5 months and conceivably tipping the state to Republicans.

But rules or no rules, The Great and Powerful Kos says there's no way the DNC will follow through:

Any such decision will never stick. Never.

Does anyone really think that Democrats will disenfranchise the delegates of a large swing state, whether it's Florida or Michigan?

The DNC is powerless. All it has is bluster. And as soon as we have a nominee, the first thing that person will do is rescind any such decision.

Yes...and so what?

Yes, the DNC just played it's highest card, and they have now engaged in a rather grand game of "chicken." They're intent was to get states to stop mucking about with their planned primary schedule. If Florida sticks to its Jan. 29 date, the DNC will turn their primary into a beauty contest; we'll see winner, but it won't make a difference. But if other states decide to call the DNC's bluff, well....Michigan, California, Pennsylvania - if other states decide to follow suit, will the DNC strip ALL of their delegates? What if they held a convention and no one came? And even if the nominee recinds the DNC's decision, that's already at least 5 months lost for the eventual Democratic contender to try and make an impression on Floridians. Are Democrats that suicidal?

If there is some way to avoid winning the White House next year, Democrats seem bent on finding it. After helping Karl Rove steal the past two Presidential contests, they will have to work harder this time to undo the Party’s advantage in the polls after all these years of Bush bungling.

But when it comes to incompetence, never count the Democrats out. If they can’t find an unelectable nominee, they can always screw up the process of selection.

Of course, if the DNC gives in and lets Florida go ahead with its date change, then their primary schedule becomes non-existent and it becomes a 50-state free-for-all. The DNC is just trying to keep itself from becoming (even more) irrelevant:

The DNC's answer to the problem that has gripped this cycle is an unnecessarily risky short-term solution to a long-term problem. These fights over delegates and primaries are happening...because the convention system itself is antiquated and out-dated. The conventions were originally designed as the places where those empowered to decide the parties' presidential nominees came together to make a decision. This power has been transferred almost exclusively to the voters back in the states. The convention is now little more than a three-day political advertisement. And yet, the convention has been retained - in large measure because it is an event that the party still actually controls. Unfortunately, control over the convention is an inefficient and unwieldy way to exercise authority over the nomination process. But it is the only power the party really has left.

Obviously, this is not just a problem for Democrats, but for the RNC as well. They may have taken the coward's way out by denying FL only half its delegates, but they have the same problem. Even if the DNC gets its way and gets Florida Democrats to engage in some sleight of hand like holding off a week before announcing their results, it still doesn't fix the larger problem:

The DNC may have put its finger in the dike for 2008, but everyone fully expects another stampede by states four years from now. The big states remain frustrated by the outsized influence of Iowa and New Hampshire, and pressure will continue to make their voices louder in the selection of the party nominees.

And that is the dirty little secret that neither national party wants to address - the stranglehold that small, sparesly populated states have over the nominee selection process. While swinging the pendulum to the opposite extreme - neutering smaller states say in the process - is just as undesireable, larger states are getting tired of being the campaign's ATM's and then getting stuck with whoever kissed the most babies in Concord, NH or Ames, IA:

I understand that the DNC has rules, and that they have reasons to want to try and reign in the states, although their continued fealty to Iowa and New Hampshire’s “right” to dictate the primary schedule continues to baffle me…Really, if they want to pander, it makes more sense to pander to Florida than it does to pander to Iowa and New Hampshire.

I must confess, I find the following funny (if not ridiculous):

Donna Brazile, a member of the rules committee who argued for a swift and harsh punishment for Florida, said states’ desire to be more relevant in the nominating process does not excuse violations of rules intended to make the system fair for everyone.

Of the things that the current nomination system may be, fair isn’t one of them...At the moment the system to skewed to allow a handful of small population to make key decisions that shape the choices that the rest of the country will have in the process. Further, the rules in question have, in the past, created a situation in which large numbers of states (which really means large numbers of voters) were utterly unimportant in terms of choosing the nominees. Even now, with the mad rush to be early, the system is going to eventually produce a large number of voters who really might as well not go vote because the results will have been determined before their vote is even cast. How can that be a “fair” system? Indeed, how can that be a desirable system?

If the national parties ever wanted to look at some of the reasons why people give up party affiliation for "Independent," they might consider the way they treat millions of big state voters every four years.

Will the contestants who had August 27, 2007 in the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Resignation Pool please bring your ticket stubs to the judges to claim your prize, a weekend getaway to spend more time with Andy Card's family.

All those who had "months later than he should" will be eligible for the runner-up prizes, pocket copies of the Constitution [redacted].

In a rare instance of going off-message, Bush delivered the following backhanded slap to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Malikion on Tuesday:

"The fundamental question is: Will the government respond to the demands of the people?" Bush said. Stopping short of directly endorsing Maliki, as he has on several previous occasions, Bush continued, "If the government doesn't respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government."

In response, al-Maliki told US officials what they can do with their criticism, saying Iraq "can find friends elsewhere". Given Maliki's recent talks with Iran and Syria, this is not good news. The administration seemed to recognize this, folowing their critical comments with this on Wednesday:

Bush also offered fresh support for embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, calling him a "good man with a difficult job."
......
"It's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position. It is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy* and not a dictatorship."

(*Well, not really, but that's another issue)

You can see how Maliki's pushback to the criticism got Bush to soften his stance, but the fact remains that more and more people are calling for Maliki's replacement. On top of that, the latest Natioanl Intelligence Estimate does not bode well for the future of Iraq or Maliki, saying the Iraqi government “will become more precarious over the next six to 12 months.”

So, Bush's recent tepid support notwithstanding, is there a plot afoot to get rid of the Iraqi Prime Minister?

Republican lobbyists with close ties to the Bush administration are aiding and supporting the efforts of an Iraqi opposition leader who is calling for the ouster of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The anti-Maliki crusader is former Iraqi interim prime minister Ayad Allawi, and the Washington firm retained to spearhead U.S.-focused efforts on his behalf is the Republican powerhouse group of Barbour, Griffith, and Rogers (BGR).

BGR International's president is Robert Blackwill, the one-time White House point man on Iraq, holding the title of Presidential Envoy to Iraq in 2004.

Glenn Greenwald notes this, recalls last week's Establishment-pleasing Op-Ed in the Washington Post by the former Prime Minister Allawi himself, and draws the not-difficult-to-make connection:

Allawi hires the most powerful GOP firm in the country, with former top Bush officials as partners, and almost immediately, the key Op-Ed pages of our nation's newspapers open up to him and all of official Washington, beginning with the President, changes course. Suddenly, key figures in both parties begin calling for Maliki to be replaced.

And according to Middle East scholar Juan Cole, it's rumored that there's an easy way, and a hard way to do this:

A rumor is circulating among well-connected and formerly high-level Iraqi bureaucrats in exile in places like Damascus that a military coup is being prepared for Iraq. I received the following from a reliable, knowledgeable contact. There is no certitude that this plan can or will be implemented. That it is being discussed at high levels seems highly likely.

"There is serious talk of a military commission (majlis `askari) to take over the government. The parties would be banned from holding positions, and all the ministers would be technocrats, so to speak. . . [The writer indicates that attempts have been made to recruit cabinet members from the ranks of expatriate technocrats.]. . .

. . .[I]t is another [desperate plan], but one which many many Iraqis will support, since they are sick of their country being pulled apart by the "imports" - Maliki, Allawi, Jaafari et al. The military group is composed of internals, people who have the goal of securing the country even at the risk of no democracy, so they say."

Sure, Maliki still has some support - like the hilariously wrong Joe Lieberman - But clearly there are a wide array of forces lined against him. "Pin the Blame on Maliki" is the pasttime in DC right now. There's only one problem with this - there's no evidence that the problem in Iraq lies with Maliki. Yes, the buck stops with the Prime Minister, and Maliki may or may not be the best guy for the job, but simply replacing him will not make the pony magically appear. The sectarian dynamic in Iraq is - and always has been - so dysfunctional as to make a political solution practically impossible. But to the Lucy van Pelt war supporters, Maliki's departure would let them plant that football one more time, waiting for the Charlie Brown American public to try and finally give it a good kick:

If someone new takes over in Iraq it gives the pro-war crowd yet another excuse to insist that change is in the air and we need to give the new guy a fair chance to prove that he can make a difference. Odds of that actually happening? Nil. The whole idea is nuts.

No. That's not nuts. You want nuts? CNN is reporting that generals, on the ground in Iraq, are now saying an Iraqi Democracy is not likely, and they'll settle for less. And so, we move the goalposts yet again:

We can keep trying to establish a government that isn’t going to function, or we can aim for a new goal — stability over freedom.

I’m not necessarily denouncing that as a policy option, but it’s worth appreciating the implications. Bush had moved the goalposts so many times, they’re no longer in the same stadium. This war was necessary because of WMD. No, because of U.N. resolutions. Or rather, because al Qaeda. Make that “democracy promotion.” We’d establish a democracy in the Middle East that would, in turn, inspire the region and topple dictatorships. Yeah, that’s it.

Except it’s not. We’ll replace a malevolent-but-stable dictatorship with a benevolent-and-stable dictatorship. Let freedom ring.

Democracy!

Whiskey!

Sexy!

Unlikely.

Beyond the absurd notion of following the law and due process, the phonies like Tancredo, Romney and right wing blowhards might just want to consider what they're really saying when they indict so called sanctuary cities. Ron Brownstein in the L.A. Times asks some practical questions I’d love to hear their answers to: Do they really want immigrants to not come forward to the cops if they are victims of a crime or can help solve one? Do they really want a sick child of an immigrant not to get treatment and possibly infect her classroom? By creating a chilling environment of an underground culture - who exactly wins?

And while I’m at it, who invited Tancredo and friends to Newark anyway? Where exactly has their outrage or even hint of concern been for all the other victims of violence in Newark. For those who've used this tragedy as an election prop - shame on you.

One final note on the daily battles we wage over immigration. With reform effectively killed, states, even towns, are making up their own rules on who and how to prosecute. Some cities are sanctuaries, some have turned their police into the I.N.S.

I defy anybody, on either side - to convince me this hodgepodge set of rules haphazardly applied makes any sense, let alone approaches justice. It's stupid and now we know who's responsible.

The non-partisan group Project for Excellence in Journalism confirms a handful of conservative hosts - you know the crew - Limbaugh, Hannity, even Savage for crying out loud - they distorted the reform, labeling it "amnesty". The worst offender, the guy who's made a career out of this - Lou Dobbs. I'd love to know just one thing - how did he and his cronies win by twisting facts and pandering fear? No border security, more than 10 million illegal immigrants still living in America - just a whole lot of ugly talk and a real problem without any real solutions. Way to go guys.

In an interview with a Nevada television station on Tuesday, Romney said Roe. v. Wade should be abolished and vowed to "let states make their own decision in this regard." On Aug. 6, he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that he supports a human life amendment to the Constitution that would protect the unborn.

Like a near-sighted drunk at the wheel of a car, Mitt Romney has been all over the road on the abortion issue. If there's a position to be take, he's taken it, no matter how contradictory. He does this with alarming frequency, on a wide range of issues. Forexample, most recently appearing to flip on abortion while simultaneously flopping on states' rights:

On abortion, he is an advocate of state's rights, except in cases where a state might take an expansive view of reproductive liberty, in which case it could not offer more freedom than is allowed under a constitutional amendment which imposes a nationwide ban on abortion. However, the state in question would be free to impose abortion laws more restrictive than the federal standard. In this sense, then, Romney would allow states to make their own decisions about abortion, as long as they decide to become more, rather than less, restrictive.

Funny how Republicans don't seem to be nearly as concerned about Mitt Romney's flip-flops as they were about, say, John Kerry's. Another case of IOKIYAR. Because for Mitt, of course, it's not flip-flopping, it's nuance:

Mitt Romney is simply struggling to explain the Republican Party's conventional pro-life position. Which is: overturn Roe v. Wade. And then, slowly build up public support for a constitutional amendment banning abortions. ETA: 30 years or more. This is not a flip-flop.

