BAD POLICY

Bush gives a press conference (yawn) – and it is only noteworthy for the utter lack of energy and seriousness with which he performs

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/012438.php
Blaming Congress For His Failures . . .

On the economy: “It’s not my fault” http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/29/184839/225

On how tax cuts cure all ills: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15376.html

On gas prices: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191992.php

On the other war: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15377.html

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/nobody-likes-whiner-by-dday-you-know.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2190270
[Daniel Politi] Instead of proposing something new and innovative, Bush went back in time "to the earliest days of his administration" and called on lawmakers to approve drilling on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and expand nuclear power, among other measures that include reducing restrictions on oil companies so they can (theoretically) increase production. . . .

Flag pins! Flag pins!

http://www.slate.com/id/2190270
[Daniel Politi] In a blunt news analysis, the NYT's Carl Hulse writes that as more crises keep piling up, "official Washington" is doing what it does best: nothing. (Well, that's not entirely true. The House did vote to designate National Watermelon Month yesterday.)

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/washington/30assess.html

I’m not happy to see the Democrats take the lead on drafting an Iraq war supplemental, but it does give them a chance to put funding for their own domestic priorities in it

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9938.html
House Republicans and the White House — both of whom signed off on bills that combined war spending with domestic needs in the past when Republicans controlled Congress — say they want a “clean” bill this time, one that doesn’t contain the domestic spending many Democrats say is needed to address the nation’s economic woes. . . .

Stunning

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_326.php
[Paul Kiel] On the witness stand was the former chief prosecutor for the tribunals, Col. Morris Davis. Called to testify by defense lawyers, he told the court what he'd told the press -- that he'd quit after becoming convinced that the political appointees overseeing the system were about politics first and justice second, that he was told "we can't have acquittals," and that he was pushed to land indictments or plea deals before the election. He also said that his superiors saw no problem with using confessions obtained through torture, including waterboarding. Everything is "fair game," he says he was told, "let the judge sort it out." . . . [read on]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/we-cant-have-acquittals-by-digby.html

The Dems try again to outlaw torture

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/dems_to_push_again_to_limit_in.php

The Bush gang denies that their policies authorized torture, but they don’t want to discuss them before Congress

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/administration_officials_to_co.php

Dick Cheney, totalitarian

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/29/BL2008042901347.html
[Dan Froomkin] How far will Vice President Cheney go to shield himself and his office from public scrutiny?

Last spring, Cheney asserted that he wasn't subject to executive-branch rules about classified information because he wasn't actually part of the executive branch.

Now his office argues that he and his staff are completely immune from congressional oversight. That's right: Completely immune. . . .

Arnita Doan, finally O-U-T (and she’s pissed)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/192066.php
“Early this evening I was asked to submit my resignation, and I have just done so . . .”

Who is she? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/25/AR2007032501048.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9193920

http://citizensforethics.org/taxonomy/term/905

Watch, and laugh: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dukesnominees.php#From%20reader%20MA

100 years in Iraq: McCain said it, and he said it repeatedly

Watch: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191902.php

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/29/17452/4831

By the way: once upon a time. . . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/28/mccain-strongly-rejected_n_99082.html
[Sam Stein] When it comes to getting U.S. troops out of Iraq, Sen. John McCain was for the idea before he was against it.

Three years before the Arizona Republican argued on the campaign trail that U.S. forces could be in Iraq for 100 years in the absence of violence, he decried the very concept of a long-term troop presence. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15370.html

We need a working Federal Election Commission: McCain is getting a free ride on some highly questionable funding practices

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/reid_offers_deal_on_fec_deadlo.php

More: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hans_vindicates_georgia.php

McCain’s mindless economic policy: just like Bush, only worse

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/mccain-defies-math
[Robert Borosage] The core of the McCain economic plan consists of heroic promises to cut taxes on the wealthy and the corporations. Cobbled together to appeal to conservatives in the earlier Republican primaries, when the economy was growing, these aren’t designed to counter the recession and won’t kick in completely until 2012. McCain starts by pledging to extend all the Bush tax cuts -- which he opposed in 2001 because he could not "in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us.” That will cost an estimated $2 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartison group.

Then McCain proposes new tax cuts – even more skewed to the wealthy than the Bush cuts. The soon-to-be Republican nominee would eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax. He calls this a “middle-class tax cut,” but most of the benefit of eliminating the provision – as opposed to limiting its reach to middle income taxpayers – goes to those making more than $500,000 a year.

He would also lower the rate and coverage of the estate tax. He’d cut the top corporate tax rate across the board from 35 percent to 25 percent; allow corporations to write off all investments in their first year, and make the corporate research and development tax break permanent. He would double the child tax deduction -- providing the greatest benefit to families paying the top tax rates, and offering nothing to those making less than $28,000 a year.

The Tax Policy Center did the math. When all the McCain tax cut promises kicked in by year 2012, they would cost more than $550 billion a year -- with an estimated total of nearly $6 trillion over 10 years. . . .

McCain’s worthless, counterproductive health care “plan”

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/mccain-offers-bold-5000-tax-credit-for.html

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24377998/

Watch: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/29/195622/948

More evidence that McCain’s photo-op team isn’t quite ready for prime time

http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/04/28/mccain-jake/
[Adam Jentleson] Today at a campaign event, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) toured Miami Children’s Hospital and met with some of the facility’s young patients. As The New York Times reported, McCain heard the story of Jake, a 9 year-old child with a cleft palate. Cleft palates can be fixed with a simple operation, but as Jake’s father told McCain today, his family has been struggling to get their insurance company to cover the post-operation therapy Jake needs.

While Jake’s father related his story, McCain “nodded intently” –- but failed to tell him that Jake would not get coverage under his health care plan. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15369.html

More voter suppression: who’s making these robo-calls?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/robo_call_gives_false_voting_i.php
Calls have gone out to an untold number of North Carolina voters telling them that they need to fill out a registration form before they vote. Democracy North Carolina, a government watchdog that has posted audio (wav) of the call, says that the calls went out to "black neighborhoods." . . .

Rev. Wright does Obama a favor of sorts, giving such an outrageous public performance that it enables an angry Obama to disavow him completely and irrevocably. Does this put an end to the issue? Does any fair-minded person still want to say that Wright’s views are Obama’s problem?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Obama_denounces_Wright.html
"I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people. That’s in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding to insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings. That’s who I am, that’s what I believe, and that’s what this campaign has been about," Obama said.

"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday," he said. . . .

"The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago," he said. "His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church."

"They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs," he said.

"If Reverend Wright thinks that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well and based on his remarks yesterday, I may not know him as well as I thought either."

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church," he said. "But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the U.S. wartime efforts with terrorism – then there are no excuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced, and that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today."

"It is antithetical to my campaign. It is antithetical to what I’m about. It is not what I think America stands for," he said.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/betrayal-by-digby-i-have-frankly-been.html
[Digby] I watched Obama today and felt very sorry for him on a human level. As Joan Walsh pointed out in a series of sensitive posts on the subject, this is a guy who has written a book about being abandoned by his father and here comes father figure Wright, so self-centered that he apparently couldn't accept that his own star burned less brightly than the younger man who was very possibly on his way to becoming America's first black president. James Carville famously called Bill Richardson "Judas" recently for endorsing Senator Obama over Hillary Clinton. I would say Wright has a much greater claim to the name.

We don't know how much Obama has been politically hurt by this. But we can be sure that the right wing will flog it with everything they have in the fall. They can't run on issues and their candidate is second rate (although he's the best they can hope for, which says something.) They can only win by attempting to destroy the Democratic candidate. And as bad at governing as they are, they are very, very good a character assassination. Wright seems intent upon helping them --- perhaps so that he can drag Obama down into his martyrdom with him, I don't know. . . .

Watch: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191983.php

More: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/obama_on_wright_i_might_not_kn.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/29/152747/672

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15376.html

Just to show that EVERYTHING can be spun through an anti-Obama lens – for some people, he just can’t win. Either he doesn’t do enough to distance himself from Wright, or he does too much

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/04/obama-divorces.html
[Andrew Sullivan] That was a very impressive, clear and constructive re-framing of the core message of his candidacy; and a moment given to him by Wright. No one will ever be able to say that Obama threw his father-figure and pastor under the bus. . . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/29/14443/5382
[Jeralyn Merritt] Barack Obama is on CNN now giving a live press conference on Rev. Wright. . . . He's throwing Wright under the bus.

http://www.correntewire.com/welcome_reverend_wright
[Vastleft] Welcome, Reverend Wright! . . . It’s getting mighty crowded here under the bus, but please make yourself t’ home! . .

http://instapundit.com/archives2/018570.php
[Glenn Reynolds (“Instapundit”), always fairminded] Too little, too late, and too lawyerly . . .

Fox News: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/29/1928/28378

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/04/beyond-parody.html

The obsessive focus on Wright, Ayers, and flag pins has given Obama an opportunity to reopen the question of whether people want to see elections decided on the basis of that sort of crap. I think there is a big audience, across the political spectrum, for this line of reasoning

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/obama-says-oppo.html
Sen. Barack Obama said today that the success of his campaign has caused his opponents to raise questions about his character, rather than talking about differences they have in policy. . . .

"They're gonna suggest, well, you know he's got a funny name, and you know, he hasn't been wearing a flag pin lately. So people want, you know, they are asking questions about my values and my character and my patriotism," he said.

Obama still winning the battle for superdelegates

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/29/obama_predicted_to_have_superdelegate_edge.html

Obama goes on Fox, so now I guess Clinton has to

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/29/go-fox-yourself/

The gas tax proposal that McCain and Clinton share: bad policy

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/126232.html
[David Weigel] There is a debate to have about whether the gas tax is an effective way of collecting revenue, but no one seriously thinks it's too high. It's 18.4 cents per gallon. The average consumer will save about $30 over the entire summer if we scrap the tax. . . .

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/29/gas_taxes/index.html
[Alex Koppelman] [T]he money collected from it goes into a highway trust fund that helps state and local governments pay for various road-related expenses. . . . The merits of the suspension proposal are, at best, debatable. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15367.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/04/the_gas_tax_holiday.php

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/gas-math

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/the_gas_tax_wheres_the_savings.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillarys_contrast_ad_in_indian.php

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/30/52553/4625

You know, Obama’s vulnerabilities have been on display for several weeks – so much so that people have stopped talking about Clinton’s (considerable) vulnerabilities. How do you think THIS is going to play in a national election, for example?

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/clinton-2.3b-in-earmarks-2008-04-28.html
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has requested nearly $2.3 billion in federal earmarks for 2009, almost three times the largest amount received by a single senator this year.

The Democratic presidential candidate’s staggering request comes at a time when Congress remains engaged in a heated debate over spending federal dollars on parochial projects.

It also has gained traction on the campaign trail. Presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), a longtime foe of earmarks, has called for eliminating what he dubs “wasteful Washington spending.” Democratic front-runner Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) has spurned earmarks, seeking no funds for pet projects in the upcoming fiscal year.

Yet Clinton is continuing to request billions for earmarks, most of which will go to her home state.

Bonus item: What do you say when you have nothing to say?

http://www.correntewire.com/flirting_with_disaster

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:30 AM

 
TOTALLY BOGUS

This explains everything: for the Bush gang, prisoner mistreatment that “shocks the conscience” is a relative, not an objective, criterion – for them, it depends why you’re doing it

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_325.php

More: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/01/mukasey_shocks_bidens_conscien.php

[NB: Can’t you just imagine Cheney sitting around saying, “Well, it doesn’t shock MY conscience!”]

Ah, so THIS is why we fought so hard to win in 2006

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/28/8568/
House Democratic leaders are putting together the largest Iraq war spending bill yet, a measure that is expected to fund the war through the end of the Bush presidency and for nearly six months into the next president’s term. . . .

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gkx-3oYeFwuWKCusr2jrojs98w8wD90B3BCG0
[AP] At least 44 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month for U.S. forces since September. . . .

Great, just great

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/007325.html
[FT] Opec’s president on Monday warned oil prices could hit $200 a barrel . . .