See? Not flip-flopping. Romney's campaign calls it a nuanced approach to a very convoluted problem. Except it's neither a flip-flop, nor nuanced, but simply incomprehensible gibberish:

Romney argued for a Constitutional ban on abortions, which would take the matter out of legislatures of both the states and Congress, as well as the courts. The Constitution trumps state law in its specifics, which most people recognize. It would end any effort by individual states to find their own way on abortion.

Romney's campaign appeared to recognize this shortly afterwards. Their explanation? Romney wants abortion to be handled by the states -- and after that, he wants a Constitutional amendment to ban abortion. That makes even less sense. Romney wants the states to have these incredibly divisive debates, fight to create legislation about abortion, and then pre-empt all of them with the Constitutional change? Why bother? If Romney supports the Constitutional amendment, then that renders state action completely moot.

Why bother? I'll tell you why. "ETA: 30 years or more." Romney knows he can take the safe route of supporting the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and know for certain that he'll be dead before anyone gets around to taking even a semi-serious shot at a Constitutional amendment banning abortion. States' rights and a divided nation be damned; Mitt needs votes. Sure, he could come right out and say "Constitutional ban on all abortions!" But then he wouldn't be Mitt:

Romney's stance on abortion is crystal clear and as unnuanced as it gets. His position is whatever will get him the most votes.

Try to be all things to all people, and you'll eventually mean nothing to anybody.

Please...make him stop...just make him stop:

Bush also tied anti-war forces in the Vietnam era to the hundreds of thousands of people killed in the aftermath of the US pull-out, and hinted at a parallel catastrophe in Iraq if US forces leave too soon.
........
"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," he said.

"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of Americas withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps,' and 'killing fields,'" he said.

Iraq is like South Korea Northern Ireland Israel Revolutionary War-Era United States...Vietnam!

Granted, it's taken a while to come to this particular analogy, as Bush was against Vietnam comparisons before he was for them. But now the President has taken his...unique...interpretations of history to dizzying new heights.

Call it the Riddle of the Bush: When is Iraq like and not like Vietnam? Answer: when it suits Bush's analogy. Don't call it a quagmire like Vietnam, but if we leave things will get bad...like Vietnam. But as several people have pointed out, things are already bad:

It is possible that if we leave, hundreds of thousands will die and millions be displaced. That has already happened under our government's tender and expert care. There is no short-term prospect that it will stop happening. But I guess if you die while the US is around, you have the comfort of knowing we were trying.

And cold comfort that will be. As is the notion that anyone in their right mind thinks leaving Vietnam was a mistake:

Certifiably insane. That's the Republican model for winning in Iraq - Vietnam. You see, if we just stayed longer in Vietnam, fought longer in Vietnam, lost more American lives in Vietnam, everything would have ended okay.

Well, I'll bet we would've won if only we had the awesome talents of Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rove, O'Reilly, Hume, Limbaugh, Ledeen and the rest of the Non-Fightin' Cons on the case. Sadly, they were all busy doing laundry, or something, during those years...

Historians would, and do, differ with Bush on the appropriateness of his analogy, or whether Vietnam ever being "winnable". But the irony of the infamously incurious president touting the lessons of history is not lost:

Going forty years on...virtually none of the predicted negative repercussions of our departure from Vietnam ever came to pass. Asia didn't go Communist. Our Asian allies didn't abandon us. Rather, the Vietnamese began to fall out with her Communist allies.

And as for invoking the specter of the killing fields, would it be too much to point out that those took place in Cambodia, after Nixon tried expanding the Vietnam war there? His own "surge" if you will:

It astounds me that this Administration is arrogant enough that they think they can, relying on the short memory of Americans, rewrite simple history as justification for their current actions regarding Iraq.

But wait....there's more.

This Worst Analogy Award is a two-fer. In addition to the Worst Historical Analogy, Bush also goes out of his way to fit in the Worst Literary Analogy Ever!

In his speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City today, President Bush summoned up the Alden Pyle CIA agent character of Graham Greene's classic Vietnam novel "The Quiet American" which is essentially a contemplation on the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

I'm not sure he really wanted to go there or why his speechwriters would take him there....
.......
Bush seemed to be seizing on Greene's idea of U.S. naivete on entering the war and trying to turn it around and apply it to those now calling for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

But Greene wrote his book about the way America bumbled into Vietnam, not how it left it.

By reminding people of Greene's book, Bush was inviting listeners to recall the mistakes his administration made in entering and prosecuting the Iraq War. Did he really want to do that?

I'd say might want to re-read the book, but it would appear as if he hasn't read it to begin with.

Credit where credit is due, though, Bush does get one point for his Vietnam comparison to Iraq:

“We had to destroy the village in order to save it,”

And THAT is how Iraq is like Vietnam.

NOW we're talkin'!

Lawyers representing Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s father, Bernard Spitzer, say a prominent political consultant who has been working for State Senate Republicans threatened the elder Mr. Spitzer this month in an anonymous, invective-laced phone message.
......
In the message, the caller says, referring to a potential subpoena: “There is not a goddamn thing your phony, psycho, piece-of-shit son can do about it. Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you. You will be forced to tell the truth and the fact that your son’s a pathological liar will be known to all.”

NSFW link here: Listen for yourself.

The whole helicopter-gate, trooper-gate Spitzer-Bruno slap-fight was starting to get a little stale. The name-calling had stopped, and nothing illegal has yet been found on either side. Then, just when Bloomberg's latest breathless denial of a presidential candidacy threatened to become the week's biggest NY story (yawwwn)....Roger Stone pops up his slimy little head to give the whole thing some of that Roger Stone pizazz! And who's Roger Stone, you ask?

Roger J. Stone’s life and career continues to be one of handling the worst of the dirty work for the Republican party, at the local, state and federal level...

For Mr. Stone, aiding that process has proven to be a good career choice. It has provided him with offices in Washington and homes in NY and Florida. When the going gets dirty, the powerful know, the man to call is Roger J. Stone.

Stone got his start at age 19, infiltrating George McGovern's presidential campaign as part of Nixon's CREEP program. From helping Ollie North raise money for the Contras, to being behind the "hanging chads" of the 2000 presidential recount in Florida and the mob-intimidation of local election officials, and much, much more, Roger Stone was Karl Rove before Karl Rove was. He was even a consultant on Al Sharpton's 2004 campaign, which you could argue was in itself an attack on Democrats.

Oh, and then there was this:

But what gives Stone's latest shenanigans that touch of crazy is not Stone's personal and professional history or his alleged involvement, but his denial:

In any case, I guess the rule of thumb is that if you get a harassing phone call and it's traced back to the phone of one of your political enemies and the voice on the phone sounds like your enemy, then Occam's Razor says you must have broken into the guy's apartment with Rich Little and set him up.

For a guy who sets up other people for a living, he should know what a set-up looks like, right? Unless, of course, he was just projecting. It's also not the first time he's used the "I was set up!" excuse:

Interestingly, this is basically the same explanation Roger Stone gave in 1996 when it became public that he and his wife had been placing ads in sex magazines seeking male and female partners.

Of course, no one actually believes Stone's tissue-thin excu...Wait, I stand corrected:

The fact that [Senate Investigations Committee Chair George] Winner is giving Stone’s “Vast Left Wing Conspiracy” theory any credibility exposes Winner as the hypocrite he has always been. I mean, here’s Winner constantly intimating Governor Spitzer is responsible for the Troopergate non-scandal, despite there being no evidence to support any Spitzer involvement whatsoever, yet he’s willing to accept Stone’s laughable excuses.

But wait, there's more! Stone repeats his denial of involvement - and gives his alibi - on his blog....wait for it.....

The Stone Zone!

Spitzer's Ultimate Dirty Trick
By ROGER J. STONE JR.
..........
Yes, the landlord has keys and full access to my apartment which is generally vacant as I stay on an average one night a week, so a phone call could have been made from my apartment to create a record. I am reviewing the phone bill to determine whether such a call was even made.

(It was - from his phone)

[SNIP]

The guy who makes threatening phone calls to people is Eliot Spitzer not Roger Stone. Ask John Whitehead, Senator Larkin or Sean Hannity. On the night this call was allegedly made, I was at the theater catching the play NIXON and FROST. I highly recommend it to Governor Spitzer. It shows you what hubris and lying brings you.

Aside from the giggle-inducing irony of Stone's alibi, it would seem his story has a rather large hole:

We'll ignore the ironies that Nixon is modern politics' greatest dirty trickster, that Stone worked for Nixon, and that the fulcrum of Frost/Nixon is a (fictional) bizarre late-night phone call. We'll just note this: August 6, 2007, was a Monday. And like many Broadway shows, the play, which closed this weekend, took that night off. "We were completely dark on Mondays," a rep from its management company told us.

Stone has since resigned as Joe Bruno's "Troopergate" consultant at the majority leader's request, I'm sure Joe was shocked to find that Stone might be involved in something like this...

And with that, Roger Stone has managed to turn the tables and make Spitzer, battered and limping from the (completely justified) attacks on the conduct of his staffers, the sympathetic figure here:

Now that he's been given a political gift by this ham-handed Republican thug, the Governor should take the high road with his critics and resume his focus on advocacy for average folks.

Sure, that's what Spitzer should do, but for those of us who like a little craziness with our politics, maybe this story could last a just a little longer.

The highly- anticipated appearance of General David Petraeus before the Senate will take place on…September 11th. His testimony will be followed by a status report to be delivered on the 15th.

First a disclaimer - General Petraeus has done nothing to make me believe his testimony will be anything but his true perspective. Disagree with his assessment and prescription for Iraq, but at least I haven't been convinced he's got an agenda that overrides his duty. The same, however cannot be said for the empty suits in the administration who wouldn't know the ground truth if it bit them you know where.

Petraeus will testify on September 11th and I hope that date remains just a curious coincidence. If the White House, who plans on scripting a healthy share of the general’s written report for congress, tries to connect the attacks of six years ago to the quagmire that is Iraq, I hope Petraeus has the integrity to distance himself from the falsehood.

It is a critical testimony, maybe even a turning point in the war, we the people deserve for once, to get the truth not the stagecraft about where we are and where we should do next.

Compassionate Conservatism in action!

The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.
.......
After learning of the new policy, some state officials said today that it could cripple their efforts to cover more children by imposing standards that could not be met.

Ann Clemency Kohler, deputy commissioner of human services in New Jersey, said: “We are horrified at the new federal policy. It will cause havoc with our program and could jeopardize coverage for thousands of children.”

You can almost hear the administration's thought process on this:

"I really wanna veto this, but Republicans are behind it too, and it'll make me look bad, vetoing kids' health insurance."

"Sir, you could just make the program so restrictive as to make the S-CHIP legislation effectively useless. Then you won't have to veto the bill."

".......Heh heh heh heh heh."

In this administration, when ideology meets progress, ideology wins every time. When Bush was touting himself as a "compassionate conservative," people should've read the fine print about who he was going to be compassionate to :

The Administration wants to deny SCHIP health coverage to possibly millions of low-to-medium income children solely to shield the private insurance companies from competition and to protect their profits.

Predictably, conservative blogs argue that all those who would be covered are just a bunch of scam artists who don't deserve it, and stay the hell off my lawn! out of my wallet!:

Of course it is being characterized as an attempt to deny poor children "free" health care. It's not. It specifically denies the attempt, by some states, to raise the bar for acceptance to 400% over the poverty rate which means the inclusion of some households making $80,000 a year and "children" up to the age of 25.

Let the debunking begin.

Nevermind that over 13 million young adults 19-29 represent the largest age group without health insurance. Or that such states as Idaho, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Texas, Indiana, South Dakota and Utah - all with Republican Governors - have legislation that demands health insurance companioes include "children" as old as 26 to be covered by their parents health plans. Or even that more people with health insurance is inarguably better than less - which is exactly what Bush's policy change will lead to - many children currently covered by S-CHIP will become ineligible. But put all that aside for the moment. Let us revel in the irony of the Republican-controlled executive branch telling states what to do:

The pro-"states rights" Republican Party is now on record saying that if a state legislature wants to extend coverage to a family of four making over $51,625, the legislature must insist that the family go without health insurance for a year. Wonderful.