Exposed by the NYT, the Pentagon puts a TEMPORARY halt to its media propaganda program – and the rest of the press is still ignoring this embarrassing story

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=61696

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/pentagon-more-responsive-than-broadcast.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15364.html

Bush’s panopticon

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/us/28lawyers.html
Across the country, and especially here in Oregon, it seems, lawyers who represent suspects in terrorism-related investigations complain that their ability to do their jobs is being hindered by the suspicion that the government is listening in, using the eavesdropping authority it obtained — or granted itself — after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Steven T. Wax, a Portland lawyer involved in several terrorism cases, said he has told clients to assume that everything they say to him is being secretly monitored. Mr. Wax said he “self-censors” his e-mail messages, even to other lawyers and friends. The situation, he said, has elements of “Kafka and ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ ”

The Justice Department does not deny that the government has monitored phone calls and e-mail exchanges between lawyers and their clients as part of its terrorism investigations in the United States and overseas. . . .

Indiana voter ID law OK’d by Supreme Court

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/court_upholds_voter_id_law.php
[Paul Kiel] Finally, the country will be rescued from its long nightmare struggle with voter fraud! And if certain voters find it harder to get their ballot cast, then so be it. . . . [read on]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/28/10278/6742
[Justice Stevens] The record contains no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history. . . . [read on]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/validating-voter-suppression-by-digby.html
[Digby] The Supreme Court has just legitimized the notion that "voter fraud" is a problem when, in fact, every study shows that it simply does not exist in any systematic way and that the voter disenfranchisement that results from such laws is a far more serious problem. . . . [read on]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/28/scotus/index.html
[Alex Koppelman] How much voter fraud is there, really? . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15361.html

Can we say it now? Scalia is stupid

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/28/monday-late-nite-originalist-sin/

Rove’s mouthpiece

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/28/is-isikoff-laundering-information-for-karl-rove-again/

The Republicans are scared . . . to . . . death of McCain’s “100 years in Iraq” comment. They are in a full-out, backs to the wall fight to keep any ad from mentioning it

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15365.html
[Marc Ambinder] The Republican National Committee wants CNN and MSNBC to stop airing the DNC’s new national television advertisement, calling it “false and defamatory” . . . [read on]

The AP helps: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191838.php
"The Republican National Committee demanded Monday that television networks stop running a television ad by the Democratic Party that falsely suggests John McCain wants a 100-year war in Iraq." . . . [read on]

[NB: It does NOT say that. The AP has taken the GOP spin at face value.]

Watch the fun: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/28/mccain-advisers-head-explodes-over-100-years-in-iraq-comment-video/

More: http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/rnc_uses_legal_threat_to_rebut_new_dnc_ad.php

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/28/193626/833

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2008/04/rnc_whining_about_dnc_mccain_ad.html

The RNC “threatens” to sue: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/rnc_lawyers_warn_nets_against.php
[Howard Dean] "Let them do it."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/28/154958/475
[BarbinMD] Yes, the RNC wants to protect America from misrepresentations and falsehoods. . . .

McCain: there’s no there there

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/27/the_real_mccain_tech_version/
[Reed Hundt] John McCain is setting a remarkable record: he is the major party Presidential nominee with the skimpiest policy platform since Warren Harding or perhaps Calvin Coolidge. He's making George Bush's year 2000 policy work look encyclopedic by comparison. . . . [read on]

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/the_mccain_doctrine_1.php
[Matt Yglesias] McCain offers Bush-like ideas -- indeed, Bush's ideas in a rawer, purer form -- but without Bush or necessarily too much of Bush's personnel. To make the case against McCain you need to be able to make the case against their ideas and not just against the alleged incompetence of Bush and his key subordinates. . . .

The kind of man he is

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/john-mccain-did-all-he-can-do-but-still.html
[MSNBC] On whether he has the ability to stop the NC GOP from running an ad with clips of Wright, McCain once again said that he had done all he can do, although he did admit that he has not personally tried to contact the state party . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/flaccid-flyboy-by-digby-north-carolina.html

This is a flat-out lie

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/28/9274/58485
[McCain] Senator Obama says that he doesn’t want to raise taxes on anybody over — making over $200,000 a year, yet he wants to nearly double the capital gains tax. Nearly double it, which 100 million Americans have investments in — mutual funds, 401(k)s — policemen, firemen, nurses. He wants to increase their taxes. . . . [read on]

Once again, Clinton sides with McCain against Obama

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/28/131030/283

More: http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/now-hillary-is-embracing-john-mccains.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/energy_and_environment_/2008/04/gas_prices.php

Big names line up to call for a final decision on the Democratic nomination in June

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/howard_dean_party_elders_all_a.php
Howard Dean, on ABC this morning, makes it absolutely clear that he and all the other "party elders" want the race to end well in advance of the convention . . .

Including . . . http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/28/1946/48611
[Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe, interviewed by David Corn] So, when does this end?

"June 15," he said without a nanosecond of hesitation.

Why then? I asked. The primaries finish on June 3, he noted, and after that there will be pressure on the uncommitted superdelegates (who now number about 300) to commit to one candidate or another. It should not take too long for these undecided insiders to make up their minds and declare their intentions--even if there are some who would rather not choose between the two.

So all done by June 15? You won't contend the nomination contest beyond then? I asked.

"Oh, I'm confident we'll be the nominee," he said, smiling. . . .

So, I asked, I have a promise? June 15? "June 15," he said. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15357.html

The consensus seems to be in: it was a bad idea for Obama to go on Fox News

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/28/113834/884
[Kos] So let's see ... a right-wing media outlet taunts you for a few months, and the way to show strength is to cave in to those taunts? Kind of an odd approach. . . . [read on]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191754.php
[Josh Marshall] My take is that it was stupid for an unnamed Obama advisor to tell TPM Election Central's Greg Sargent that Obama was going to "take Fox on" in the Sunday interview, since obviously he didn't. . . . [read on]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/27/205746/408
[BarbinMD] The questions (paraphrased):

* Why can't you close the deal?

* How do you overcome being an elitist?

* Won't being Black make it hard to get elected?

* Has Hillary played the race card?

* Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright, Rev. Wright?

* What you call distractions, we call values. Respond.

* William Ayers, William Ayers?

Mr. Wallace finished the interview with the questions that concern every American; John McCain; maverick or super maverick? Republicans; great ideas or the greatest ideas? Taxes; high or higher? Iraq; cut, run or cut and run? Debate with Hillary; scared or terrified? . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/28/10351/3470

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/moveon_hits_obama_for_fox_appe.php

[NB: I doubt this was choreographed, but it's probably a good thing right now for Obama to be able to point out that D-Kos and MoveOn are criticizing him.]

Bonus item: Thank goodness for Ron Paul – always good for political entertainment. (In my town, the ONLY Republican signs you see are for Paul.)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/28/11101/5611

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:40 AM

 
STRAIGHT TALK

This is simple, folks. McCain said (repeatedly) that he wouldn’t mind having troops in Iraq for a hundred years. He and his supporters know that this is electoral poison, so they have mounted a heavy pushback to discredit the quote as misleading and “out of context.” Unfortunately for them, McCain’s plain meaning is right there for all to see – context has nothing to do with it. It is the job of the Dems to hammer him with this at every opportunity. Here’s a good start

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191563.php

Listen to the GOP howl: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15353.html

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/dnc_launches_new_ad_against_mc.php

How does McCain rationalize his broken pledge not to politicize issues like the Wright controversy?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/McCain_blames_Obama_for_Wright_issue.html

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/mccain_obama_said_its_okay_to.php

McCain’s questionable use of his wife’s plane: big disclosure, right? But ask yourself this – how many members of the press received cushy flights with him, and chose not to write about it?

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_04_27_archive.html#8223710610436071845

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/27/61228/8153

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15349.html

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/27/kept-flyboy-mccain/

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/28/all-quiet-on-the-bbq-front/
LETTERMAN: You got into financial trouble, and all of that changed, turned around. What did you do—did you ever consider getting out?

MCCAIN: Well, I was riding on a well-known airline in group D, you know, that’s the one where you get to sit in the center seat between two heavyset Americans… I was carrying my own bags, which was good training, good experience. . . .

Did you know McCain said this? I read everything, and this is the first I’ve heard about it – where is the press?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/007319.html
[Fareed Zakaria] On March 26, McCain gave a speech on foreign policy in Los Angeles that was billed as his most comprehensive statement on the subject. It contained within it the most radical idea put forward by a major candidate for the presidency in 25 years. Yet almost no one noticed. . . . In his speech McCain proposed that the United States expel Russia from the G8, the group of advanced industrial countries. . . .

WTF?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/speaking-for-little-guy-by-digby-up-is.html
[AP] McCain calls Obama insensitive to poor people . . . [read on]

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/27/224148/241

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-pollack/i-feel-your-pain-mccains_b_98866.html

Republican economics 101: Huge government subsidies to ailing (and often mismanaged) industries is “investment.” Government subsidies to poor people is “socialism”

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/bush-bailouts-only-allowed-for-wall.html

What’s behind the Bush gang’s release of those Syrian reactor “videos”? A lengthy analysis

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/27/syriana/

Hillary’s threat to bomb Iran hasn’t gotten much attention in the American press — but the rest of the world has noticed

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/04/iran-hillarys-t.html

One exception: http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/boston-globe-blasts-hillary-for-saying.html
[Boston Globe] While Clinton has hammered Obama for supporting military strikes in Pakistan, her comments on Iran are much more far-reaching. She seems not to realize that she undermined Iranian reformists and pragmatists. The Iranian people have been more favorable to America than any other in the Gulf region or the Middle East.

A presidential candidate who lightly commits to obliterating Iran - and, presumably, all the children, parents, and grandparents in Iran - should not be answering the White House phone at any time of day or night. . . . [read on]

Our fickle press

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/24/media-jump-ship-from-obam_n_98545.html
[Tom Edsall] In a blink of an eye, the media has jumped ship from the Obama campaign and become a crucial Clinton ally, pressing just the message -- that Obama is a likely loser in the general election -- that Hillary and her allies have been promoting for the past six weeks. . . [read on]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/following-script-by-digby-i-wrote-this.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/obama-tries-to-rewrite-script-by-dday.html

“Cliff’s Notes”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15354.html

Flag pins

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15351.html

Clinton: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/election08/145

McCain: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/20/notice-anything-john-mccain-doesnt-have-an-american-flag-pin/

Rove: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/02/rove-ironically-attacks-obama-for-not-wearing-flag-pins/

Kitchen sink versus . . .?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2008/04/after-pennsylva.html
[Hendrik Hertzberg] Hillary and her lieutenants, many of them, have evidently persuaded themselves that (a) it is absolutely certain that Obama would lose in November and (b) they are courageously braving the squeamish disapproval of bien pensants such as the Times (and The New Yorker) by destroying him before he can lure the Democratic Party to disaster. To the extent that they sincerely believe this, they are acting in a kind of twisted good faith—the kind that often marks those who have got hold of an end they see as justifying almost any means.

Their backup justification is that they are performing a service to the Party and to Obama by toughening him up and giving him practice in parrying the Republican thrusts he would face as the nominee. And they are surely right that those thrusts would be nastier than the ones he has faced from the Clintons. The reasoning is that while Clinton is (to quote myself from this week’s Comment) “a seasoned survivor of the worst that the Republican attack machine can dish out,” Obama isn’t.

Or is she? Clinton has thrown her kitchen sink at him, but—for hardheaded as well as high-minded reasons—he has not thrown his at her. . . . [read on]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9891.html
[Carrie Brown] After Sen. Barack Obama’s third major primary loss and endless media coverage dedicated to dissecting the apparent weaknesses of his candidacy, one of the most striking elements of his campaign this week was what’s missing: any hint of internal upheaval.

At Obama headquarters in Chicago, hundreds of miles removed from the Beltway bubble, advisers held steadfast in their adherence to The Plan, a blueprint devised 15 months ago . . .