And if anything should happen to your child during that year? Tough noogies. Go to the emergency room. Of course, Bush's objection to the program has nothing to do with potential abuses, and everything to do with their ideological priorites:

Because the worst thing that could happen for people whose political philosophy is dependent on the premise that government can't work is a government-run healthcare program actually working. And it's more important for these corporate...junkies to prove that the government can't do anything better than "the market" than to save kids' lives. Culture of life, my big fat...

And once again, they're using the spooooooky specter of parents who will rip off the government ("make sure the program did not become a substitute for private health coverage") to justify their...decision, as if: A) there are actually massive numbers of adults who will abandon their private health insurance for no other reason than to rip off the government; and B) even if there were, that's reason to deny thousands and thousands of kids healthcare coverage.

"Sorry, little Timmy—giving you coverage will require oversight to prevent abuse and that costs money, so if you want that kidney transplant, better start selling pencils, son. We've got nation-building to do. In, um, another nation. Oh, yeah—and tax cuts to keep subsidizing."

The only way to make an argument against S-CHIP is to be fundamentally dishonest (not to mention callous and greedy). Using the outlying numbers of 400% of the poverty level, or $80,000, is an easy way to ignore the fact that this policy change would effect other states who want a much smaller % of the poverty rate to be covered. It is also willfully ignorant of the fact that different areas of the country have vastly different costs of living. $80,000 income for a family of four in NYC? Get real. S-CHIP is ony one of the helping hands you'd need. And it also ignores the fact But 400%! and $80,000! sounds more impressive when you're trying to make a trumped up argument. It wouldn't be the first time a Republican told New York City to drop dead, but now they're telling the Middle Class to drop dead as well:

At a time when health care is the number one domestic policy, when tens of millions have been added to the ranks of the uninsured, and when this President has done virtually nothing about it in 6 1/2 years, he's putting up a firewall designed to make sure your kids aren't covered.

Under Bush, the ranks of those in poverty have swelled. Wages have stagnated for all but the wealthiest. Health insurance companies are not in the business of providing all Americans with health coverage - they're in business to make a profit. If they can make a profit by denying coverage, that's exactly what they'll do.

When someone says the richest nation on the planet can't afford to provide health insurance to those in need, I'd say they're not trying hard enough, but some people aren't trying at all.

Or in Bush's case, working to do the opposite.

All conservatism, no compassion.

Are they in, or are they out? And if they're not in yet, should we be paying any attention to them?

Some people think Mayor Bloomberg doth protest too much, that telling Dan Rather "nobody's going to elect me President" is like the Homecoming Queen telling people she's fat, just so they'll tell her how pretty she is. Whatever the case, Mayor Mike is once again saying he won't run in 2008, and there might be cause to believe him:

With the current political winds seeming to indicate that moderates will probably be nominated - and Bloomberg will certainly not run against fellow NY politicians Clinton or Giuliani - it's time to put the Bloomberg idea on the back burner.

With Bloomberg out - for now - the door is now open for another independent candidate to tease the press, 'cuz they like it:

Back in the day, there were quadrennial Sam Nunn for Vice President, or maybe President, columns. I never saw it. Nunn is estimable--his work on nuclear proliferation especially--but so taciturn as to be easily mistaken for a bale of hay. In any case, now he's opened the door to an independent run for President and Ed Kilgore, a former Nunn staffer, has a good evaluation of who Nunn is and what this is about.

My own feeling is that I'll start thinking third party if we wind up with a Gravel-Brownback race. But not before.

Sam Nunn, former Georgia Senator and conservative Democrat is the latest hope of the Unity '08 crowd. Atrios says that's just what we need:

Only Unity08, a crack team of Washington insiders, can save us from Washington insiderism by finding the people who pretty much define "Washington insiders" and getting them to run for president.

Aside from the fact that I find any allusion to any Nader-esque talk about how there are no differences between the two parties to be overly-simplistic drivel, I have to take issue with Nunn on this:

"My own thinking is, it may be a time for the country to say, 'Timeout. The two-party system has served us well, historically, but it's not serving us now.'"

I applaud Nunn's efforts in the arena of curbing nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry. Maybe he's been so hard at work with his non-profit that he's not picked up a newspaper or turned on a TV in the past 6 1/2 years, but it's only been a few months since Democrats finally got control of ANY of the 3 (4 if you count Cheney) brnaches of government. We've essentially been under one-party rule since 2001. I know it shouldn't be surprising to see a Dixiecrat try to cut the legs out of any Democratic progress, but really Sam, stick with the non-proliferation. It's better for everyone.

And then there's our favorite "unofficial" candidate Fred Thompson. The blog News for the Left, who originally broke the Mark Foley scandal, says Fred's been testing the waters a little too long, and possibly breaking Federal Election laws in the process. So they went and filed a complaint with the FEC:

Fred Thompson is breaking the law and it's time somebody did something about it. So, this morning, I filed an FEC Complaint against him. For far too long, he has been ignoring the letter and spirit of Federal Election Law for his own political benefit. It reeks of the same disregard for the law that we have seen from the Bush Administration, Bob Ney, Duke Cunningham, Tom Delay, and Mark Foley.
......
It is my contention that he has violated the 'testing the waters' exemption of election law. He has been presenting himself as a candidate for President, he has been raising large sums of money beyond what would be required to explore a possible candidacy, and he has signed a long term lease on a headquarters for his campaign. He has even spent advertising dollars, which are specifically prohibited by the law.

Ol' Fred has been "testing the waters" long enough to get his Gucci loafers good and ruined. And putting around the Iowa State Fair in a golf cart during prime stumping time certainly looks like official campaigning...But maybe Ol' Fred's not actually intentionally cheating.

He may just be lazy.

Yesterday tom Tancredo made his first visit to New Jersey. Like an ambulance chaser stuffing his business card into the pocket of an accident victim, he became the latest to try and capitalize on Newark’s tragedy for political game.

After the horrible execution style murders of three young students with bright futures, the Colorado congressman - who doesn't even register in most presidential polls - made the immigration status of one of the accused assailants the headline.

"We can no longer allow illegal aliens to be above the law. If the alleged assailants are found guilty of these brutal crimes, Newark and its political leadership share a degree of culpability."

Before you dismiss this shtick as just a desperate Hail Mary from a political long shot, consider Mitt Romney is already running commercials touching on Newark’s tragedy.

Shame on both of them. Neither of these two I bet you had ever set foot in Newark prior to last week, let alone even uttered a syllable on any victim in that city's history. Tancredo is such a phony, that for all his bluster of rounding up millions of illegal immigrants he still can't explain why he hired some of the very same to work on his home.

It's symbolic of why politicians get a bad rep. Phony ideologues who'll do anything to get a headline. The people of Newark didn't invite you in, you're part of the problem not the solution.

Investors are still looking at Wall Street with a wary eye. Last week was a wild one, with the Dow Jones plunging 782 points by Thursday, rebounding only after the federal reserve loosened credit to banks on Friday.

The big questions now: Will the credit crunch that triggered the turmoil put the brakes on the American consumer? Will today's young generation have the same spending power that Baby Boomers had before them? And what about those who suddenly find themselves drowning in debt and way over their heads, staring at foreclosure?

If you’re unconcerned about the current - and future - mortgage climate, you're either brave or know something the rest of us don't. For myself, I’m worried.

First off, no one credible thinks the worst is behind us - some industry leaders estimate at least half the risky sub-prime deals have yet to surface. And like a virus intent on infecting as many as possible, these sub-prime loans are buried not just in your neighbors mortgage but in investors portfolios along with the blue chips.

So expect the lucky ones to be sitting on homes they can't sell because there's a glut in the housing market. The unlucky ones? Hand over the keys to the creditor because you can't make the payments.

This also has all the earmarks of being a tipping point for the debt-driven consumer. Remember all those promotions of "no money down" and monthly minimum payments? Get ready to start paying up. When Wal-Mart and Home Depot start worrying out loud about consumers running out of money, you know this mess is about a whole lot more than just hedge funds and the mortgage industry. It crosses the Atlantic and it hits the middle class homeowner in the one place he thought he was safe - his home.

I'm an optimist by nature, but this story I’m afraid is only beginning and doesn't have a happy ending.

This almost makes up for "A War We Just Might Win."

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day...

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere.

Seven sergeants and specialists who've spent over a year in the thick of it on the ground in Iraq, or a couple of think tank pundits who spend a sheltered week being escorted by Army PR flacks.

Army specialist Buddhika Jayamaha, sergeants Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck, Omar Mora, and Edward Sandmeier, and staff sergeants Yance T. Gray and Jeremy A. Murphy....or the Brookings Institute's war-supporting, surge-supporting "war critics" Kenneth Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon.

Who're you going to listen to?

We could listen to the perspective of these men on the front lines, confront the contradictions in our policies and change our approach. Or we could accept the reports from Brookings Institution fly-bys on what the brass told them, and brave words from Senators who travel with armored vehicle escorts and helicopter cover.

Two editorials in the Sunday New York Times; two very different accounts of the situation in Iraq. Apparently O'Hanlon and Pollack, or any of the other Green Zone-visiting politicians who say victory is right around the corner, never spoke to these soldiers. It's almost as if they studiously avoided getting any views that would throw a wet blanket over their happy talk. There's a word for that kind of rose-colored rhetoric:

This is the most accurate and courageous…account of the war in Iraq that I've seen. It puts to shame--and shame is the appropriate word--all the Kristol, McCain, Lieberman, Pollack and O'Hanlon etc etc cheerleading of the past two months.

Fortunately for them, the Kristols, Liebermans and O'Hanlons of the world - wrong so often on Iraq and yet still pontificating freely on the subject - are clearly incapable of shame. Otherwise they would sit quietly on the sidelines, embarrassed at their complicity in cheerleading this fiasco. Cheerleading which, as the op-ed points out, is from an American point of view, for American goals:

Our agenda for solving the Iraqi people's problems is not the same as that of the Iraqis themselves...In fact, our very belief in a stable, multi-ethnic, equitable democracy is part of the problem. As the authors uncomfortably remind us, there will be winners and losers in this Iraqi civil war, and it will be the Iraqis that decide it.

Well, this certainly won't play well with the rightwing narrative:

Obviously these...soldiers — NCOs and infantrymen — are America-hating defeatists who give aid and comfort to our enemies. That is the storyline, right? Anyone who questions our strategy in Iraq is basically an Al Qaeda public relations man? Did I get that right? And the mainstream media is nothing but a machine that spews defeatist lies? I got all that right, didn’t I?....

Chiropractors should have a busy month tending to the sprains and contortion-related injuries of the Jihad-Watch bloggers as they struggle to follow their natural instincts and attack anyone who diagrees with them, while conversely aware that attacking the troops would not go over well. John Cole, all too familiar with what happenes to apostates of the glorious war, predicts how rightwing bloggers will react:

While these guys are in the 82nd Airborne, you can see that what they write is sure to infuriate the patriots in the 101st Chairborne. I wonder if they are going to have the nerve to ratchet up the smear machine against these guys...I am betting that since they don't, they will choose (to) ignore the op-ed completely.

See his update here. It goes well with Digby's prediction:

I think the right will go into overdrive to present these guys as good and decent patriotic non-coms (who-aren't-all-that-bright-if-you-know-what-I-mean-shhhh.) They aren't capable of seeing the big picture there with their big clumsy boots on the ground and their heads in the sand. They're very sweet, but let's get serious. Very Serious People know a little bit more about these Very Serious issues than these well-meaning boys...

And right on cue...

On MSNBC last night, Tucker Carlson devoted a six-minute segment to the troops’ op-ed, but the discussion centered around why the authors of the piece aren’t credible (”they’re looking at the world through a straw”), and why speaking out about realities on the ground in Iraq is a “detriment to the moral authority” of the military.

So...with a media so concerned about being "fair and balanced," even when that means giving air time to someone who claims the earth is flat, just to provide "balance" to all those round-earthers, the soldier's op-ed will get just as much around-the-clock-10-day-news-cycle attention that the O'Hanlon / Pollack piece got, right?