More: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/obamas_ivory_tower_issues_awai.html

Obama on Fox

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/obama_doesnt_take_fox_on_after.php
[Greg Sargent] The Fox News Sunday interview is over. And Obama didn't take on Fox at all in any meaningful sense. . . .

To be clear, Obama wasn't obliged to go after Fox. But a senior adviser said Obama would, as a way of quieting criticism of him. And he didn't.

This will likely further dismay liberal bloggers who had worked very hard to get Dems to boycott Fox as a way of deligitimizing the network and who already criticized Obama for agreeing to appear in the first place.

Obama turned in a perfectly solid performance. He probably succeeded in making a positive impression on many voters he might otherwise not have reached. But the broadcast was clearly a big victory for Fox and Chris Wallace, too. . .

Video clips: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191549.php

Read it all: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/27/transcript-obama-on-fns/

Justice Antonin Scalia: what a prince

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/27/205657/192
Torture is not punishment when you are trying to get information out of someone . . .

A question for Rush

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/27/the-limits-of-rushs-deniability/
[David Neiwert] Rush Limbaugh, like so many right-wing pundits, loves to make jokes about violence befalling liberals and "government bureaucrats", usually in a wistful manner. And then when said violence actually occurs, he wants everyone to know he had nothing to do with it.

Which raises the question: What exactly is the difference between publicly wishing for an event to occur and actually advocating it? . . .

Bonus item: The bowler

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/do-we-really-want-a-bowle_b_98838.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:46 AM

 
PERSONAL DIGNITY

They won’t stop (until we stop them)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/27/AR2008042700016.html
The Geneva Conventions' ban on "outrages against personal dignity" does not automatically apply to terrorism suspects in the custody of U.S. intelligence agencies, the Justice Department has suggested to Congress in recent letters that lay out the Bush administration's interpretation of the international treaty. . .

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/washington/27intel.html

“I – know – nothing!”

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/04/mccain_does_not_know_contents.html
McCain said flatly that he had not been fully briefed on the classified program, which means he does not know the specifics of the techniques now permitted by the CIA and the White House. "I have not," he said of his lack of a full briefing, "not any more than is available to non-members of the Intelligence Committee." As a practice, only Congressional leaders and members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are told such highly-classified matters.

This answer is interesting because it means that McCain cannot know for certain if the Bush Administration is currently following the letter of the law, which was authored by McCain, requiring the U.S. Government to avoid cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. . .

[NB: And, believe me, he doesn’t WANT to know. Otherwise he would have to take a stand against it, or admit his own hypocrisy.]

So, foreign policy is McCain’s strength, eh?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/26/mccain/

Joe Klein, wrong again

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191457.php
[Josh Marshall] A couple weeks ago Joe Klein wrote a column in Time, which provided an overview of the coming campaign wrapped around the question of what kind of campaign John McCain will run -- whether he will he run a Bush-Drudge-style knock and sleaze campaign in which opponents are painted as crypto-terrorists and Hollywood-loving-pansies or embrace a "substantive debate."

Though not without doubts said he believes McCain will run an honorable campaign. "I suspect that he will. It's McCain's way. He sees the tawdry ceremonies of politics -- the spin and hucksterism -- as unworthy." If he doesn't "McCain will have to live with the knowledge that in the most important business of his life, he chose expediency over honor. That's probably not the way he wants to be remembered."

Well, the last two weeks haven't been kind to that confidence. . . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15347.html
[Steve Benen] About a month ago, lobbyist Charlie Black, John McCain’s senior campaign advisor, said the McCain campaign would not go after the Democratic candidates on the basis of guilt by association. The Dems might try it with McCain, Black said, but that’s just not the way McCain operates.

“What Senator McCain has said repeatedly is that these candidates cannot be held accountable for all the views of people who endorse them or people who befriend them,” Black told a national television audience, adding, “John McCain believes is that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton should be held accountable for their public policy views, the things we’ve described before, big government versus smaller government.”

Like far too many McCain commitments, apparently, the Republican campaign didn’t mean a word of it. . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191465.php
[Josh Marshall] The truth is that the guy doesn't actually have any real convictions -- or to put it more precisely, no real consistent convictions. That's evidenced in part by the kind of campaign the guy's running now. And at least a few of his press admirers are starting to sense that. But where you really see it most clearly is in the policy agenda he embraces. . . . read on]

Cheater

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191510.php
[Josh Marshall] The Times finds another instance of McCain gaming the campaign finance laws, enabled again by the fact that there's no quorum of members of commissioners at the FEC, the same situation that's allowing him withdraw from the public financing system over the FEC commissioners objections. . . . [read on]

Dick Cheney, still running his own branch of government

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/25/2227483.htm

Bush’s EPA

http://www.correntewire.com/bush_administration_interfering_with_epa_scientists
[WP] More than half the Environmental Protection Agency scientists who responded to an independent survey made public yesterday said that they had witnessed political interference in scientific decisions at the agency during the past five years. . . [read on]

Where is Obama?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191504.php
[Josh Marshall] Hillary's controlling the agenda, defining the race at the moment. And that's made him recede into the background, even as he's a constant topic of conversation. . . .

Clinton wants to debate Obama several more times under a new no-moderator format. You know, it’s probably smarter for him politically to duck this – but I actually wish he would take it on

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillary_challenging_obama_to_f.php
"Just the two of us going for 90 minutes asking and answering questions. We'll set whatever rules seem fair," Clinton said. . . . [read on]

“Coward” http://www.correntewire.com/what_questions_should_hillary_ask

Lincoln/Douglas style? Not really: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/26/174356/072

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/04/lincolndouglass_debates.php
[Mark Kleiman] If you're the Obama camp right now, with victory seemingly secure, it's hard to resist the temptation to play it safe. But this is one temptation that should be resisted. Obama ought to jump on this. At a minimum, it would get the taste of that disgusting ABC debate out of the voters' mouths.

A brief on behalf of Clinton: why some of her supporters aren’t giving up hope

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/26/23307/7286
Michael Barone at Real Clear Politics examines the popular vote totals, including caucus states, and says Hillary Clinton is ahead. . . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/26/21548/1865
William Arnone, long-time Democratic party activist and the author of the key state series I've quoted many times, has just finished his preliminary electoral vote preview and again graciously agreed to let me publish it.

Arnone says there are 17 battle ground states among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, which also has electoral votes.

As to Hillary or Obama, who's more likely to get the Dems over the 270 mark? Arnone says it's Hillary. . . .

More: http://www.correntewire.com/blowback_ahead

Why others are . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/clinton-losing-donors-to-obama-at-end.html
[Joe Sudbay] The Washington Post has an article, with two major developments about the ongoing primary battle and the fallout from the negative campaign of Hillary Clinton is running. One part of the article deals with the impact Clinton's approach is having on key constituencies in the Democratic party -- starting with African-Americans . . .

The other part of today's Washington Post article deals with the anger Clinton has generated among her own supporters, particularly donors. There are some choice quotes about Clinton's campaign from people who used to support her. As you read these statements below, keep in mind, they came from people who supported and donated to the Clinton campaign. . . . [read on]

DNC to hear Michigan, Florida appeals

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/26/145746/019

Hmm . . . if Obama had said this (thanks to Jim A. for the link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXum_-8I1TA
[Jim A.] Imagine if Barack Obama had praised Farrakhan the way that Governor Ed Rendell does in this video. Recall that Governor Ed Rendell was the campaign organizer and leader for Hillary's Pennsylvania's campaign. No one in the media has played this clip and no one has asked Hillary to reject and renounce Ed Rendell. In fact, no one has asked Rendell to reject and renounce Farrakhan. . . .

Not good

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-killerspin27apr27,1,7650855.story
After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter.

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000.

A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company . . .

Obama goes on Fox News today (it’s already been taped) – was this a good idea?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/26/15373/0839
[Hunter] Obama has said he would use his Fox appearance to "take Fox on." We'll see: if he gave better than he got, it may have been a useful exercise. . . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/26/221219/068

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5397

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/26/AR2008042601864.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) and Artur Davis (D-Ala.) and former senator Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.).

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Obama chief strategist David Axelrod and Clinton strategist Howard Wolfson.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), Clinton foreign policy adviser Jamie Rubin and Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice.

Here’s how it goes: Tony Snow is a Bush flack at Fox News, then he is hired to be WH Press Sect’y, then he’s hired as a Bush flack at CNN. Watch

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15348.html

Bonus item: Well, we have Rush Limbaugh calling for riots at the Democratic Convention, and Ann Coulter calling for the assassination of political figures (just joking, of course) – so why is it that WE are being accused of cozying up to terrorism?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/oh-no-he-didnt-by-digby-from-crooks-and.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:28 AM

 
HYPOCRITES

The first question that should have been asked about the Bush gang’s release of the Syria reactor “videos” – Why now?

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/25/5_comments_on_the_syriaisraeln/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013604.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/25/1960/04042
[Meteor Blades] Since about five minutes after Israel sent its warplanes to attack a site near Al Kibar, Syria, became known eight months ago, the speculation has been that Israel took out a nuclear reactor. Although the immediate public response from Washington officials was that the target wasn’t a nuke, we now know that those officials thought they knew better and had for months. The question now is whether this attack last September was a prelude to an attack on a nuclear reactor in Arak, Iran. . . .

Reasons for skepticism

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/25/syria/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] There are multiple reasons why substantial skepticism is warranted concerning the Bush administration's claims that the structure which Israeli jets destroyed inside Syria last September was a nuclear reactor Syria was developing with the aid of North Korea . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/25/BL2008042502006.html
[Dan Froomkin] Intelligence reports from this administration can't be taken at face value. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013602.php

Coincidence?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/world/middleeast/25cnd-military.html
The government of Iran continues to supply weapons and other support to extremists in Iraq, despite repeated promises to the contrary, and is increasingly complicit in the death of American soldiers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday in a stark new assessment of Iranian influence. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013600.php

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24312230/
A civilian ship contracted by the U.S. military fired warning shots at two small boats approaching it in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy said Friday, describing the latest of a string of similar incidents that have triggered concern in Washington. . . .

Senior U.S. military officials have warned Iran about the risk of triggering an unintended conflict if its boats continue to harass American ships in the Gulf. . . .

Ike Skelton, Democratic chair of the House Armed Services Committee, is ready to look into the Pentagon’s media-propaganda operation. Suddenly, the program is put on hold. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/25/12334/8891/76/503357
Ike Skelton is angry . . .

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/25/the-rent-a-generals-attempt-to-head-skelton-off-at-the-pass/
[Stars and Stripes] The Defense Department has temporarily stopped feeding information to retired military officers pending a review of the issue . . .

Doug Feith: the banality of evil

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/25/the_banality_of_evil_what_woul/

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/24/AR2008042403481.html

GOP still trying to sneak telecom immunity past the Dems

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/gop_still_pushing_retroactive.php

They’re also trying to slip this through

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/26/02110/3178
[TChris] If Rep. Darrell Issa has his way, you'll need to read the fine print carefully before signing up with an Internet Service Provider . . .

Antonin Scalia: liar

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/012415.php

John McCain: flip, flop . . . . . flip

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15337.html

McFake: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/25/mcfake/

Don’t kid yourself: McCain can be a vicious asshole when he wants to be. What a hypocrite

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15335.html
[Steve Benen] Back in November, when most of the Republican presidential candidates were taking cheap shots at Democratic candidates, John McCain said he was above such behavior. “I think people want a respectful debate and a respectful discussion. And if they don’t, then obviously, I’m not the person to be their candidate,” McCain said at the time. “Legitimate policy differences, those should be debated and discussed. But I don’t think you should take shots at people.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191323.php
[Yesterday] “I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare....If senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly. . . .”

More: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/mccain_campaign_associating_ob.php

The kind of people they are, and the kind of campaign they will run

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/very-special-job-by-digby-joe-conason.html

You won’t find the media talking about it, but John McCain is a lousy fundraiser, a lousy debater, a terrible speech-giver, and a deeply dishonest politician. His campaign is off to a miserable start, really. But one thing he’s good at: he’s good with the media

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/mccains-terrible-horrible-no-good-very.html
McCain's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Very Bad Week . . .

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804250009
Things are a little easier if your name is John McCain -- after all, who needs the RNC when you have MSNBC? . . .

No, the GOP does not care about voting rights

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15338.html

Terry McAuliffe, Clinton advisor, circa 2004 (in the midst of another Michigan state credentials fight)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/25/165935/668
[Then] "I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me definitively.

"If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost." . . .

"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.

"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. . . .”

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/3/11/11366/5000
[Now] "We just can't leave 2.3 million voters, 1.75 million in Florida, and over 600,000 in Michigan, who went in and voted. They've already voted. And we just need to count the votes.”

Clinton backer Evan Bayh

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/senator-evan-bayh-do-as-i-say-not-as-i.html
Senator Evan Bayh: Do as I say, not as I do . . .

Charles Krauthammer, one of the most intellectually dishonest columnists out there

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/25/91429/8715
[BarbinMD] n an attempt to make the case that Barack Obama's "character and cultural attitudes" somehow disqualify him from the presidency, Krauthammer distorts (Jeremiah Wright as an inciter of racial hatred), uses code words (jihad and tribal), lies (political career "launched" in William Ayers home), and projects ("self-congratulatory fatuousness"), which of course says quite a lot about Krauthammer's own character and cultural attitudes, not to mention his journalistic ethics. . . .

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/25/terrorists/index.html

The press’s new line is, Why doesn’t Obama talk more about substance? So he comes out with a major new proposal, and what does the press want to ask him about?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/25/9426/77657/215/503202
[The Page] Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is planning to unveil a "massive" voter registration drive, one that will reach all 50 states . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/25/141621/997
Obama deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand spoke, followed by NC Congressman G.K. Butterfield. Hildebrand then opened the call for questions, which led to . . .

More: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/04/25/obama_plans_may_general_electi.html

“Is the media turning on Obama?”

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/25/103719/143

This is very smart

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/obama_campaign_confirms_joint.php
Obama spokesperson Bill Burton just confirmed to me that the campaign has set up a joint fundraising committee with the Democratic National Committee. . .

The move is unusual in the sense that it's typically the sort of thing that's done once there is a nominee. . . .

The electability argument: both sides

http://www.slate.com/id/2190040

Clinton’s perseverance: virtue or vice?

Her: http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/nothing-wrong-with
[Anne Taylor Fleming] Am I crazy, or does she actually look better, glowier, more vital than she did months past when the nomination seemed to be hers for the taking? She is a radiant warrior -- or warrioress, if you will -- bringing to bear on her White House hunt the same grit and tenacity she has so clearly brought to her marriage. . . .

But seldom do we see a woman show such ferocity in the service of her own blazing, trail-blazing ambition. Seldom have we seen a woman subtly, or not-so, go for the masculine jugular as this one has -- slashing at her male opponent with a kind of baiting, patronizing, survivalist's glee. You want to go a few more rounds? Great. I'm in. This is just getting fun. She seems more and more lit up, he more and more defeated, defensive, even though, technically, he is still in the winner's column.

It's quite a spectacle. One that leaves many of us with two minds . . . [read on]

Him: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120917154479246575.html
Dubbed the "Billification" of Sen. Clinton's campaign by some insiders, Mr. Clinton has become something of a strategist-in-chief in recent weeks. He has been pushing for harder and sharper attacks on Sen. Obama. . . .

The former president says he's in uncharted territory. "Being the spouse is more difficult than when I was the candidate," he says in a brief interview. "When you're running, you're out there driving every day. But when you're the spouse, you feel more protective. It's much harder."

Mr. Clinton has placed several of his own aides at headquarters, including his former lawyer and a bevy of strategists. Known as a bad loser, Mr. Clinton privately buttresses his wife's drive to push on, telling her, according to aides: "We're not quitters." . . .

Are the Democrats brewing a race war?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/25/AR2008042503707.html

http://www.newsweek.com/id/134012

Race, or gender?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191387.php
But what [Jonathan] Tilove points out is that at least a very substantial part of what's going is not whites voting against Obama because of race but women, particularly white women, voting for Hillary because of gender. . . .

This doesn’t help, either

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/25/132751/725
Keith Olbermann's latest: A discussion with Howard Fineman about the need for a superdelegate to "take [Clinton] into a room and only he comes out." . . . [read on]

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/keith_olbermann_apologizes_for.php
Olbermann apologized in response to criticism of a crack he made the other night about Hillary. . . .

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/25/18554/9965

You can’t ask Obama about his association with Bill Ayers, former member of the “Weather Underground,” and not ask the Clintons about this

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191349.php

Has Hillary “turned the tide”?

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/04/the-tides-have-turned.php

Hillary’s debt

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/04/clinton_debt_la.html
Hillary Clinton's campaign debt at the end of March was bigger than it appeared . . . [read on]

More bad news: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/04/25/a_hillary_fundraiser_jumps_shi.html
Gabriel Guerra-Mondragon served as an ambassador to Chile during Bill Clinton's presidency, considered himself a close friend of Sen. Hillary Clinton and became a "HillRaiser" by raising six-figure sums for her presidential bid.

But Guerra-Mondragon has had a fitful time of it in recent weeks as Clinton battled Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. Last week, he decided he had seen enough and joined Obama's finance committee.

"We're just bleeding each other out," Guerra-Mondragon said, when asked about the switch. "Looking at it as coldly as I can, I just don't see how Senator Clinton can overcome Senator Obama with delegates and popular votes. I want this fight to be over, the quicker the better." . . .

Hillary’s last, best hope

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillarys_game_plan.php
[Greg Sargent] Here is Hillary's long-shot best-case-scenario game plan, as best as I can understand it . . .

The state of the superdelegates

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9862.html
[Elizabeth Drew] The torrent of speculation about the end game of the Democratic nomination contest is creating a false sense of suspense – and wasting a lot of time of the multitudes who are anxious to know how this contest is going to turn out.

Notwithstanding the plentiful commentary to the effect that the Pennsylvania primary must have shaken superdelegates planning to support Barack Obama, causing them to rethink their position, key Democrats on Capitol Hill are unbudged.

“I don’t think anyone’s shaken,” a leading House Democrat told me. The critical mass of Democratic congressmen that has been prepared to endorse Obama when the timing seemed right remains prepared to do so. Their reasons, ones they have held for months, have not changed – and by their very nature are unlikely to. . . .

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/janicesoderquist/gGCVhQ
[FT] The Democratic party’s “superdelegates” have every right to overturn the popular vote and choose the candidate they believe would be best equipped to defeat John McCain in a general election, according to Howard Dean, chairman of the US Democratic National Committee. . . .

“If it’s very very close, they [the superdelegates] will do what they want anyway,” said Mr Dean.

“I think the race is going to come down to the perception in the last six or eight races of who the best opponent for McCain will be. I do not think in the long run it will come down to the popular vote or anything else.”

However, he added that it was highly unlikely that the superdelegates – of whom roughly 300 out of 800 remain undecided – would go against whichever candidate was ahead on the popular vote and among pledged delegates in practice. “I think it is very unlikely – I have never seen it happen. In fact it has never happened. But it is possible and they have every right to do it.” . . .

Senate “Ethics” Committee lets Pete Domenici off with a slap on the wrist

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_324.php

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15339.html
[Steve Benen] My suspicion is that the Ethics Committee went easy on Domenici because he’s retiring. He’s old (76) and suffering from a neurological disorder, and senators probably didn’t want his career to end on a scandalous, humiliating note.

Another Senate Republican to quit?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/25/is_enzi_out.html

Rush Limbaugh, terrorist

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/15980105/detail.html
Talk show host Rush Limbaugh is sparking controversy again after he made comments that appear to call for riots in Denver during the Democratic National Convention this summer.

He said the riots would ensure a Democrat is not elected as president, and his listeners have a responsibility to make sure it happens. . . .

More: http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/limbaugh-calls-for-riots-in-denver-at.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15332.html
[Steve Benen] Let’s play, ‘Imagine If A Democrat Had Said This’ . . .

Bonus item: The Age of the Jellyfish (something more to worry about)

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4655

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:12 AM

 
NONSENSE

Dick Cheney, dead-ender, still believes Hussein had WMDs. Now he’s pushing a new story

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/04/cheneys_compuls/

The Syrian nuclear reactor videos – well, not really videos, not quite proving what they were intended to prove, and not really showing that the reactor was a threat. Otherwise, very, very significant

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191070.php
[Josh Marshall] We've been hearing for several days now that the White House was poised to released new videotape showing incontrovertible evidence of North Korean helping the Syrians build the alleged nuclear facilities the Israeli air force destroyed last September.

Well. Read down in the details. Now it appears there's actually no videotape -- only still photos. The 'videotape' is a videotape of the still photos. . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191108.php
[David Kurtz] First, it was supposed to be video of North Koreans inside of Syria's alleged nuke facility. Then it turned out the "video" was really just the intel community's own presentation, which contained still photographs.

Now Reuters seems to knock the story back another notch . . .

http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/syria-reactor-story-diversion-but-from.html
[Juan Cole] We would have to know exactly what kind of reactor it was to know if it was suitable to help in a weapons program. As the Bush administration admits, there isn't any evidence of that. . . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191013.php

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/24/the_syria_nukes_narrative/

Get it?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/25/strange-timing/
The White House also used its statement as an opportunity to denounce the nuclear activities of Iran, which it says is a threat to the stability of the Middle East. . . .

Our friends

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/34748.html
Pakistan's new government is negotiating a peace deal with militants in the Taliban-controlled Waziristan region, the rugged mountainous area that's thought to be Osama bin Laden's refuge.

The move reflects the changing approach of America's longtime ally in the war on terror, and news of the talks set off alarm bells in Washington . . .

7000 documents on the Bush gang’s torture policies. Guess what? They don’t want us to see them

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_323.php

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/7-000-pages-of

More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/24/cia-and-bushco-have-a-rather-large-criminal-obstruction-problem-the-torture-tapes-come-home-to-roost/

The FBI wanted the CIA to know that their torture policies were wrong. What did they do about it?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/the_fbis_hands_off_approach_to.php
[Paul Kiel] Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, FBI Director Robert Mueller made it as clear as he could what the FBI's reaction to the CIA's use of waterboarding and other forms of torture in 2002 had been: keep FBI agents out of trouble.

But when House Democrats pressed as to why the FBI hadn't investigated the abuses, Mueller said his hands were tied. The CIA and the Defense Department had the green light. "There has to be a legal basis for us to investigate, and generally that legal basis is given to us by the Department of Justice." Thanks to John Yoo and others in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the CIA had its "golden shield."

He also testified that in 2002, he'd "reached out" to the Pentagon and the Department of Justice "in terms of activity that we were concerned might not be appropriate -- let me put it that way." Mueller said he couldn't testify as to what the reply was, since it might be classified. Given the fact that a group of senior administration officials had agreed on the use of the techniques, you can guess what the answer was.

Oh, really?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/24/elliott-abrams-gave-the-israelis-a-hall-pass/
[Emptywheel] The Israelis say that George Bush gave them written permission to expand settlements in the West Bank . . . Colin Powell says he never made such an agreement. . . .

[T]he final settlement came in an agreement with Iran-Contra alum Elliott Abrams. . . Would it surprise anyone that Elliott Abrams concluded some super-secret, cross-my-fingers, Neocons-only deal with the Israelis? Or that Condi Rice, agreed to that settlement, but now pretends she didn't?

Condi Rice: simply hopeless

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/24/221315/628

Why does this Navy captain hate America?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/23/ksm.attorney/index.html

Antonin Scalia – does this guy understand what the Supreme Court is all about?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/his-historical-legacy-by-digby-creep.html
[Reuters] Justice Antonin Scalia, in an interview to be shown on Sunday, defended the U.S. Supreme Court ruling's that gave George W. Bush the presidency . . .

"I say nonsense," Scalia said, when asked about critics who say the 5-4 ruling was based on politics and not justice. "Get over it. . .” . . [read on]

[NB: Justice Scalia – people are going to be writing about this decision for a generation. Do you have any idea how momentous it turned out to be? Do you have any sense of how you damaged the reputation of the Court by intervening in such a partisan way? Do you really imagine “get over it” is a legitimate response to jurisprudential criticism?]