Right?

Wrong.

Conventional wisdom says the importance of winning in places like New Hampshire and Iowa cannot be stressed enough, as these places represent the real America. According to Open Left, having the candidates come to the Iowa State Fair allows real citizens to peer into their souls.

Presidential candidates, especially the famous ones like Clinton, get very little exposure to real people in unscripted situations...
But in Iowa and New Hampshire, they have to do small-town parades and town meetings, and they have to show up at the Iowa state fair. They have to stand in line and talk to people who may not like them. They frequently have to answer uncomfortable questions. They have to get loose enough to act like a normal person, because if they are uncomfortable standing in line for their meat on a stick, it will show...
The culture and traditions in a rural state like Iowa strip away all the [BS] of being famous and rich and powerful, at least for awhile.

The Washington Post's Anne Kornblut agrees, and has a good time making fun of Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani - but especially Clinton - as they glad-handed their way through the Iowa fair:

Stylistically, though, Giuliani and Clinton share an uphill battle -- namely in convincing voters that they are normal people, rather than visiting members of the coastal elite with occasionally gruff manners and sharp partisan elbows. So during her midday visit, Clinton flipped pork patties. She stopped at a food stand and ordered ice cream on a stick, dipped in chocolate and rolled in nuts.

"You're officially at the state fair -- you've got something on a stick," said a man behind her in line.

Politicians connecting with real people. Normal people. Because you just can't do that anywhere else.

Ahem...

I understand the inferiority complex from midwestern states tired of being referred to as "flyover country," and I agree that it's an insulting, unfair charachterization. But when did a couple of sparsely populated, homogeneous states with a grand total of 11 electoral votes become the standards for what constitutes "real, normal Americans," just because their primary or caucus is held before everyone else's? No disrespect to our rural brethren, but what does that make the millions and millions of Americans who live in and around cities? To turn the tables on the mid-western complaint; what are we, chopped liver? Matthew Yglesias responds to Mike Lux's post at Open Left (above):

I suppose these kind of weird quirks might seem folks and reassuring to you if you, like the majority of the population of Iowa and New Hampshire, are part of the tiny minority of Americans who live in lily white rural areas. I think it'd be fun to see my favorite presidential candidates swipe their MetroCards in the subway or wait on line (yes, on line, damit) for a knish at a hot dog stand.

That said, it's hard to see how any liberal can be happy, at the end of the day, with the distorting effect the disproportionate influence of Iowa and New Hampshire have on our politics. It's bad enough the way cities are disadvantaged by the structure of the constitution, that to also add on this additional extra-constitutional mechanism for further re-enforcing the existing biases of the system is insane.

During a recent roundtable on RNN's Real Politics Live, we talked about the march to make some states' primary dates even earlier. I suggested a rotating pool where every presidential election year, different states would get the privilege of helping to shape the field of candidates. An equitable system that would give different smaller states the opportunity to have candidates address their concerns, along with some of the larger states. New Yorkers and Californians are getting a bit tired of being the candidates' ATM's, only to see Iowa and NH make the all-important first cuts.

But back to the "real, normal Americans" meme, as advanced by Beltway-insider and member in good standing of the Punditocracy Anne Kornblut. Formerly of the NY Times and Boston Globe, Kornblut's no more in touch with rural, down-home salt-of-the-earth types than Fred Thompson and his rented red pickup truck and Bruno Magli shoes. Atrios offers this, and while it's not clear if he's referring to Kornblut specifically...if the shoe fits:

I don't actually mind the order of the primaries so much as I mind the way reporters tend to cover these places. They sort of do this weird "I'm a better anthropologist than the candidates are" fake schtick where they marvel at the ways of Real Americans in their native habitats, sneer at the candidates for failing to be one of the people, and then laugh at the rubes later in the hotel bar.

Maybe someone should get Ann Kornblut a corndog.

With the passage of the Protect America Act, Congress awarded Alberto Gonzales more accountability-free power to listen in on American's conversations - the legislative equivalent of letting a kleptomaniac mind the register. Now it appears they like to watch as well.

The U.S.'s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation's vast network of spy satellites in the U.S.

[SNIP]

Unlike electronic eavesdropping, which is subject to legislative and some judicial control, this use of spy satellites is largely uncharted territory. Although the courts have permitted warrantless aerial searches of private property by law-enforcement aircraft, there are no cases involving the use of satellite technology.

In recent years, some military experts have questioned whether domestic use of such satellites would violate the Posse Comitatus Act. The act bars the military from engaging in law-enforcement activity inside the U.S., and the satellites were predominantly built for and owned by the Defense Department.

According to Pentagon officials, the government has in the past been able to supply information from spy satellites to federal law-enforcement agencies, but that was done on a case-by-case basis and only with special permission from the president.

Even the architects of the current move are unclear about the legal boundaries. A 2005 study commissioned by the U.S. intelligence community, which recommended granting access to the spy satellites for Homeland Security, noted: "There is little if any policy, guidance or procedures regarding the collection, exploitation and dissemination of domestic MASINT." MASINT stands for Measurement and Signatures Intelligence, a particular kind of information collected by spy satellites which would for the first time become available to civilian agencies.

State of the art spy satellites being used in the United States. Check.

An administration that has consistently chafed against any oversight and repeatedly exceeded legal boundaries placed before it? Check

What could possibly go wrong?

Fortunately, this system is incapable of being abused, because of magical incantations that will be placed upon it. Also, our officials can never be corrupted by power, because they are as gods....

...Because "largely uncharted territory" and "unclear about the legal boundaries" and "little if any policy, guidance or procedures" are always the way to go when we're considering mere civil liberties.

But don't worry, say the program architects, sure this might not even be legal, but these satellites can also come in handy for helping emergency responders after a natural disater! An argument that's beyond weak, given the administration's other actions inactions:

That is just so [expletive] bogus. The regime won't give New Orleans money for the levees, but they're going to use spy satellites to help the responders, after the levees break again? What's WRONG with these people?

And oversight? No problem! The National Applications Office will follow the strict guidelines of Executive Order 12333 - the one DNI McConnell is trying to get watered down. And if that's not enough, the NAO will answer to the crack team over at the DHS:

The fact that the Homeland Security Department will get to decide who receives access to the imagery is also likely to further set off congressional alarms since the agency hasn't exactly covered itself in glory since its creation in 2003.

And Brian Beutler makes a prediction:

As these things tend to go, civil libertarians will raise their typical objections. In response, both DNI and DHS will assure everybody that the expansion is crucial for national security, is in the hands of diligent professionals, and will never be used outside of strict, specified guidelines. Then, years down the line, something will leak, or be declassified, and we'll find out that the civil libertarians were perfectly correct to raise a big fuss.

I'm sure his prediction is entirely unfounded.

ghost•writ•er (gôst' rî'tər) n. One who writes for and gives credit of authorship to another.

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

And though Petraeus and Crocker will present their recommendations on Capitol Hill, legislation passed by Congress leaves it to the president to decide how to interpret the report's data.

It's been one of the worst kept secrets in DC, that no matter what the situation in Iraq looked like come September, Gen. Petraeus was going to report signs of "progress." His reputation, not to mention the goodwill of his Commander in Chief, practically demanded it. Now it's a sure thing:

These people have no shame. The "big" report coming this September, the one Bush has been telling us we should wait for before making any decisions about what to do next in Iraq. Well, the White House is writing the frigging report...

So rather than have the general do his own evaluation of his own progress - which is suspect enough, I mean, what is he going to say, "fire me"? - Bush is now writing Petraeus' report to Bush.

Gen. David Petraeus must be feeling something like this right about now:

The poor guy was just trying to be a good Bush soldier, loyally throwing himself (or allowing himself to be thrown) onto the grenade of the Iraq disaster in order to protect Bush, with nothing but his reputation as his body armor. And it's not like Petraeus doesn't know how to put lipstick on a pig. He's been doing a bang-up job of that himself, and no one has questioned his credibility.

But the White House isn't willing to leave anything to chance, so they thought the good General could use a little help. From even deeper in the depths of the LA Times article:

The senior administration official said the process had created "uncomfortable positions" for the White House because of debates over what constitutes "satisfactory progress."

During internal White House discussion of a July interim report, some officials urged the administration to claim progress in policy areas such as legislation to divvy up Iraq's oil revenue, even though no final agreement had been reached. Others argued that such assertions would be disingenuous.

"There were some in the drafting of the report that said, 'Well, we can claim progress,' " the administration official said. "There were others who said: 'Wait a second. Sure we can claim progress, but it's not credible to . . . just neglect the fact that it's had no effect on the ground.' "

And with one good "snip", Petraeus finds his reputation neutered.

(Side note: Who are these maverick "White House officials" who dare to call this "disingenuous?" They certainly won't be lasting very long...)

Petraeus may not need a ghost writer, but he's got one anyway - or several. And with Bush and Cheney getting final script approval, we can get a pretty good idea what the "report" will look like. Call it a hunch, I think Bush will like what he sees:

So the White House will lie in the report it writes under Petraeus' byline, then "interpret" it on its own to justify anything it wants.

Let me predict the future:

The report: "Success!"
The interpretation: "Smashing success!"

Even conservative blogger James Joyner at Outside the Beltway calls this utterly tone deaf:

I didn't expect the report to be an objective view of the situation totally divorced from politics. But I did figure they'd at least take reasonable steps to at least present that illusion.

Doing it this way is so mindnumbingly stupid as to defy measurement.

Now, if Joyner had just left it at that, I'd have given him a little gold star next to his name and moved on. But then he had to go and follow it up with this (emphasis mine):

The whole point of the September report was to 1) freeze the political debate until a set point in the future and 2) present the views of trusted experts on the ground that, while there remains a lot of work to be done, there is real progress being made and therefore 3) we need more time. If this is just the White House’s view of the situation, the first two advantages are rendered moot.

No.

The whole point of the September report was to give an honest assessment of the situation in Iraq - both military and political - devoid of any domestic political influence. If you commission a report to reflect a predetermined scenario, that's not a "report," it's "propaganda." WMD's, aluminium centrifuges, Mohammed Atta in Prague, Iraq's involvement in 9/11...we've seen this administration handle intelligence data the way a circus clown handles a balloon animal. Douglas "dumbest [expletive] guy on the planet" Feith owes his career to the White House's cherry-picking skills.

But what about some of the other revelations, before the White House spin gets applied? Like Petraeus' prediction of a "pullback," that some troops may be drawn down and redeployed from areas in which they've seen success. The Influence Peddler doesn't need the White House, he provides his own spin:

That's the sort of dramatic move that might force some Americans to re-think what they thought they knew about our 'failure' in Iraq. If it happens, and the Iraqi forces can keep the peace, it would mark an unmistakable 'turning-the-corner' moment.

These are the people for whom "pull my finger" was invented.

As anyone who's been semi-conscious for the last three years could tell you, we've turned that corner about 42 times before:

Now, pardon me for armchair quarterbacking here, but isn’t this what we did last time? Go into an area, secure it, hand it over to Iraqi forces and then watch as it went downhill and descended back into chaos?

Yeah, you think I’m just being critical for no reason, but read this...

Petraeus has not told the White House where he might recommend reductions. But military commanders have indicated in recent briefings that Nineveh province in northern Iraq and its capital, Mosul, like Al Anbar in the west, could be an area from which it might be suitable for the U.S. to withdraw.

Okay...they said Mosul. That’s in Northern Iraq.

Well, yesterday hundreds were killed or seriously injured by the biggest suicide bombing attack yet in Iraq right outside of…you guessed it...Mosul.

Come to think of it, Bush - even with Cheney's help - might not be quite up to the task of all the hard work of ghost writing this report. They don't even have the confidence to let Petraeus and Crocker testify publically before Congress - despite the law mandating a public hearing - and are suggesting a private congressional briefing instead.

They may need to bring in the Ghost Writer back-up team.

A note on the practicality of making the Minutemen and Lou Dobbs happy: For those who believe if you make life intolerable for the roughly 12 undocumented aliens in this country, they'll just go home - some cities are trying to do just that. The latest focus is going after their cars. First, they took away their right to get a license - now they tow their cars if they're pulled over.