Oh, and this gem

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080424/people_nm/usa_court_scalia_dc
“I am a law-and-order guy. I mean, I confess to being a social conservative, but it does not affect my views on cases,"

Pretty weak tea: Pete Domenici chided by his colleagues for “the appearance of impropriety”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/24/AR2008042404056.html

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gCiGjlt5sNwt9eKFlG5eEEpvd7uQD908IL6O0

Congress opposes new FCC rule

http://www.stopbigmedia.com/blog/2008/04/24/senate-commerce-committee-did-the-right-thing/

Yes, the Democrats should always sit up and take notice when Republicans tell them what’s in their electoral self-interest

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_04_20_archive.html#4430786471578300772

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/24/11740/8576

McCain trashes Bush’s response to Katrina. Okay, easy target. But what was Bush doing on the day he should have been focused on the problem? And what was McCain doing?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/24/14417/4752
[AP] John McCain toured still hurricane-damaged areas of New Orleans and declared that if the disaster had happened on his watch, he would have immediately landed his plane at the nearest Air Force base. . . .

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_04_20_archive.html#6459279954751402407
[Newsweek] As the deadly storm system moved ashore almost three years ago, sending fatal floods through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, Bush was in Phoenix, on a tour aimed at boosting participation in what was then the administration's new Medicare prescription-drug plan. McCain had opposed the bill, but showed up to meet Bush at the airport anyway, along with other Arizona lawmakers. It was Aug. 29, McCain's 69th birthday, and on the tarmac, Bush presented his old political rival with a cake. The two posed, holding the cake up for cameras, and within seconds, went their separate ways. The cake, melting in the 110-degree Arizona heat, was left behind, uneaten. . . . [read on]

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/24/late-night-fdl-john-and-katrina-broke-up/

http://www.first-draft.com/2008/04/mccain-then-and.html

Hey, Reverend Hagee, here’s what McCain thinks about your theology

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191162.php
"It's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. I dont have anything additional to say. It's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, I don't have anything more to say....it's nonsense. I reject it categorically."

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/191056.php

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/24/mccains-boy-hagee-says-katrina-was-god-damning-america/

How badly does McCain want to be President? And what is he willing to do to get it?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-makes-johnny-run-by-digby-kevin.html

Why, he’ll do anything, of course

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/24/AR2008042403456.html?nav=rss_politics
Now that he is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, however, McCain is marching straight down the party line. The economic package he has laid out embraces many of the tax policies he once decried . . .

McCain gets to have it both ways: says he really, really really tried to get the NC GOP not to run its ugly anti-Obama ad, but benefits from it (and the relentless press repetitions running the ad) all the same. As pointed out here, how weak a President would he be if he doesn’t even have this much persuasive force?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804240010
Cable news nets run ad attacking Obama over and over -- even as pundits note win-win for McCain . . .

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/mccain_says_hell_bring_every_p.php
McCain Says He'll Bring "Every Pressure To Bear" To Stop Obama/Wright Ad -- But It's Still Set To Run . . .

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/24/mccain_ad/index.html
Anti-Obama ad a winner for McCain . . .

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804240002
NBC's Mitchell said McCain took "very strong stand" against NC GOP's anti-Obama ad . . .

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804240003
NY Times, LA Times reported that McCain asked NC GOP not to run ad, but did not report Obama's response . . .

Qui bono? http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/24/the_swiftboating_begins/

The media love affair with McCain continues

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013594.php
[David Broder] John McCain "is the rare exception who is not assumed to be willing to sacrifice personal credibility to prevail in any contest." . . . [read on]

Will Alan Keyes be John McCain’s Nader?

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/4/24/142326/273

Ouch!

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000002710031
[Madison Powers] By any ordinary measure, Senator Clinton’s win in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary would be counted as an impressive victory. She won by a 10 point margin. She reduced the 700,000 vote gap in the nationwide popular vote by over 200,000. (In her count, which includes Michigan and Florida, she has pulled ahead). She closed the evening by delivering a gracious and dignified speech that was a refreshing departure from her usual format of staccato, pep rally shout-outs, punctuated by 5 point policy plans.

But the victory is tainted in many ways. Her team left Pennsylvania broke, bitter, and diminished in national stature. . . .

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/politicalinsider/2008/04/pennsylvania-win-makes-clinton.html
Pennsylvania Win Makes Clinton Victory Less Likely . . .

Obama: wounded, but still winning?

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/the_new_obama_zeitgeist.php

The electability map: three analyses

Pro-Obama: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/24/113851/565

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/23/2417/55984/47/501352

Pro-Clinton: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/24/1739/59499

http://www.correntewire.com/obamas_sour_apples_to_apples_part_two

Pro-no one: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/24/11176/8913

Simple truths

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15319.html
‘State primary results do not necessarily translate into general election victories’ . . . [read on]

Where are the superdelegates?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/superdelegates_superdelegates_2.php
[Greg Sargent] * After Pennsylvania, many super-dels are accepting the fact that the contest won't end until the voting is over, and some even say that's a good thing for the party.

* Hillary's Pennsylvania win has persuaded many super-dels to remain neutral for the time being -- in hopes that the voters will render a clear verdict and relieve them of the burden of having to pick sides.

* A Hillary adviser says that her Pennsylvania win was what persuaded Tennessee Rep. John Tanner to come out for her yesterday.

* Fifteen House Dems gathered at Hillary headquarters yesterday to strategize about how to corral more super-dels for her -- the goal being to erase the sense of inevitability that surrounds Obama's candidacy.

Remember when?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/24/132543/942
[January 9, 2008] WOLFSON: I guess one other thing I'd add is that, as you know, this is a race for delegates. And we currently enjoy a lead in delegates, thanks to the great -- some of the great super delegates that we have on this call and around the country. . . .

MCAULIFFE: I've said from day one, and this is the point I tried to make yesterday on television when everybody was asking me questions about after Iowa and New Hampshire what happens, I've always viewed it sort of as a 27-state contest. . . [A]t the end of the day it's getting a basket of delegates.

“Why Can’t Clinton Close the Deal?”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/24/132833/040

How does this end?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/24/how_does_this_end.html
[Taegan Goddard] 1. Clinton loses Indiana on May 6 and pulls out

2. Party leaders end it in June

3. A fight all the way to Denver

Looks like #2: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/24/193931/517
[The Hill] Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday that three of the party's most influential figures might join to convince Democratic superdelegates to make up their minds on which presidential candidate to support.

Reid said he, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean might write a joint letter, or individual letters, to superdelegates after the last primaries in early June . . .

"That’s a dumb idea”: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/24/15934/2246

So much for Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” nonsense (his plan to persuade his wingnut listeners to cross over and vote for Clinton as a way of extending and confounding the Democratic nomination race)

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_042308/content/01125106.guest.html
RUSH: What a night for Operation Chaos, even acknowledged in much of the local media throughout Pennsylvania. . . The elites in the media are just fit to be tied. . . . There is total chaos in the Democrat Party, and I'm going to spell out exactly what that chaos is in mere moments. But first I want to thank and congratulate all of you troops, all of you volunteers in Operation Chaos for a job well done. . . .

One in ten voters say they changed party registration to vote in this year's Pennsylvania primary. Ten percent of the vote is huge. That would be five times the past high for a crossover vote with a closed primary. That's an absolutely huge number -- and once again, ladies and gentlemen, that is Operation Chaos. . . .

Ah, not so much: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_campaignplus/primary_exit_poll_glance;_ylt=Av4L8PE.ucUHJDjRbc0.LBOs0NUE
Most of those new Democrats were mobilized to come out for Obama, and they were nearly one-fifth of Obama's supporters. Even the former Republicans favored Obama over Clinton, largely invalidating rumors that Republicans would vote strategically in the Democratic primary in support of Clinton, hoping she would be easier to defeat in November.

Bonus item: Ha! Jenna Bush may not vote Republican this year

http://www.examiner.com/blogs-73-Yeas_and_Nays~y2008m4d24-Jenna-Bush-I-may-not-support-McCain

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:39 AM

 
SMALL WORLD

You couldn’t make it up. Tony Rezko, big-time Chicago mover and operator, has been tagged to Obama. But yesterday we learned that Rezko’s associates went to Karl Rove to try to get investigator Patrick Fitzgerald (yes, THAT Patrick Fitzgerald) fired

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-rezko-rove-fitzgerald-web-apr24,0,2332070.story
In a bombshell disclosure before testimony began Wednesday morning in the Antoin "Tony" Rezko trial, a federal prosecutor said a former Rezko confidant was prepared to say that another friend of Rezko was trying to pull strings with White House political director Karl Rove to fire U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald and kill his investigation into Rezko. . . . [read on]

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/190836.php

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/get_fitzgerald.php

Allow me to revise and extend my remarks: when I said “never,” I meant “frequently”

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/rove_attorney_sure_people_want.php
[Paul Kiel] Karl Rove's attorney Robert Luskin had told The Chicago Tribune that Rove did not recall Republican bigwig Bob Kjellander or "anyone else arguing for Fitzgerald's removal."

I spoke to Luskin just now, and he said that his statement ought to be qualified a bit: his statement on Kgellander stands as is, he said, but during the independent counsel investigation, he said, Rove was "frequently" approached about canning Fitzgerald: "a number of people approached Karl and suggested that Fitzgerald be removed . . . Karl simply never responded and did not take any action."

[NB: The noteworthy thing about this story is, Why were people going to Karl Rove about these matters at all? Where did people get the impression that he could, or would, intervene to get US Attorneys fired? There must have been some straws in the wind, right?]

More to come?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/23/rove-v-fitz-part-vi/

Hey – a CIA prediction that turned out to be correct!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/23/AR2008042303249.html
The CIA concluded that criminal, administrative or civil investigations stemming from harsh interrogation tactics were "virtually inevitable” . . .

Jimmy Carter versus Condi Rice. Who do YOU believe?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080423/pl_nm/palestinians_israel_carter_dc;_ylt=Amo4Y8nwtGieFJ98ntp_L2Gs0NUE

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/23/164758/363

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/23/the-credibility-gap/

Gen. Petraeus rewarded with a big promotion

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15311.html

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/petraeus-ascension

More: http://www.slate.com/id/2189877
[Daniel Politi] At the same time, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno was nominated to take over for Petraeus in Iraq. Everyone points out that with these nominations, President Bush is ensuring that two commanders who have been key to his strategy in Iraq continue in influential roles long after he leaves the White House. The NYT and WSJ emphasize that the move could very well signal that the Pentagon is ready to overhaul its Afghanistan mission and implement the same sort of counterinsurgency tactics that have been used in Iraq. The LAT notes up high that Petraeus has often been critical of Iran's interference in Iraq, "making his appointment a signal of heightened U.S. attention to Tehran."

Bush’s EPA – just what you would expect, only worse

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/tricky_tricky.php
[Paul Kiel] You may remember that one of the ongoing battles between the EPA and Congress is over California's petition to institute tough limits on greenhouse gases from cars and trucks. EPA chief Stephen Johnson blocked the move, despite the unanimous recommendation of his staff, and has fought Congress' attempts to investigate. California and 17 other states have sued in response. But the administration had more than one trick up its sleeve . . . [read on]

John Yoo to Congress: you know how much I would LOVE to come down there and explain my rationalizations for torture. But the DOJ just won’t let me do it

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/yoo_justice_department_wont_le.php

The dog in the manger

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/23/AR2008042302986.html
U.S. Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked legislation to reverse a Supreme Court ruling that makes it tougher for workers to sue for pay discrimination. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/23/195610/351

McCain’s view: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/04/another_gift_to_the_democrats_from_john_mccain.php

Bad news for John McCain

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/190896.php
[Josh Marshall] [R]ight now McCain is enjoying his post-nomination-clinching honeymoon. He's also got the field completely clear. No one's out there whacking him everyday, which means the press has no McCain-whacking stories to churn through. On the other hand, the Democrats are beating each other senseless. They daily hit on each others' weaknesses, which not only airs their dirty laundry, and gets the press to talk about it. It also breeds resentment between the supporters of the Democratic candidates, thus pushing up the number Democrats saying they're unwilling to vote for the possible nominee. Put that all together and John McCain is enjoying the most favorable environment he's going to get right now and the Democrat (whoever is the nominee) is probably suffering the worst. And with all that, the race appears to be essentially tied. . .

Good news for McCain: they’re thrilled with the Pennsylvania outcome

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/23/mccain/index.html

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/mccain_manager_cracks_in_obama.php

The press’s man-crush for McCain

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/cohen_on_mccain_he_can_do_know.php
[Richard Cohen] And so it will be the job, the obligation, the solemn task of the next president to restore that trust. John McCain could do it. He's an honorable man who has fudged and ducked and swallowed the truth on occasion—about the acceptability of the Confederate flag, for instance—but always, I think, for understandable although not necessarily admirable reasons. . . [read on]

Yep

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_04_20_archive.html#7628207542104643879
[Atrios] Some Republican or conservative group runs a dumb ad.

John McCain nobly distances himself from it.

Cable news spends all day talking about it and showing it for free.

Rinse. Repeat.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013590.php
[Time] On a landing strip near Inez, Ky., RNC Chairman Mike Duncan said he put in a call this morning to the chairwoman of the North Carolina Republican Party. "I left a voicemail encouraging her not to run the ad," he said....A few minutes later, McCain weighed in himself. "We asked them not to run it. I am sending them an email as we speak asking them to take it down."

[Kevin Drum] Wow! A voicemail and an email! These guys are really pulling out all the stops, aren't they?

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/23/175352/744
[DHinMI] GOP to Run Ads in North Carolina Against Obama
The GOP would rather face Hillary Clinton . . . [read on]

Perhaps you’ve heard that Jeremiah Wright uttered the phrase, “God damn America” in one of his sermons. It’s possible that you might have seen the video clip (a hundred or so times). Outrageous. Intolerable. God LOVES America, right? So what about this, from McCain’s buddy?

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/23/hagee-katrina-mccain/
HAGEE: Yes. The topic of that day was cursing and blessing. … What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God, in time if New Orleans recovers and becomes the pristine city it can become it may in time be called a blessing. But at this time it’s called a curse. . . [read on]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15313.html

Positive signs for Obama in Pennsylvania

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/23/13332/4094
[Kos] One of the arguments the Clinton campaign is making to the supers, hoping they'll overturn the will of the voters, is that Obama can't win certain demographics. Yet looking at the exit poll numbers, it's clear that Obama has actually been making serious gains . . . .

And bad signs: http://www.slate.com/id/2189877
[Daniel Politi] The NYT's Adam Nagourney acknowledges that "the role of race is difficult to disentangle from the other strands of the political debate surrounding" the senator from Illinois, including his "values, elitism, ideology, and experience." But it seems clear that race is at least playing some sort of factor in a key part of the electorate, and that is increasingly worrying Democrats. Although Obama says he's made inroads with white, blue-collar voters, the Post points out that "exit polls dispute that." Not only did he lose white voters without college degrees in Pennsylvania by pretty much the same margin as in Ohio, he even lost ground with white Roman Catholics, who make up an important constituency in several key states. . . .

Coming up. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15308.html
Saturday, May 3: Guam

Tuesday, May 6: Indiana, North Carolina

Tuesday, May 13: West Virginia

Tuesday, May 20: Kentucky, Oregon

Sunday, June 1: Puerto Rico

Tuesday, June 3: Montana, South Dakota

[NB: From what I’m reading, Guam, NC, Oregon, Montana, and SD are all tilting toward Obama; WV, KY, and PR for Clinton. Indiana could go either way. Then what?]

Get real

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/190967.php
[Josh Marshall] [I]t is simply a fallacy to claim that winning a state's Democratic primary means you're more likely to win that state in the general election or that your opponent can't win it. . . . [read on]

The pro-Clinton view: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/23/23937/7490

http://www.correntewire.com/stupid_pundits

Let’s see. First there was the “the pledged delegates aren’t really pledged” line, there was the “only big states matter" line, there was the “if we played by Republican rules” line, there was the really hilarious “we’re ahead in electoral votes” line, and now there’s the “we’re ahead in popular votes” line – but only if you count Michigan and Florida, which everyone agreed wouldn’t count. You can’t even talk about “moving the goalposts” anymore – the goalposts are on slippery wheels and are in constant motion. What will happen if the final popular vote totals come in – as is quite likely – and Clinton ends up still behind EVEN counting (illegitimately) Michigan and Florida? Then it will be something else, of course. The last time I looked, the nomination was based on one and only one thing: delegates. Period. End of story

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/04/23/flashback-the-popular-vote-still-doesn-t-add-up.aspx
[Andrew Romano] Terry McAuliffe is a quick draw. Last night, mere seconds after the networks had crowned Hillary Clinton the Keystone State victor, the former DNC chairman--and current Clinton adviser--was already on the air, spinning like a top. His main talking point? It's the popular vote, stupid. "By the time we finish this process," he told MSNBC at 9:20 p.m., "Hillary Clinton will have moved ahead in the popular vote."

We can sympathize. Winning in Pennsylvania earned Clinton only 10 to 12 pledged delegates . . .

http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2008/04/clinton-says-she-leads-obama-i-000473.php
Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign has a new argument to make to the uncommitted superdelegates who will likely decide the Democratic nomination for president. Clinton says that after the Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday, she's now leading in the popular vote.

The Clinton camp can point to numbers that show it's ahead by more than 122,000 votes nationwide, if you count Florida and Michigan.

"It's a very close race but if you count as I count the 2.3 million people who voted in Michigan and Florida . . .”

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/23/113754/921
[Jerome Armstrong] After last night's decisive victory in Pennsylvania, more people have voted for Hillary than any other candidate . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/23/131539/929

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/23/142222/659

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/stewart-on-clinton-so-what-it-comes.html

A new Clinton tack: try to keep the superdelegates from committing

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillary_backer_bayh_pressing_h.php

How do you feel about a campaign that cozies up so nicely to Fox News that they use the clips in their own advertising?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/190928.php

Why is so much of the campaign coverage and analysis so trivializing?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15315.html

Bonus item: Obviously this blog has been tilting pro-Obama, but in response to some tweaks from loyal readers, I am trying to give the Clinton side on more issues. And it is a fascinating experience to read the pro-Hillary blogs, sometimes a day-is-night experience. It’s a useful reminder of how the same facts are susceptible to such different analyses. For example

http://www.correntewire.com/dana_milbank_is_b_o_o_o_o_r_e_d
[Lambert] Why would I want it to stop? My candidate is winning . . .

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/24/despite_victories_clinton_is_no_closer.html
[Charlie Cook] "The good news for Hillary Rodham Clinton is that she's winning a lot of battles. The bad news is that the war is pretty much lost."

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:30 AM

 
WINNERS AND LOSERS

The WH doesn’t want you to know who they’ve been meeting with

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/04/22/white_house_challenges_release_of_visitor_logs/
A federal appeals court sought compromise yesterday between a liberal group demanding the names of White House visitors and the Bush administration, which says releasing the names would erode the president's power.

If released, the documents would show how often prominent religious conservatives visited the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence, allowing a glimpse into how much influence they exerted on government policy.

White House calendars are not generally considered public records, but reporters and watchdog groups have used Secret Service documents, which normally are public, to report on White House visitors.

Rather than having those documents released on a case-by-case basis, the Bush administration wants them considered White House documents, which would keep them from public view for more than a decade. . . .

More revelations on prisoner abuse during interrogations

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/were_drugs_used_to_interrogate.php
[Paul Kiel] Yet another possible legacy of former Justice Department official John Yoo's legal advice: . . . Yoo specifically authorized the use of drugs on detainees "as long as they did not inflict permanent or 'profound' psychological damage" . . . [read on]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/watchers-by-dday-lets-be-clear-about.html

They hate him. They really hate him

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-04-21-bushrating_N.htm
President Bush has set a record he'd presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll. . . 69%

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/22/135412/561

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/22/bush-breaks-70-year-gallup-record-for-disapproval-now-more-despised-than-communist-cuba-saudi-arabia/

Reader DR responds to the story about more felons being admitted into the armed services

The armed forces are letting in felons, yet many states permanently strip voting rights from felons. That seems to imply the existence of a class of soldiers in the U.S. who are forbidden from participating in our democracy, yet are being relied upon to fight for it.

There's something very wrong with that.

Talks re-open on the FISA bill. My question: Why?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/_talks_start_again_on_surveill.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/22/113445/425

The press: no longer the Fourth Estate

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-latest-proof-that-the_b_97862.html
[Arianna Huffington] One of the main themes of my new book, Right Is Wrong, is the role the media have played in allowing the lunatic fringe now in control of the Republican Party -- the people who believe in torture but don't believe in evolution -- to hijack our democracy. . . . [read on]

McCain’s base: the media

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/playing-press-card-by-digby-i-wrote.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804220007

He needs all the help he can get

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15298.html
[Steve Benen] McCain’s presidential campaign staff is still a little sloppy. We got another example today . .

We all know the name of Tony Rezko. So what about Donald Diamond?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_322.php
[Paul Kiel] Part of what makes the piece so amusing is that while the McCain camp was obviously keen to minimize McCain's assistance -- pointing out, for example, that McCain refused a number of Diamond's requests -- Diamond doesn't seem to have much patience for pussyfooting. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15292.html

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/todays_must_read_282.php

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/22/mccains-cronies-now-with-even-more-lobbyists/

Simple truths

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15299.html

Is McCain gaming the military disability system?

http://www.first-draft.com/2008/04/100-really.html

Just a taste of the kind of ads Republican proxy groups will be running in the Fall

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15297.html

Hillary said WHAT?

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=3DB386DAC49A9A2BC3F352B7F8CFEEAB?diaryId=5300
"I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel," she said. "Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States."...

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.". . . [read on]

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/hillary-dramatically-rewrites-us.html
That's a huge, and newsworthy, change in US policy. . . . [read on]

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/nuke_nuke_nuke_nuke_nuke_iran.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/190562.php
[Josh Marshall] [A]ren't we leaving out of this equation the fact that Israel has a large nuclear arsenal and one specifically designed (via the use of nuclear-armed submarines and other methods) to survive a first strike and still exact massive retaliation on an attacker? Israel has nuclear weapons. For precisely this purpose.

A defense of Hillary: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/22/hillarys-iran-comments/

Who said it?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/hillary-vs-hillary-on-us-nuclear-policy.html
"Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons. . . . Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace. And I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons."

Shut UP, Bill

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/bill_i_didnt_say_obama_camp_pl.php

Clinton wins in Pennsylvania. And. . . .?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080423/ap_on_el_pr/primary_rdp
[AP] Clinton's Pa. win still leaves her the underdog

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/22/AR2008042202959.html
[WP] Decisive Win Can't Forestall A Daunting Task

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/politics/23penn.html
[NYT] With Clear Victory, She Has Rationale to Fight On

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/190724.php
[Josh Marshall] Lots of spin coming from both campaigns tonight. I'd say the real story is that this leaves us basically where we were. It was a decisive win for Hillary but that was the expectation. Going into tonight I think the dividing line was about 8 points. Closer than that and the story would have been that Obama didn't win but closed the margin (which is how it looked early in the evening). A bigger margin than that and the story would be that Hillary got her big victory. So the 10 point spread is close to the dividing line but on Hillary's side of it. There's a lot of crowing from Hillary's campaign tonight about a shift in momentum and doubts about Obama. Tomorrow there will be a lot of chatter from Obama's campaign that none of that really matters because of the reality of the delegate numbers which won't change much.

Like I said, I think that means we're basically right where we were.