If anyone really thinks this will stop illegals from driving - you're delusional. In many cases they've been scared off from public transportation, so driving to work is their only perceived alternative. And drive to work they will because above all else they've come here to work. So consider the inevitable consequence; illegal immigrant drives car, without license and therefore without insurance. When they get into an accident or are pulled over, you guessed it, they step on the accelerator, risking your safety - and the safety of law enforcement agents - as they flee.

Cracking down on immigrants has become popular sport but too often, the ones making the rules haven't thought things through.

Barack Obama has his work cut out for him.

Running a distant second in a seemingly static race, Obama is trying anything and everything to close the gap and present himself as a more viable option than his senate colleague, and that includes claiming to be better suited to unifying the divided country than Clinton. At Swampland, Joe Klein agrees:

I thought he was pretty sane and judicious about the differences between him and Hillary Clinton--and was surprised by the toxic reaction from the Clinton campaign… Saying that Clinton is experienced, but brings a lot of 90s baggage with her, is not attack politics. It is simple truth.

And Klein should know, having helped heap that baggage onto the Clintons in the '90's...and more recently. But the issue of Clinton's electability is real, especialy given her high unfavorables, the highest of any Dem candidate. There's still a lot of stiff resistance to Clinton, even on the left (or maybe especially on the left):

The problem with Hillary, besides her power lust, is her baggage and people's very well defined preconceptions about her. The fact is that an extremely large number of people in this country simply hate Hillary as a person and as a politician and those people are well organized.

"...very well defined preconceptions about her." Well, far be it from me to suggest that, when choosing the leader of the nation, someone endeavor to go beyond their very well defined preconceptions, examine them and the candidate with an open mind, and see if maybe some of those preconceptions aren't, y'know, utter hogwash. I know it's easier to reinforce a narrative that one has spent years clinging to, but, sheesh...Don't do the opposition's work for them.

And speaking of which...

The last thing we need, at a point where the Democrats can establish a decisive margin of political power, is somebody out to unify the country. I fear that Senator Obama is turning into the DLC candidate, in all but name.

And then there's...

That's the reason Obama is running? In order to "bring new people into the process and break out of some of the ideological gridlock?"

Not so he can end the war in Iraq, address global warming, provide healthcare to all, reduce income inequalities, address global poverty and HIV/AIDS and other global healthcare crises, create a viable system of public transit, deliver quality education to kids, ensure income security for retirees, and create good jobs and stem offshoring? Not even to end corporate lobbyist control over Washington?...

Just to bring the country together?......

...If you don't run on a substantive progressive program as your core message, you won't deliver one.

Or biofuels? What about biofuels?

I understand that, with the early promise of the empty slate that was Barack Obama, some people may be getting antsy that he's not turning out to be exactly the candidate they wanted him to be. Obama has addressed healthcare, poverty, HIV/AIDS...I think I might have heard him say a thing or two about Iraq, I'm not sure....But because he's not wonky enough for some, he's an empty suit?

Dukakis? That's low.

I understand the instinctive recoil to anything that smacks of DC-brand "centrism," but Obama talking about bringing a divided country together does not automatically qualify. Obama is just doing what Hillary has been doing of late - speaking past the Democratic field and addressing general election voters. If he's not using the precise talking points you'd like him to - get over it. Taking a hit off the Karl Rove crack pipe is NOT what Democrats need right now.

Besides, while even Obama concedes that that most of Clinton's preconceptions and baggage was from unfair Republican attacks, Needlenose (fairly, I think) awards him the August 2007 Captain Renault Award for Feigned Ignorance:

Does Obama really believe that if nominated, he won't be the target of "some pretty unfair attacks" by the Republicans designed to make him a polarizing figure and an object of partisan scorn? Of course he doesn't.

Has Obama forgotten that Bill Clinton himself ran as an anti-ideological, anti-partisan candidate (criticizing the "false choices" of existing policy debates), and that the divisions during his presidency stemmed not from a failure to reach across partisan lines, but from a solid wall of Republican opposition created purely for the sake of denying him success? Of course he hasn't.

In fact, he seems to think that copying Clinton's 1992 approach is a pretty good idea, as long as he pretends not to remember what happened in 1993 and 1994.

Just as long as he doesn't promise "to be a uniter, not a divider."

We know how well that worked out last time.

Karl Rove hasn't even left the building yet, and already the sweet allure of his take no prisoners, win at all costs campaign style has some conservatives like Hugh Hewitt jonesing for a hit, hoping the Rover will get back in the game for 2008:

Democrats have to be worried that when Karl Rive exits the White House in August, he'll take a month off and end up at the virtual elbow of Mayor Giuliani, Governor Romney, or Senator Thompson. They should be worried. Of course that's what he (and Ken Mehlman) will be doing. All-stars whose franchise can't play for the title often show up in the heat of the hunt. Politics is like sports in many ways. And Rove is the Tiger Woods of politics.

I'll give Hugh credit (now there's something I never thought I'd say) - politics is like sports. But I think a better athlete analogy for Rove would be Mark McGuire. An anabolic monster whose impressive home run accomplishment was overshadowed by cheating, and whose career was cut short by the very instrument of his success. But unlike the St. Louis Cardinals, Karl's team will be suffering long after his departure. Rove promised a Republican realignment that would last decades, but his strategy backfired. Andrew Sullivan makes the case that Rove sacrificed lasting success for quick, short-term gains - ruining the GOP in the process:

Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war - and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. His divisive politics and elevation of corrupt mediocrities to every branch of government has turned an entire generation off the conservative label. And rightly so. It will take another generation to recover from the toxins he has injected, with the president's eager approval, into the political culture and into the conservative soul.

Apparently those toxins give a pretty good buzz, because the current crop of GOP candidates are all eager to take a hit:

Whatever history makes of Karl Rove’s role in the White House, his legacy as a political strategist can be measured in a presidential campaign that has already begun without him. A look at the roster of every Republican presidential candidate finds people who have worked with him, and they have brought some of his methods to this race.

"Whatever history makes of Karl Rove's role..." Sheesh. Ad Nags doesn't bother to decry Roves tactics. After all, he's never tried the really hard stuff, but the contact high? FREEEEE-YOWWW! Karl Rove did for the politics of division and demonizing what Sid Vicious did for heroin to a generation of punks. But just as heroin is poison, the GOP candidates haven't caught on that Rove's strategies may give a quick high, but lead to an early, messy death:

In 2006, the year he had the math, his party got walloped, not flipping a single seat for the first time in modern history. He presided over an historic collapse of the Republican Party such that the 2008 race will only be won by running against the protege he brought to the White House.
......
Rove ran the same exact "play to the base" election every year no matter what the political landscape. The only difference was that he was willing to be more ruthless and more unethical and even more criminal. That's not genius, unless you consider a criminal mind genius. In so doing, Rove empowered a maniac base that is purging their party of moderate, national candidates and quickly turning them into a regional minority.

Karl Rove - the heroin of American politics

Wrap your mind around the following number. 100,000 - that's how many Americans have been murdered since 9/11. In the nearly six years since we've been attacked, our government has robbed Peter to pay Paul. Disbanding the COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) program that put tens of thousands of police on the streets and using that money in homeland security has exposed our biggest cities to an even greater, familiar threat - urban unchecked violence.

As Bob Herbert reported today, police chiefs are worried. Bill Bratton, former chief of the NYPD, who now runs the Los Angeles police department, calls it "a gathering storm." The Police Executive Forum estimates more than a half a million people in the past five years were victims of aggravated assault with a firearm.

Guns and youthful assailants are all too often joined at the hip. The script has become familiar; fatherless kids hyped up on a culture that glorifies violence and stresses your rep and tragically embodies the lyric of "get rich, or die trying." Hope and alternatives are in short supply in too many cities and the problem is actually getting worse. Prisons jammed in the 90's in the “get tough on crime” era are releasing hundreds of thousands of hard core inmates with little or no skills and even less job prospects back into the same neighborhoods struggling with violent crime. It's like throwing a bucket of water on a drowning victim.

Newark is grieving, but they’re also coming together. They cannot, however, dig out of this crisis alone. Parents must do more than make a baby, absolutely - but if terrorists killed 100 thousand Americans since 9/11 our government would declare war on the enemy. They - and we - have turned a blind eye. Three dead kids executed on a playground should make us all see the coming storm.

Iowa Hearts Huckabee!

Now, granted, yesterday I questioned the validity of a straw poll that can be bought and that the leading candidates don't even participate in, but for a lower tier candidate like Mike Huckabee, it's a feather in his cap...or just insert your own version of pundit-speak here:

Finishing second in Ames was none other than the former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee. The Huckster spent next to nothing and captured 18% of the vote. To say Mr. Huckabee “exceeded expectations” is just not good enough, not if you want to be a complete pundit. The correct response when querried as to how Mr. Huckabee did in the Ames Straw Poll is he pulled off “a surprise.” This is one step below “a shocker” which is a rarely used term in the pundit vocabulary. “A shocker” is reserved for those delicious circumstances when the front runner fails to exceed expectations and is defeated by someone the punditocracy had previously considered “a surprise.”

Marc Anbinder gets analytical and counts the ways that Huckabee did so well:

So -- how did Huckabee finish so highly?

1. He is a powerful political communicator.
2. His campaign paid for about 1800 tickets.
3. His support of the Fair Tax proposal
4. His affinity with evangelical Christians and home schoolers
5. His many visits to Iowa and high-profile evangelical activist supporters
6. He needed only about 2600 votes to finish second
7. His debate performances

And by all accounts, Mike Huckabee is just a likable guy. You can disagree with his policies, and many do, but it's just hard to build up any real animosity towards him. And when you compare him to a flip-flopping millionaire like Romney and the stridently nutty Brownback, you can see how Iowans took a cotton to Huck:

Unlike Mitt Romney and Sam Brownback, Huckabee didn't bring busloads of supporters to Ames, nor did he spend vast amounts of money on the straw poll. Yet he managed to beat Brownback and steal Romney's thunder on the basis of a live performace of "Free Bird" and a large dose of conservative stumping.

Waitaminute. Hang on. Free Bird? Oh, do tell me more!:

This just in from Register reporter Jennifer Jacobs:

Mike Huckabee was playing “Free Bird” on a bass guitar at his stage this morning.

The lyrics are about a guy breaking off a love affair, explaining why he can’t make a commitment. “If I leave here tomorrow,” begins the song by rock band Lynyrd Skynrd, “would you still remember me?”

OMG! Huckabee! Freebird! Who cares about whether lyrical analysis shows it to be inappropriate for a presidential candidate?

Huckabee!

Freebird!

I'm a little upset that I'm just finding about this now. Apparently, Huck's been making this a staple on his North American Tour presidential campaign. The blog Vote for Breakfast has a bit more about the band...and the video from New Hampshire!

On July 7, 2007, Presidential Candidate and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee took the stage in Nashua, NH to preform a scorching rendition of the Southern rock anthem "Free Bird" with his band Capitol Offense. The band is comprised of the Governor (bass), members of his staff (plus one family member) and an investment banker (rhythm guitar). The band is billed on their MySpace page as "The Hardest Working Band in Politics!"

There was an uncomfortable feeling in the air as the band played the already down-beat opening at a painfully sleepy tempo. But when Arkansas Family Life Issues Liason Chris Pyle's drums and Presidential Candidate Huckabee's bass kicked into overdrive midway though the song, there was no question that this band rocked!

(raising bic lighter)

Huckabee!!!

HUCKABEE!!!

This is satire:

McCain Late To Debate Due To Greyhound Delays

DES MOINES, IA—Citing a series of unanticipated disruptions to the Greyhound bus service, a red-faced and breathless Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) arrived 50 minutes after the start of the Republican presidential debates Sunday.

According to the beleaguered candidate, a series of departure delays, missed transfers, and a flat tire outside Oxford, OH forced him to arrive at the outskirts of Iowa's capital five minutes before the debate was about to begin.