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/22/the-most-important-primary-evar-omg/

The spin

From the Clinton side: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/22/233934/779

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/22/161456/695

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/22/173739/366

http://www.correntewire.com/why_hillary_still_gets_my_vote

From the Obama side: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/22/132444/384/544/500831

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/obamas_raising_money_off_his.php

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/theres-still-no-path-to-nomination-for.html

Single digit/double digits – does it matter?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/04/the_pundits_and_the_rounding_error.php

Clinton campaign claims $2.5 million raised in one night

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillary_raises_25_million_sinc.php

Those stubborn numbers

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/nbc-just-noted.html
Since Super Tuesday, Hillary has added 12 SuperDelegates, Obama has added 83. . .

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/a_note_on_pledged_delegates.php
Obama's still won twice as many contests as Hillary, won more of the popular vote, has a nearly insurmountable lead in delegates and has outraised her by some $40 million or so.

Three days ago the big story was that Clinton crept ahead of Obama by one point in the Gallup national tracking poll. But now it’s already reverted to its basic pattern: Obama ahead by ten points or so

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/popular_vote.php

The Big State argument

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/04/22/today-s-primary-thoughts.aspx
[Jonathan Chait] NBC's Ron Allen makes a smart point I haven't seen elsewhere: Hillary Clinton's two main campaign justifications contradict each other. Justification number one is that Obama can't win "the big states that Democrats will need in November." She claims this because she's winning those states in the primary, and she's doing it because she's winning a slightly larger share of the Democratic electorate there. Justification number two is that the extended primary isn't hurting the party's chances, because the Democratic base is bound to unify in the fall. As Allen points out, if that's true, then Obama shoudn't have a problem winning those states in November. . . .

Forget the “big state” argument, because Obama would clearly win most of those states against McCain too. But poll after poll shows Obama running stronger against McCain nationally

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=2857

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/2/21/142618/909

http://wizbangpolitics.com/2008/03/27/obama-runs-stronger-against-mccain.php

The New York Times (which endorsed Clinton) is fed up

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/opinion/23wed1.html
The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election. . . [read on]

What’s the end game here?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/friedman-units-election-style-by-dday.html

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/save_us.php

Act like a winner

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/politics/23obama.html
Obama Shifting Focus From Clinton to McCain

Joe Lieberman KNEW the accusations he and his people were throwing against the Lamont campaign, for supposedly crashing their web site, were false

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/22/114534/253

Bonus item: Fox “News”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/22/17957/9359

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:19 AM

 
LOWERING YOUR STANDARDS

How low can you go?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/04/more_convicted_felons_allowed.php
[April 21, 2008] Under pressure to increase their numbers, the Army and Marine Corps are sharply raising the number of recruits with felony convictions they are admitting to the services. . . .

http://www.palmcenter.org/press/dadt/releases/military_enlistment_of_felons_has_doubled
[February 13, 2007] The number of convicted felons who enlisted in the U.S. military almost doubled in the past three years. . .

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/02/02/waivers/
[February 2, 2006] The story of that unnamed Air National Guard recruit (whose name is blacked out in his statement) is based on documents obtained by Salon under the Freedom of Information Act. It illustrates one of the tactics that the military is using in its uphill battle to meet recruiting targets during the Iraq war. . . .

This is where waivers come in. According to statistics provided to Salon by the office of the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, the Army said that 17 percent (21,880 new soldiers) of its 2005 recruits were admitted under waivers. . . .

In fact, even the already high rate of 17 percent underestimates the use of waivers, as the Pentagon combined the Army's figures with the lower ones for reserve forces to dilute the apparent percentage. Equally significant is the Army's currently liberal use of "moral waivers," which are issued to recruits who have committed what are loosely defined as criminal offenses. Officially, the Pentagon states that most waivers issued on moral grounds are for minor infractions like traffic tickets. Yet documents obtained by Salon show that many of the offenses are more serious and include drunken driving and domestic abuse.

The story about Pentagon manipulation of the press also indicts media complicity in letting themselves be used in such a way. This has sparked a round of serious soul-searching and self-criticism, right?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/21/181451/858
[crickets]

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/22/the-military-industrial-daddy-complex/

Dan Abrams nails Karl Rove

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/21/dana-to-turdb-yes-i-recognize-cheap-parsing-when-i-see-it/

Jack Abramoff, the gift that keeps giving

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/former_doj_official_charged_in.php
[AP] A former high-ranking Justice Department official is being accused of criminal conflict of interest in the latest case stemming from the investigation of disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff. . . .

Ha. McCain blows his stack over a story chronicling his infamous temper

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/21/181054/380
“I personally know 20 or 25 Senators with much worse tempers . . .”

Do the math

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882415111033181.html
[WSJ] Sen. John McCain is proposing tax cuts that would either cause the federal deficit to explode or would require unprecedented spending cuts equal to one-third of federal spending on domestic programs. . .

Because the new rule of the media is to cover every national election as a close horserace (thereby helping to make them closer than they would otherwise be), they really aren’t documenting the very serious hurdles in the path of John McCain. It’s a long list

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15281.html

McCain has a little problem (if the press will pay any attention to it)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013572.php
[Kevin Drum] McCain's pal managed to snag this prime coastal land — complete with special water rights — for $250,000 and then sell it two years later for $30 million. That's some serious constituent service. . . .

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/john_mccain_/2008/04/another_mccain_scandal_for_the_media_to_ignore.php

Hillary’s politics of fear

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15285.html
"The ad hits virtually every possible emotional touchstone for voters from 18 to 80 . . .”

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/21/165147/691

Obama’s response: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/obama_response_ad_he_wont_use.php

Bill Clinton’s response: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/21/campaign-adwatch-panic-on_n_97767.html

Hmmmm . . .

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/clinton_we_will_totally_oblite.php
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them." . . .

Hmmmm . . .

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/22/quote_of_the_day.html
"If we were under the Republican system. . . she'd have a 300-delegate lead here."
- Bill Clinton

Hmmmm . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/190430.php
In a last round of Pennsylvania robocalls, Obama and Hillary each vie for title of most pro-gun. . .

Because you just can’t have enough recycled WH shills taking the spot of “political commentators”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/snow-to-join-cnn/index.html
From cable news star to White House press secretary and back again: Tony Snow, who worked at the Fox News Channel for 10 years before serving as the Bush administration’s chief spokesman for 17 months, is moving to CNN to be a political contributor . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/21/18317/8404
[Hunter] Top reasons CNN courted Tony Snow to be a "conservative commentator" . . . [read on]

Bush: 22% approval

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/22/bush_approval_remains_at_record_low.html

Bonus item: In other news . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2189673
[Daniel Politi] In other news, the WP fronts a look at a new study that says life expectancy for women in nearly 1,000 counties is shorter now than what it was in the 1980s. The women who saw the sharpest drops in their life spans live mainly in the Deep South and Appalachia. Researchers say lung cancer, diabetes, and obesity have contributed to this "distinctly American" trend. . . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:29 AM

 
DOUBLE-SPEAK

No, it is NOT all right to refer to all the insurgent groups in Iraq as “Al Qaeda”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15277.html

http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/mccain-and-myth-of-al-qaeda-in-iraq.html

The shocking story about WH-level discussions (and approval) of the details of torture still hasn’t gotten a whiff of serious press attention. The NYT asks the question

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15273.html
Ever since Americans learned that American soldiers and intelligence agents were torturing prisoners, there has been a disturbing question: How high up did the decision go to ignore United States law, international treaties, the Geneva Conventions and basic morality? . . .

A good question on the Pentagon’s program to manipulate press coverage of the war: Is it legal?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/20/the-pentagons-media-analyst-domestic-psy-ops-program-is-it-legal/

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/20/nyt/index.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4646

“Rent-a-General”

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/20/did-cheney-rent-one-of-rummys-rent-a-generals-to-try-to-refute-joe-wilson/

Condi Rice, worse than useless

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/20/all-out-war-for-anybody-but-condi/

The DNC finally gets busy and starts running ads against McCain while its two candidates sort out the nomination. It’s long overdue (and it’s good – watch)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15274.html

Sure enough, George Stephanopoulos and the twin ninnies (Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts) did a lame job of questioning McCain when they had him on their show. Here’s how bad it was: George Will came off looking the best

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5257

Watch: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5269

Theocracy watch: When will people start noticing that this kind of double-speak is typical of McCain’s “straight talk”?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/mccain_probably_a_mistake_to_s.php
McCain: "Probably" A Mistake To Seek Hagee's Support -- But I'm Glad To Have It . . .

Now THAT’s more like it (thanks to Mark Kleiman for the link)

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132860/output/print
[Anna Quindlen] There was a time when John McCain had positions. Then he ran for president, and everything was suddenly up for grabs. . . . [read on]

More McCain-bashing: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/20/sunday-late-nite-yup-im-ageist/

Honest John McCain’s campaign funding shenanigans

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/04/19/new-mccain-fund-gets-around-donation-limits/
Campaign manager Rick Davis released the details of the “McCain Victory 08” fund on Friday. He said the entity is a joint committee, combining the McCain campaign, the Republican National Committee and four key states under a “hybrid legal structure.”

The idea is to tap donors for more than the $2,300 limit set by campaign finance laws. . . .

Follow the money

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/gasbag-performance-art-by-digby-this.html
[Politico] Facing the prospect of competing against a Democrat who is on track to shatter every fundraising record — and confronted by his own inability to rake in large bundles of cash — McCain and his key advisers have largely been forced into devising a three-pronged strategy that they hope can turn their general election weaknesses into strengths.

McCain will lean heavily on the well-funded Republican National Committee. He will merge key functions of his campaign hierarchy with the RNC while also relying on an unconventional structure of 10 regional campaign mangers.

And finally — and perhaps most importantly — McCain will rely on free media to an unprecedented degree to get out his message . . . [read on]

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/ap-clintons-campaign-in-red-debts.html
[Joe Sudbay] At the end of February, Clinton's campaign was in the red when her debts and loan to herself were factored in. It appears that at the end of March, her financial situation has worsened. . . .

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a33nP34Ao7U8
Democrat Barack Obama started this month with about five times more cash than Hillary Clinton for their race for the Democratic presidential nomination . . .

Nice try: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/21/15138/5702
[Jeralyn Merritt] You'll see a lot of articles touting Barack Obama's raising of $42 million in March. While a huge number, it's still $13 million less than he raised in February. . . .

Gallup tracking poll reverses itself (again) in 24 hours – now Obama’s ahead

http://www.gallup.com/poll/106609/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Holds-Slight-47-45-Advantage.aspx

The “electability argument” – a debate

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/20/151123/430
Why Hillary Is More Likely to Beat McCain . . .

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/20/17238/1021

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_04_20_archive.html#3209527674625261405
[Atrios] I reject the idea that one should pick a candidate based on some imagined preferences of other voters. And second, there just isn't enough evidence out there to support the idea that either candidate is "stronger." People can have opinions about this, of course, but I don't think there's much of an argument to made either way. . . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/20/10474/0800
[Big Tent Democrat] As someone who has a preference solely based on who I think is more electable . . .

Pennsylvania newspaper endorsements heavily favor Obama – except for one

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/obama_wins_vast_majority_of_pe.php

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080420/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_endorsement;_ylt=Am5CfXS_OT09PJ3ce9V5W0Gs0NUE
Could it be the "vast right wing conspiracy" is having second thoughts? Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton was endorsed Sunday by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, whose owner and publisher, billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, personally funded many of the investigations that led to President Clinton's impeachment in 1998. . . .

Not a smart move, Barack

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/obama_mccain_would_be_better_t.php
Obama: McCain Would Be Better Than Bush . . .

http://www.correntewire.com/give_em_hell_hillary
[Hillary] “We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain, and I will be that nominee.” . . .

OK, but remember: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/04/clinton-mccain-has-more-_n_89758.html
[Hillary, March 4] "I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. . . .”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14809.html
[Hillary, March 7] “I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold. . . . I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that . . .”

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/04/clinton_praises_mccain_focuses.html?nav=rss_blog
[Hillary, April 17] Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) praised Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for his willingness to break with his party on the issue of global climate change . . . “I've actually worked with Senator McCain on this issue," Clinton said . . .