"To the esteemed people of Des Moines, the ABC viewers at home, and moderator George Stephanopoulos, I'm sorry I'm late," McCain said as he assumed his position behind his assigned podium and fastened his lavalier microphone to his lapel. "I would've called, but I was out of minutes on my prepaid cell phone."

As the broadcast ended, McCain sprinted backstage to relieve himself and fill his suit pockets with complimentary bottled water and the contents of a cheese platter.

This is not:

McCain takes once high-flying bid to S.Carolina

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) - US Airways Flight 3027 from Washington to South Carolina was cramped on Monday, carrying a full load of passengers that included summer travelers and Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

This is what McCain's legendary "Straight Talk Express" has become -- no huge bus and accompanying entourage -- just simply the Arizona senator, an aide carrying a briefcase, on a crowded commercial flight and a fairly anonymous arrival at Columbia's airport for two days of campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination.

At Washington's National Airport, McCain watched the electronic flight schedule warily, knowing he'd make his engagements "if the plane is on time," he said gamely. His flight was a half hour late in taking off and there were no first class seats.

If there's a difference, I can't spot it.

A lot of the shots at Karl Rove on his way out the door are the bitter variety, born from years of getting beat at the ballot box. Be honest, who really thought Bush could win in ‘04 with a war based on lies - or at the very least mistakes? Rove often won with the worst hand at the table - part hustler, partly because too many were afraid to call his bluff.

Either way, Rove kept winning up until last year when the facts finally caught up to him. Unlike many who didn't agree with Rove, I admired his political skill…to a point. Rove has no line he will not cross. Terror attacks? Let’s take tragedy and turn it into a political talking point to attack our opponents. Innuendo? Pretend it's fact and smear Democrat and Republican alike, destroying lives in the process, even if you know it's a lie.

I used to think that Democrats ought to have adopted the old adage of "if you can't beat them, join them,” but Rove went so low, so often that the public - albeit a decade too late - finally caught on to his tired old act. The “Architect” has seen his political skyscraper crumble, and if he's honest - he'll take a long hard look at the crumbling foundation he laid with his own two hands.

Karl Rove to spend more time with Andy Card's family.

They called him "the Architect," and "Bush's Brain." Bush himself even referred to him as "Turd Blossom." Of course, people called him a lot of other things too, but I can't repeat them here (Hi, Mom!). But whether you admired or loathed him, you can't deny the man left his mark on Washington and the country:

He threw out the old conventional wisdom that to win parties must try to create winning coalitions that also include attracting independent, moderate and centrist voters.

He put into place a new kind of politics where not just campaigning but governing meant appealing to and serving members of a given party’s base with little effort to placate, win over or work with Americans or elected officials who weren’t in the party’s base.

This worked well when he could get enough party and base members to win an election by a)demonizing opponents b)demoralizing or dividing opponents...

It proved to be a highly flawed strategy since there was NO POLITICAL SAFETY NET.

I'm not the only one who believes it was Karl Rove who was the "senior adviser to Bush" who was quoted in Ron Suskind's 2004 article:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

And if it wasn't Rove, they were almost surely passing along something they'd heard him say. The mentality of that statement has Rove's musky odor all over it. Rove was the ultimate three-card monte hustler, always one step ahead of the rubes:

Rove, long touted by the media as a political genius, has proven to be more Macchievelli than Einstein, more the BS artist than one who could deliver convincing wins at the national level…If our intent is to laud him for any achievement, we may have to acknowledge his greatness as a master thief.

Politics is, and always has been, a contact sport. Political underhandedness is a long-accepted part of the game. But even during the final days of the Nixon administration, at the height of public scrutiny of political dirty tricks, no one played the game quite like the Rover:

Fittingly enough, Rove started his career by stealing letterheads from an opponent’s office to send out fake messages and going on to perfect his craft under the tutelage of Nixon’s dirty trickster Donald Segretti...

From the sliming of John McCain in the 2000 primaries to the outing of Valerie Plame and the firing of the U.S. Attorneys for not being political enough, Rove’s fingerprints have been all over every unethical, immoral and illegal move of the Bush Administration.

Karl Rove's purpose, his raison d'etre, was to turn everything - everything - that crossed the administration's path to their own political purposes. No department, no appointee or federal employee was too insignificant to squeeze some sort of political advantage out of. And for a while, Rove was on top of the world:

Make no mistake: No matter what you think of him, Rove did his job well, at least until the realities of the world outside the Washington Beltway became so crushing that they could no longer be subsumed or blustered away.

Rove's tactics may have helped Bush get elected twice and helped turn every nook and cranny of the federal government into an arm of the RNC, but pride goeth before the fall, and Karl never made good on his biggest promise, the one that got away when he went to the well once too often:

All Karl ever wanted was to be left alone to work in secret to destroy America's political landscape, and not be held accountable. His job was to create a permanent Republican majority, and he failed beyond his wildest nightmares.

A "permanent Republican majority." Rove's own words. Nevermind the party affiliation in that statement, can you think of any sentiment less suited to a representative democracy? But then, Karl Rove didn't do subtle. Unlike other Machievellian operatives, Rove didn't try to play down his tactics, or sweeten them with bipartisan-sounding caveats - he openly boasted about them. And that may be Rove's true legacy:

Rove’s legacy has nothing to do with his so-called strategic brilliance. His significance has everything to do with his cutthroat, win-at-all-cost style. Rove believes the political rule that there are no rules. Laws are meant to be broken. Scandals are meant to be covered up. Enemies are meant to be destroyed. The key to electoral success is to tear the country in half and see who comes out with the bigger chunk.
......
When history looks back at the disgrace of the Bush presidency, the one celebrated quote that will help capture much of what went wrong will be John DiIulio’s. It was DiIulio, the first director of the president’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who told Ron Suskind, “What you’ve got is everything — and I mean everything — being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

This was Rove’s idea, and it was Rove’s job to execute the strategy. He’ll be leaving the White House in a few weeks, but his place in history is secure. That’s not a compliment.

Karl Rove may be gone soon, but not soon forgotten.

Especially with some subpoenas with his name on them still floating around.

What If They Gave A Straw Poll and Nobody Cared?

Certainly Mitt Romney would disagree, but a lot of people are calling the results of the Iowa Straw Poll significant of exactly nothing:

I hate to be nasty, but anybody who takes the Ames Straw Poll results seriously is an idiot. A bunch of people spent ludicrous amounts of money to bus-and-truck 14,000 people to a big picnic, and the guy who spent the most bought the win with a mammoth 4516 votes...

This is ridiculous. The two leaders in the Ames straw poll received a combined total of 7,103 ballots. What exactly is this supposed to represent?...

...this event is to the Republican presidential nomination as a clown car is to a Formula One racer.

"Mitt-Mentum" may be a little overrated here. The former governor of Massachusetts outspent his rivals by about 10-1, pouring anywhere from $4-6 million into Iowa ad buys, campaign materials, busing in paid "volunteers" and getting tutored on the geography of his home state. This is like entering Carl Lewis in the Special Olympics, considering the top GOP candidates who are beating Romney in polls that aren't made of straw didn't even participate:

Romney's victory in the Iowa straw poll was not by any standard impressive. Facing marginal opposition -- none of Romney's competitors in the money-driven, pseudo-event has a serious chance of winning the nomination -- Romney won ('bought' would be more accurate) less than a third of the vote.

Which just proves that Mitt Romney has the economic chops to proudly carry forth the Bush tradition of smart spending:

In a state with a population of approximately 3 million people, Mitt Romney spent close to $6 million dollars to garner 4516 votes. Which, if my calculations are correct, means that I finished a mere 4516 votes behind him without spending a penny.

But maybe it was all worth it? After all, you know the saying, "As go conservative Iowans, so goes the nation." Actually, you probably don't know that saying, as I just made it up. Of course, conservative Iowans don't like being misunderestimated - any more than they like being referred to as "fly-over country" - and consider their straw poll very significant, gosh darn it!

Yes, the Straw Poll was mostly a dog and pony show that can be easily “bought”. We know it, you know, even the candidates know it. But it’s still an important event that tests support within the Republican Party and among conservative-leaning voters, and it’s a traditional indicator of how well they will do at the Iowa Caucuses.

So you guys on the coasts who think Iowa doesn’t matter, think again. If a candidate can’t win here, if they can’t get the support of traditionally conservative voters (not Republican, mind you, but conservatives), then they aren’t going to win anywhere else in the midwest. And I needn’t remind you that Republicans, in order to win the White House, NEED the midwest.

An interesting point. Another interesting point is that, in the 4 previous Iowa straw polls, only 2 winners have gone on to win the GOP nomination, and only one of them - George W. Bush - went on to the White House. But still, it's very significant. If for nothing else that it finally made the crowded GOP field a little smaller:

Tommy Thompson, by recognizing reality and calling it quits when others fail to do the same (John McCain, call your office), makes him, in a bizarre way, more qualified for the job than many others in the field.

He's a man of his word. Just the quality you'd want in a President.

Coincidentally, "recognizing reality and calling it quits when others fail to do the same" is just the quality you'd want in someone running the Iraq War.

Which is why poor Tommy Thompson never had a chance.

"Is facism really all that bad?"

"We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

It's all about the authoritarianism, baby.

Just add an "F" to "Stu", and you have...STFU.

Not long ago, after the the attacks in London and Glasgow, I noted that some on the right seemed disappointed that the attacks weren't more successful. Because they weren't, their reasoning went, the British government would not have the political leeway to "do what needed to be done." Racial profiling, Muslim registration and/or deportation, domestic spying, torturing suspects - all of these were, sadly, not on the table because the attacks were amateurish and unsuccessful, and the British public was not sufficiently terrorized to the point where they would allow these police state tactics to be employed. Pity, they thought.

On Thursday, the Philadelphia Daily News' Stu Bykofsky set himself apart from the crowd. In a masterful display of shamelessness, ignorance, and just a certain "Wow, that's f*@%#$-up," Bykofsky wrote that America is divided, and division is weakness. We have no patience for the Iraq War, he wrote, and so we are forgetting who the enemy is and what we must do to "win".

And that another 9/11-like attack, with thousands dead, is just what this country needs to get us back on track.

Let that sink in for a moment. And in that moment, consider that Bykofsky suggested several American landmarks as potential targets for al Qaeda, including the subway system in his own city.

Stu Bykofsky is either the most shameless attention whore ever to put ink to paper - no small feat given Ann Coulter's career - or the most vile, clueless jackass in the nation - again, a crowded field. At-Largely puts it kinder than I would:

There is no justification for the wishful thinking of cowards who think nothing of a few casualties to "unite the country."

Buit we're not talking about a "few casualties" here. Stu's talking about hundreds, thousands preferably, something to make people cower in fear and rely on the authoritarian figures to save them from the Boogeymen. There are so many things wrong with this column, but let's focus on wishing for the death of thousands for the sake of "unity". Stu's selective memory aside, it wasn't the length of the Iraq War that squandered our post-9/11 unity:

Funny how he fails to point out that America was unified until we were lied to repeatedly by this administration which used charlatans as witnesses. And all the war hawks in our media propped up as much terror as they could articulate so that the country feared a nuclear attack by Saddam more than life itself and we just had no choice but to invade a country that never attacked us. The right wing blogs try to perpetuate this fear every chance they get and like Malkin, they get upset when a bridge collapses in Minesota and the government quickly rules out terrorism...And so it goes...

America was united by both a sense of grief for the loss of innocent lives and the natural desire to see those responsible brought to justice. Now, different people's definition of "justice" may vary, but the idea of going into Afghanistan to neutralize the Taliban, dismantle al Qaeda and get bin Laden was overwhelmingly popular with the public - myself included. But once the word "Iraq" started creeping into the White House's talking points, the needle scratched across the record and people rightfully questioned the wisdom - or utter lack thereof - of this decision. That every one of the administration's justifications fell, one by one, by the wayside only served to further dissipate our national sense of unity. The Carpetbagger Report notes a few other things Stu left out:

First, welcoming the slaughter of thousands of innocents is pure insanity. Second, and this is the problem I have with every piece calling for increased unity, what, pray tell, should our “singular purpose” be?

...he’s missing the point of the national discourse. Bykofsky wants another attack to bring us together, but he lazily skips over the hard part — together around what?

...We should have “righteous rage,” but he doesn’t say how we should channel that anger into something productive. We should “quell the chattering of chipmunks,” because Bykofsky apparently prefers not to listen to political debate.

This is not only a prescription for inviting mass murder, it’s also a call for unity for unity’s sake, which is hollow and meaningless.

Americans debate, Stu. We disagree. It's what we do in a democracy. So unless you're trying for an authoritarian police state, there IS a problem of having unity just for unity's sake:

I don't understand this yearning for a time of "unity." Its basic translation is a time when everyone who disagreed with me decided it was best to shut the hell up for awhile and when the patriot police had a good time hunting for dissidents. That's an unhealthy state of affairs, not a healthy one.

Now we're getting somewhere.

This idea of extreme measures to "wake people up" is not only illogical, but it's not even new:

Points for Honesty. Crazy-Assed, Moon-Barking, Balls-Out Offensive Honesty. But Honesty, Nonetheless.

Other Bush apologists hinted at it...Stu Bykofsky just went ahead and said it.

It's like they're begging for it. Sadly, Stu Bykofsky has the usual lunatics applauding his idea.

It's not "unity" that Stu and other rightwingers want. It is, and always has been, all about the authoritarianism. Not just so they can get their war on, but so they can have the kind of political climate in which their critics either share their crazed views or are silenced:

We don’t need healing. We need the half of the country that doesn’t believe we are under threat from global jihad to wake up and smell the suicide bomb smoke.

The answer isn’t to pray for another mass terrorist attack. The answer is to educate the sheeple about our enemies, name them, shame them, fight them overseas, and fight them and their apologists with every fiber of our collective being here at home.

There is no "unity" for this crowd, only obediance. Anything that detracts from their goal of an authoritarian police state is to be beaten into submission. All in the name of...what? Keeping us "safe"? From who? For what? For a bunch of people who idolize Reagan, they are frighteningly quick to embrace a shoddy fascist state in which the government monitors its citizens, rights are trampled and all other nations cower in fear. This is what they would have the "Shining City Upon the Hill" become:

Certainly, Islamic terrorists are a dangerous threat. They can crash airplanes and skyscrapers; they can bomb subways and commuter trains. But Islamic terrorists can’t destroy America. There aren’t enough of ‘em to storm our capitol and occupy our land from sea to shining sea. Only we can destroy America, from within. And some of us are doing a heck of a job.

But the Stu Bykofskys, the Michelle Malkins, the John Gibsons of the world will remain isolated from reality, and from the rest of us that refuse to succumb to hysteria and give up the freedoms that terrorists supposedly hate us for. Still, Joe Gandelman has a suggestion for Stu and I have to admit, again, it's far kinder than mine would be:

...Wishing for another 911?

Save that sentiment — and then repeat it to the families of those who’ll be murdered, if another attack takes place...

Good luck. The coward wouldn't get 3 words out before someone slapped the taste out of his mouth.

Unless your last name is Kucinich, last night's LGBT debate was a tricky two-step for the Democratic candidates who showed up. With all of them supporting equal rights for gays, most of the candidates got passing grades. But they got bogged down by "semantics;" they didn't exactly distinguish themselves on the issue of gay marriage per se:

Hillary was last and answered the tough questions about the failure of Don't Ask, Don't Tell with candor. She also said her opposition to gay marriage is "personal" and whereas Obama said it's a matter for churches to decide, she said it's a matter for states to decide.

Both are cop-out positions, of course. If you support equal rights and domestic partnerships, there's no reason not to support gay marriage.

Kucinich opened his segment by stating his support for the entire LGBT agenda, automatically becoming the room favorite. Gravel supports gay marriage as well, but......he's Gravel. Too weird for any room. But for the rest of the candidates, lots of B-minus and C-pluses for dodging the real issue. Denying a group rights that other groups enjoy over an issue of semantics is just weak. If you have to resort to semantics to keep the status quo, then the status doesn't desrve to be quo. But the one F grade had to go to Bill Richardson for his botched reaction to whether homosexuality is a choice, or biological:

Let's just say it right now - Bill Richardson self-immolated tonight on live TV. I haven't seen anyone fumble a question like this so badly.

MS. ETHERIDGE: Thank you.

Do you think homosexuality is a choice, or is it biological?

GOV. RICHARDSON: It's a choice. It's --

MS. ETHERIDGE: I don't know if you understand the question. (Soft laughter.) Do you think I -- a homosexual is born that way, or do you think that around seventh grade we go, "Ooh, I want to be gay"?

GOV. RICHARDSON: Well, I -- I'm not a scientist. It's -- you know, I don't see this as an issue of science or definition. I see gays and lesbians as people as a matter of human decency. I see it as a matter of love and companionship and people loving each other. You know I don't like to categorize people. I don't like to, like, answer definitions like that that, you know, perhaps are grounded in science or something else that I don't understand.

Karen Ocamb said there were gasps, and hisses in the audience. A Richardson supporter, Richard Zaldavar, said, that it's a sentiment in the Latino and black communities that homosexuality is a choice (ostensibly to rationalize Richardson stepping on that land mine). He was given ample opportunity to extract himself from the situation, but it really went downhill from there.

"I don't know if you understand the question."

Ms. Etheridge was being too kind. At least he didn't suggest that you can pray the gay away. Richardson did himself no favors among the LGBT crowd, or among heterosexuals who just know better for that matter. But one blogger to come to Richardson's defense - sort of - was Atrios:

But in general terms, focusing on the record is something we should do more instead of trying to divine what's in the souls of candidates. There are reasons for doing the latter, as past performance is no guarantee of future returns, but ultimately it doesn't really matter what politicians think about things deep in their hearts. Bill Richardson can think (not saying he does) that homosexuality is an abomination which will be punished by an eternity in hell, as long as he's pushing for policies which provide gays and lesbians with equal rights.

And Richardson's record shows he does just that. Cold comfort for him at this point, though.

Undoubtedly there were negatives - Clinton and Obama stumbling over semantics, Edwards fumbling slowly closer to equal rights, Richardson just bumbling...and where were Biden and Dodd? Scheduling conflicts? Although given Biden's propensity for chewing his foot, maybe that's for the better. And I'm sure Dodd's daughters have to be relieved. But there were more positives to be taken away from the event as well. The LGBT discussion has gone mainstream:

We've reached a point in which Democratic presidential candidates are anxious to endear themselves to the LGBT community, and jumped at the chance to emphasize their support for gay rights. It's an impressive milestone and a huge step forward for social progress...

...The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.

Next, I'll preview the upcoming Republican debate at the LGBT forum to com.......

What? They're not?

Shocking.

In my business, more often than not, there are shades of grey. Arguments or explanations mitigating black or white answers. When it comes to veteran care, however, the facts speak for themselves. Veterans, young and old, stood tall for America, and now an obscenely large number of them find themselves shortchanged or worse.

Only a fool would argue the status quo is acceptable, but decent people argue it's too daunting. My suggestion to those is visit the Montrose VA Hospital, talk to the vets and tell me if they couldn't be your grandfather, uncle or sister. Listen to their realities and tell me if the V.A.'s plan or rationale to close Montrose is worth a hill of beans.

Beyond Walter Reed, and anacronyms like TBI. and PTSD, we the people now know vets have gotten a raw deal, but it's much more than that. Men and women we should be honoring need more than medals and applause, they need what America promised them. Let's start making things right with Montrose.

When trying to win the support of a party's base, a candidate will often tell them what they want to hear, and try to convince them they mean it. Case in point: in Rudy Giuliani's "12 Commitments to the American People", this comes in at #2:

I will end illegal immigration, secure our borders, and identify every non-citizen in our nation.

Political Lesson #18 - When taking a bold position, make sure your own record isn't completely at odds with it, and as Rudy's rival Romney pointed out, Rudy's record is a wreck:

So I think it is fair to ask, how will Rudy "end illegal immigration" when his past says he pretty much accepted and defended it?

Or better yet, perhaps the question to ask is why should we believe you now when you had a chance in the past to actually address it and enforce existing law and chose, instead to ignore it, Mr. "Law and Order?"

Then there's Political lesson #19, if you're going to attack your political opponent for having inconsistent views on an issue, make sure your views are not equally inconsistent:

The larger problem for Romney is that he has a long history of flip flops...

But by going after Giuliani on this issue when his own record is so...at variance...with his current assertions, is likely to boomerang.

It gives Giuliani — and Romney’s other foes — the perfect opening to now take the easy political way out: just rattle off the list of points in the ABC News reports. There is little in the Romney personal or political record to indicate he has a history of being the kind of hard-liner on immigration that so many Republican voters seek. And Democrats can smile as they watch all of this unfold, all because Hispanic voters will likely be out in force in 2008 to give their response to the Republican hard line.

And make no mistake about it, as we saw with the Great Anti-Immigration Rebellion of Aught-Seven, the Guardians Against ¡Reconquista! (aka the GOP base) will brook nothing less than utter fealty on their pet issue. Just ask John McCain how far bucking the base-line on that one got him. And so, pragmatic northeastern politicians who actually have experience running cities and states where the undocumented immigrant problem requires some nuance will be forced to one-up each other in promising to "Double Gitmo" the issue in order to please their primary voters.

And John Hawkins of Right Wing News - former blog consultant to the If-He-Gets-the-GOP-Nomination-I'll-Eat-My-Shirt Duncan Hunter - wants his hard line met, dadgummit!

Both of these guys have a horrible record on illegal immigration and both of them support comprehensive immigration reform. On the other hand, neither of these guys were dumb enough to support the disastrous Senate bill that the open borders and amnesty crowd wanted to push through.

The truth is that despite the impression they're trying to give people, neither of these guys probably has views on immigration that differ significantly from those of George Bush, John McCain, or Mel Martinez and you can't really trust them on the issue.

That's why the best thing conservatives can do with both of these candidates is try to get them on the record, in detail, as much as possible on illegal immigration. That way, if they do get the nod, their promises can be used as a leverage point if and when they get into office.

Which brings us to Political Lesson #1 - Some people will fall for anything.

Well, THAT was exciting! A good ol' fashioned Democratic donnybrook broke out last night (in Chicago, natch), with Dodd and Biden vs Edwards, Edwards and Obama vs Clinton, Everybody vs Obama...It was like professional wrestling, but with suits. Taegan Goddard wites at the Huffington Post that "there can be only one," and he's not talking about the Highlander:

The escalating attacks by Edwards and Obama on Clinton -- and on each other -- are attempts to better position themselves as the alternative to Clinton…There is clearly room for at least one anti-Hillary candidate, but probably not two.

With all this jockeying for position, a new dynamic does seem to be forming, creating some alliances of convenience, for however long they last:

If this debate is remembered for anything, it will be for the moment that Joe Biden turned into Hillary Clinton's surrogate. He went after Obama on foreign policy and targeted Edwards on how sincere his labor stances are.

In fact, Dodd seemed to also take part in the attacks on Obama (less so on Edwards). But clearly, the old guard of Washington are not taking kindly to either Obama and Edwards. The problem for the two chief Clinton challengers, though, is that they are fighting to be the same person, the anti-Hillary. And Clinton, now, has a lot of supporters on stage with her, including Dodd and Biden. It's a fascinating dynamic that I think is developing in this primary. But how long can Edwards and Obama be allies and how comfortable will Dodd and Biden be carrying Clinton's water?

Looks like Biden may not be jockeying for the Democratic nomination, but a spot in Clinton's cabinet. But as MyDD points out, this dynamic is nothing new to Democratic debates:

Is anyone else getting flashbacks to the 2004 debates?

In the 2004 debates, Gephardt and Kerry would tag-team their attacks on Dean and even defend one another, and after Gephardt left the race there was never really any question of who he would endorse. And there was the often-heard complaint from elder senators that Edwards was too young and hadn't put in his time in Washington; he hadn't "earned" a run for the presidency.

It was the 'dinosaurs' vs. the young 'whipper-snappers'. Most interestingly of all, in 2004 as well, the main faultline centered on the Iraq war, with the 'elder statesmen' in the race having voted for it, and the rebellious, younger, more forthright generation of Dean having opposed the war.

People wanted fewer rehearsed talking points and more passion, and they got it. And while Democrats should always be wary of falling back into their usual circular firing squad formation, this crop seems to be a bit smarter than that, at least so far. And supporters are responding positively. They don't mind the occasional thrown elbow or bloody nose; spirited debates like these are good for democracy.

My view about these debates/forums is that whatever they do for the individual candidates...they are great for the Democratic Party, because collectively they have good answers to most of these questions and more. And their answers are getting better as they debate each other.
.....
They are collectively writing the Democratic platform, instead of leaving that to the front runner a year before the conventions.
.....
The Party looks best when they’re all on that stage, jockeying with each other to be sure, but it’s a good debate, framing and clarifying the issues, and giving us one opportunity after another to show how George Bush and his Republican Party have trashed the country.

Personally, I think they were just waiting for Gravel to get his kooky self off the stage before getting into a real heated issues debate - he might have gone the rest of the way 'round the bend and thrown one of them in Lake Michigan.

Ugh. No more FISA-blogging. For a bit, anyway. I'm giving myself an ulcer. So let's try to accentuate the positive, and talk about the feel-good sports story of the summer!

Bloggers cannot live by politics alone. Some spice up their Washington coverage by blogging about their pets, orchids, new recipes, and, yes, even baseball. And when you have something as controversial as Barry Bonds and his record-breaking home run, well, let the punditry commence! The Moderate Voice is decidedly not moderate with their praise of Barry's accomplishment:

Mark Spitz's seven Olympic gold medals, Lance Armstrong's seven Tour de France victories and Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game all were extraordinary, but don't compare.

The boys over at Sadly, No! agree - those things don't compare. Spitz, Armstrong and Chamberlain weren't on steroids. So they gave a suggestion
for Barry Bonds first post-record-breaking endorsement:

Now, Matthew Yglesias admits to not paying much attention to baseball...and then proceeds to make like Bob Costas and comes to the conclusion that Barry Bonds was simply the greatest offensive player in the history of baseball:

...it's silly for people to just shut their ears and pretend this didn't happen. Yes, it appears that during the period when Major League Baseball had no steroid policy, he took steroids. And the day when MLB invalidates all the other records from the Steroid Era -- rescinds the World Series titles and the division penants, takes back the Cy Young awards and the Golden Gloves, etc., etc., etc. -- I suppose it would make sense to take Bonds' achievements away too. But until that happens, the records are the records and he played better than anyone else.

Still, some people will always put an asterisk next to Bonds' name. (Which reminds me, you'd think Bush would've called him after the game ended. They have that * in common). But Captain's Quarters says the asterisk should belong to someone else:

But that's part of the problem with putting a big, fat asterisk on Bonds' record. We may want to do that to show the difference between Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds, but both played in different conditions. If Bonds bulked up, so did plenty of other players, including the pitchers he faced. It's the Steroids Era, and Bonds excelled in it.
.....
So who really deserves the asterisk? Peter Ueberroth, Fay Vincent, and Bud Selig. They did nothing while steroids flourished, because owners liked what it did to the game. It resulted in more homers, and more spectacular homers at that...The owners marketed on steroids and they depended on them just as much as the players who used them -- and these commissioners didn't lift a finger to stop it until Congress asserted what little authority it had to embarrass MLB. Only then did Selig start pushing against the Steroids Era.

For me, I'm on the fence. Would Bonds have broken Aaron's record without steroids? I doubt it. But there's also no denying that, steroids or not, Bonds is and always has been one to swing some pretty heavy lumber. And since he's stayed mostly healthy for a good part of his career, there's a pretty good chance that a steroid-free Bonds could've broken quite a few records on his own merits. But we'll never know. Mostly I'm just glad he's not in the AL East. But I'm a baseball fan. Not every blogger would say the same:

Barry Bonds has finally hit home run #756. Can we now please go back to ignoring him?

And now, back to your regularly schedujled political blogging.

In Newark, NJ four friends who made music together and were preparing to return to college were shot at close range to the back of the head – three died, one was wounded. They are the latest victims in the city where the murder rate has risen 50% from 1998-2006. The killings bring Newark’s murder total for the year to 60, and put pressure on Mayor Corey Booker, who campaigned last year on a promise of reducing crime. Donna Jackson, the president of the community- based “Take Back Our Streets” organization said: "he doesn’t deserve another day, another second, while our children are at stake... Anyone who has children in the city is in panic mode. It takes something like this for people to open up their eyes and understand that not every person killed in Newark is a drug dealer."

Booker said it was a time for unity and "not a time to play politics and divide our city." A month ago, Booker and police director Garry McCarthy announced that shootings in the city had fallen by 80% in the first six months of 2007 compared to a year ago. And Saturday night’s killings, along with an unrelated shooting over the weekend, brought Newark’s murder total to 60 in 2007. That is just three fewer than in the same period in 2006. Plus consider this disturbing statistic: 17 people have been killed in the city since June 12, a rate that would surpass 2006’s total of 106 murders for the calendar year.

First a disclaimer, I know Corey Booker. Not well enough to call him friend, but well enough to know him before he even ran for office. Over the years I have met presidents and lawmakers at every level of national and state government - I have never met a more genuine and decent public servant than Corey Booker.

He and his city, always it seems beset with controversy or violence, are being truly tested now. It doesn't matter that the mayor has put more cops on the streets, cut violent crime and made inroads in quality of life - four good kids, Newark’s best and brightest, were gunned down execution style.

Much of the city has descended into an after-dark war zone, and while it started long before Corey Booker, the buck now stops with him. But give him a chance. Political challengers have turned this tragedy into bottom feeding opportunism - you people are part of Newark’s problems not it's solution.

But forget what I think - James Harvey, father of one of the victims said the blame on Booker is misplaced. "I don't blame the mayor", he said. "It’s on you guys. It's on the parents. When you raise your kids up, teach them right from wrong. That doesn't start with Booker."

Let's hope this tragedy can spark Newark’s turnaround - it's a steep challenge but I believe they have the right person for the job.

(Image hat tip to The Left End of the Dial V2.0)

It bears repeating. Really, it can't be stressed enough.

To throw away consitutional rights and the basic concept of checks and balances to appease an out of control executive branch that has shown neither the ability nor willingness to act within set boundaries (known to some as laws) is unconscionable. That previous wiretapping powers were never shown to be insufficient for spying on terrorists - if that's what one's purpose was limited to - calls into question the necessity for any changes at all. So the whole "appeasing" and "not questioning" thing is bad enough, but to capitulate to said overreaching unitary executive because he threatened to say mean, patently false and logically perverse things about you is to prove that you have no business governing your fellow citizens. Funding socially beneficial programs is not enough. Sometimes you have to come through with the big game.

But that's not what I wanted to stress. That's not what I wanted to repeat.

Let me repeat what I hinted at the other day and others have been clamoring about since the weekend. Right now, in my eyes and the eyes of millions of other Democrats, independents and a goodly number of libertarians and honest conservatives, let me say:

Democrats, you suck.

And because you do, I'm presenting a few of my favorite hits from today because, damn you people deserve it. MadKane takes 'em to the woodshed in limerick form:

The Dems disappoint us again,
Backing Bush in his eavesdropping yen.
We need Dems to defend us
From Bush bills horrendous.
When will Dems turn from mice into men?

The Anonymous Liberal echoes my prediction and envisions Democrat wimnpiness in the future:

If Congress is too craven to withstand administration pressure in this scenario, does anyone believe they'll actually have the stones to take existing powers away when they come up for renewal? Not likely.

Shakespeare's Sister is so angry she sounds like a Turrets patient off her meds. When Rahm Emmanuel says, "Don't hate us, we'll be united next time around, she rightly tells him to go pound sand:

Why weren't the Democrats united in defeating the bill in the first place?!...It was bad enough when the Dems were only failing to hold this administration accountable for its abuses of power. To see them transferring more power to them at this point is truly unbelievable.

Again, just as a reminder, before the mid-terms, the 2 biggest issues that rallied Democrats to get out the vote and take back House and Senate control from Republicans were The Iraq War and defending the Constitution. Dems are 0-2, and Oliver Willis can't believe, while being merely ineffectual on one issue, the Dems actually made one of those problems worse:

I don't blame the Bush administration at all for this FISA bill passing. Because what the Democratic congress has done is to say "Don't bother to punch me in the face. I'll hit myself, and as an added bonus I'll stick a fork in my groin, it's no problem."

It's tought to fight the perception that you're weak when you're busy being, y'know, weak.

Ah, youth...the gilded flower of budding promise, the innocent naiveté of perceived immortality and assured righteousness. The time to test one's boundaries and drink deep from the.....

CANDIDATE'S DAUGHTER IN FACEBOOK REBELLION!!!
JOURNALISTS ATTACK!!!

Sigh.

Yes, bloggers are weighing in on the topic of Giuliani's daughter Caroline's apparent support of Democrat Barack Obama, mostly to wonder, why do we have to weigh in on this topic?

I mean, come on. In general terms Rudy!'s family situation is fair game to the extent that the media generally makes such things fair game (rightly or wrongly), combined with the fact that he's running to be on the ticket of the family values party. But The political views of his young estranged daughter are utterly irrelevant. Just stop it.

...adding, if his daughter decides to jump into the fray and genuinely go public with her views that'd be one thing, but she didn't. A Facebook page, while "public," isn't really "going public," any more than expressing something at a party where a bunch of people could potentially overhear you and run to Howard Kurtz with the information would be "going public."

Yes, eminent beltway pundit Howard Kurtz - critic of liberal blog incivility and fawning Michelle Malkin fan - tells us all about the latest bit of triviality we're supposed to focus on instead of, oh I don't know, Rudy's policy positions:

We already knew that Caroline and her 21-year-old brother Andrew were estranged from their father...That was already an uncomfortable situation for the former New York mayor. But to have his own daughter backing a DEMOCRATIC candidate, well, what if that pops up at the next debate?

Asked and answered:

Well, then, I suppose that would be pretty bloody stupid question, now wouldn't it?

Always the nice guy, Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice offers sympathy:

In reality, RG’s daughter is probably a bit dismayed and shaken by now. Little did she ever dream that her Facebook list would be used for investigative journalism, for a GOTCHA! moment that will likely be seized on by Guiliani’s critics.

Which brings me back to Howard Kurtz for a moment. Always one to sniff about civility and fair play in blogs, I was struck by his kicker:

For the record, Caroline Giuliani says she joined Facebook for "friendship," "random play" and "whatever I can get." What she's now gotten is some presumably unwanted attention.

Presumably. Nothing gets by him, boy.

Personally, I think Howie's a McCain-iac. Or maybe Huckabee.

But back to Miss Giuliani. Hopefully she will weather through this and come out a bit more the wiser. Learning to dodge easily avoidable land mines like this is an important lesson for the child of a politician - if not for the sake of the politician himself. Almost as important as not posing for photos of your underage drinking and then putting them on Facebook.

Ah, youth.

Lower home sales, dropping prices, and skittish mortgage lenders. And here’s another sobering thought: nearly 3 million adjustable rate mortgages worth more than $600 billion are scheduled to reset this year and next. More than half of them are subprime mortgages, which means more misery in the mortgage market is probably on the way.

That silence you hear from the White House and the treasury department ought to make you worried. If this was isolated to a couple of hedge funds, or just a bad stretch in the market - believe me, the chattering class or the powers that be would saying, "Don't worry, be happy."

But noone is saying that. After years of turning a blind eye to reckless lending and the explosion of the ponzi scheme equivalent of sub-prime mortgages - the worst fears of some hold the promise of becoming harsh realities. The real takeaway here isn't that mortgage rates could jump a full point or more. It's that those people who've lost their homes may soon have a lot of company and they better not look to the banks for help. The domino theory could extend well past the housing market; loans of all kinds could become hard to come by and hedge funds as we know them could be in for a rude awakening.

And "rude awakening" may be the perfect description for where we are with the mortgage mess, let's just hope this gets better before it gets worse.