Tim Russert asks Obama a question he knows (or should know) is based on a lie

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/190152.php

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804200001

Mark Penn-bashing (thanks to Kevin Drum for the link)

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=54d3af5a-abde-4874-9d98-2bc4b8e23185

On the misimpression that “there are no major female bloggers”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/20/165530/848

Bonus item: Bill Kristol, still wasting column space in the New York Times

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/21/whens-that-contract-up/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013563.php

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:44 AM

 
DEAL OR NO DEAL?

You know, after all this time, Bush still has no idea how to govern with Congress, unless he can circumvent them or bully them into doing just what he wants. Anything else, and he’s left spinning his wheels

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080419/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush
President Bush, ahead of his trip next week to a summit with North American leaders, said Saturday that the House's decision to block a vote on a Colombia free trade agreement was a "serious error" and urged Congress to reconsider.

The Bush administration has insisted that the deal would be good for the U.S. economy . . . Democrats, however, have cited the continued violence against organized labor in Colombia and differences with the administration over how to extend a program that helps U.S. workers displaced by foreign competition. . .

"Unfortunately, the speaker of the House has chosen to block the Colombia free trade agreement instead of giving it an up-or-down vote that Congress committed to," Bush said. "Her action is unprecedented and extremely unfortunate. I hope that the speaker will change her mind. If she does not, the agreement will be dead. And this will be bad for American workers and bad for America's national security."

One of Rummy’s main legacies was vastly expanding the Pentagon’s media outreach, manipulating domestic and international coverage to sell US military policies. In this must-read, see how they did it

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html

More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/19/the-nyt-does-penance/

How the media conspires to make the American people more stupid

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_04_13_archive.html#982264318872297769
[NYT] In longer discussions on the subject, Mr. McCain often goes into greater specificity about the entities jockeying for control in Iraq. Some other analysts do not object to Mr. McCain’s portraying the insurgency (or multiple insurgencies) in Iraq as that of Al Qaeda. They say he is using a “perfectly reasonable catchall phrase” that, although it may be out of place in an academic setting, is acceptable on the campaign trail, a place that “does not lend itself to long-winded explanations of what we really are facing,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, research director at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/19/pollack/index.html

When is an “earmark” not an “earmark”?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15269.html

McCain howls when his own words are quoted back to him

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15268.html
“I think if you look at the overall record, and millions of jobs having, being created, etc., etc., you can make an argument that there’s been great progress economically . . .”

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/190108.php

One of the campaigns is in serious violation of the McCain-Feingold rules. Guess which one?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/19/18420/9217

Three stories we need to hear more about: McCain’s huge personal fortune (when his wife’s money is included); his age and bouts with cancer; and his notoriously reckless temper

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/19/AR2008041902224.html

The Gallup poll lines look like a DNA strand: Clinton passes Obama, 46/45

http://www.gallup.com/poll/106606/Gallup-Daily-Clinton-46-Obama-45.aspx

I’ve said this before, but sometimes Clinton’s strategy seems to be, work to MAKE Obama unelectable in the Fall, then argue his unelectability as a reason to support her. Here a Clinton backer does oppo research for the Republicans

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/18/clinton-backer-distribute_n_97525.html

Typical campaigning, on both sides: “Who’s being negative? YOU’RE being negative. My negativity is only correcting the misimpressions of YOUR negativity. You started it. No, YOU started it”

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/19/172141/728

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillary_campaign_hits_obama_in.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/new_obama_ads_attack_clinton.php

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/19/225227/466

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/obama_on_the_attack.php

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/california_pa_sen_hillary.php

“Clinton fatigue”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/politics/20loyalty.html

More: http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/at-clinton-hq-theyre-making-list.html

The silly, silly, season: did Obama give Clinton the finger? (no, he didn’t)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15267.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/19/115843/207

The GOP continues to find ways to alienate the Latino vote, blocking a ceremony to honor Cesar Chavez

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/904199,CST-EDT-open19.article

Dems still outraising Repubs by huge margins

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/19/AR2008041902012.html

Nice try, Rush

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_041708/content/01125111.guest.html
Folks, I have been saying, and people are getting mad at me, all the grief, all the horror that's taken place since the Democrats took over the Congress. Here it is. You remember the election in 2006? A little over one year ago, year-and-a-half now, consumer confidence was a two-and-a-half year high. Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon. The unemployment rate was four-and-a-half percent. Since voting in a Democrat-controlled Congress in 2006 we have seen consumer confidence plummet, the cost of regular gasoline soar to near $3.50 a gallon, unemployment's up to 5%, 10% increase. American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate because of stock and mutual fund losses, and Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion. One percent of American homes are in foreclosure. America wanted change in 2006, and they got it. Every time I mention this, I get calls from liberals and Democrats, "You can't say that!" Hey, none of this was the case until the Democrats got elected.

You Democrats, you libs, you want to try to blame all this economic malaise on George W. Bush, but none of this stuff happens until you guys got control of Congress. Coincidence? Jury is still out. . . .

A Guide to the Right-Wing Blogosphere

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0816,a-confederacy-of-dunces,411897,1.html

A Guide to the Left-Wing Blogosphere

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/19/the-official-fdl-election-season-guide-to-the-left-wing-traitorsphere/

An argument for keeping Joe Lieberman IN the Democratic tent, no matter what a pain he is

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/190083.php

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/19/AR2008041902058.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and former White House adviser Karl Rove.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Keith Hennessey, director of the National Economic Council.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D) and Democratic strategist Joe Trippi.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod and Clinton campaign strategist Geoff Garin.

LATE EDITION (CNN): Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D), Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D), Catholic University President David M. O'Connell, Vatican analyst Delia Gallagher, McCain economic adviser Carly Fiorina and former senator Bill Bradley (D-N.J.).

Bonus item: Bush makes a cameo on a game show – which one? Truth or Consequences? Wheel of Fortune? The Price is Right? Read on

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/lame-duck-bush.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:51 AM

 
NO GOOD MOVES LEFT

National Defense University study doesn’t mince words

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/18/collins-iraq-debacle/
Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle. . .

The war’s political impact also has been great. Globally, U.S. standing among friends and allies has fallen. Our status as a moral leader has been damaged by the war, the subsequent occupation of a Muslim nation, and various issues concerning the treatment of detainees. . . .

To date, the war in Iraq is a classic case of failure to adopt and adapt prudent courses of action that balance ends, ways, and means. After the major combat operation, U.S. policy has been insolvent, with inadequate means for pursuing ambitious ends. It is also a case where the perceived illegitimacy of our policy has led the United States to bear a disproportionate share of the war’s burden. . . .

[S]enior national security officials exhibited in many instances an imperious attitude, exerting power and pressure where diplomacy and bargaining might have had a better effect. . . .

More: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/34101.html

Full report: http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Occasional_Papers/OP5.pdf

Bush’s mess

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/18/BL2008041801404.html

Three trillion dollars: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/3-trillion-dollar-shopping-spree-by.html

“90% think the economy sucks”

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_04_13_archive.html#7809942911940769813

Our police state

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/18/12201/3037

The DOJ is investigating whether John Yoo’s written-on-demand rationalizations for torture, domestic surveillance, and untrammeled executive power were professionally done

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/internal_justice_dept_investig.php

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/torture_/2008/04/yoo_tenure_and_the_office_of_professional_responsibility.php

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/18/destruction-of-evidence-obstruction-of-justice-and-other-just-plain-old-dumb-as-dirt-ideas/

The nation’s top general was intentionally kept out of the loop about the torture that was going on

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/18/back-to-the-question-of-abcs-sources/

With this administration, you HAVE to protect state’s rights

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/washington/19health.html
The Bush administration violated federal law last year when it restricted states’ ability to provide health insurance to children of middle-income families, and its new policy is therefore unenforceable, lawyers from the Government Accountability Office said Friday. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/gao-crs-blast-bush

Rove’s lawyer: I know my client said he desperately wants the chance to testify under oath and clear his name, but don’t actually ask him to come down and testify under oath, because he won’t do it

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/roves_lawyer_sike.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15253.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/18/rove-lawyer-no-testify/

Bush’s EPA: lawless and out of control

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/again_epa_asserts_executive_pr.php

McCain fundraising letter ties Obama to Hamas

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/18/mccain-hamas-endorsement_n_97469.html

McCain’s voodoo economics

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/john_mccain_/2008/04/voodoo_economics_30.php

McCain releases his tax returns, but not his wealthy wife’s

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189949.php
[Josh Marshall] What if Hillary Clinton released her income tax records . . . and said that Bill files separately and he's a private person so he wouldn't be releasing his?

I do not think she'd get a very easy ride from the press since Bill now makes all the money and it's against his sources of income that any potential conflicts of interest or sources of embarrassment would likely arise.

So why does John McCain get to pull the same stunt with his wife? . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15256.html

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/where-are-cindys-mccains-tax-returns.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804180013
[CNN] "Let's see how McCain's total income of about $405,000 compares to some other big-name political types . . .”

McCain’s hypocrisy on earmarks

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013552.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15251.html

Devastating, if true: Newsweek poll has Obama up by almost 20% nationally

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/18/164025/059

More: http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/apyahoo-news-poll-obama-now-more.html
[56/43] “By tracking the same group throughout the campaign, the AP-Yahoo! News poll can gauge how individual views change. It suggests that Clinton has paid a price for hammering Obama since early February on several issues as she tries to overcome his lead in delegates and the popular vote. Among those Democrats who no longer consider her the more electable of the two, most now see her as less likable, decisive, strong, honest, experienced and ethical than they did in January. . . . Meanwhile, those same voters are more likely to see Obama as strong, honest and refreshing than before.”

On the other hand: http://www.gallup.com/poll/106630/Gallulp-Daily-Clinton-Moves-Within-Points-Obama.aspx
Gallup Poll Daily tracking shows a tightening of the national Democratic race, with Barack Obama now holding just a 3-percentage point advantage over Hillary Clinton, 47% to 44%.

A slew of important endorsements for Obama

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/new-obama-endorsements/index.html
Robert Reich, David Boren, Sam Nunn

What it means: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189918.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15257.html

Reich: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/18/reich_will_back_obama.html

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/04/heilemann_robert_reich_to_endo.html

Boren and Nunn: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/nunn_and_boren_back_obama.php

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/04/nunn_boren_back.html

Clinton gets three endorsements too

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/three_superdelegates_for_clint.php
Rep. Betty Sutton of Ohio and Jim Florio and Brendan Byrne of New Jersey . . .

Are Obama’s female backers betraying their gender?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080418/ap_on_el_pr/women_superdelegates;_ylt=Ak1zys0njfDarKxYkRbJyTcb.3QA

Hillary calls Obama a whiner – not a good idea

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillary_tough_questions_at_deb.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/obama_spokesperson_hillary_com.php
"Considering the fact that Senator Clinton sat on stage at the last debate and complained to all of America that she always gets the first question . . .”

Hillary bashes MoveOn and “Democratic activists” – REALLY not a good idea

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/celeste-fremon/clinton-slams-democratic_b_97484.html
At a small closed-door fundraiser after Super Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Clinton blamed what she called the "activist base" of the Democratic Party -- and MoveOn.org in particular -- for many of her electoral defeats, saying activists had "flooded" state caucuses and "intimidated" her supporters . . .

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/18/191524/201

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/18/hillary-clinton-attacks-moveon/

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/audio_hillary_privately_blaste.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/18/194131/837

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/breaking-secretly-recorded-tape-reveals.html

When she LIKED MoveOn: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/18/205925/720
“Well again, I want to thank MoveOn for hosting the forum. And I also want to thank you for being such lively participants in American democracy. . . .” [read on]

Dean tells superdelegates “time to choose.” Clinton’s backers, who know her only (small) chance is to drag the process out to the last possible moment, tell the DNC, Butt out (or we will pull our donations)

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/top_hillary_fundrasers_rip_int.php

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/hillarys-donors-are-on-attack-again.html

Let’s face it: Clinton’s window of opportunity keeps narrowing

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/in_it_to_win_it_1.php
[Matt Yglesias] Kevin and Ezra note that Hillary Clinton seems to have made a huge tactical error by directly inserting herself into the "bitter" controversy.

I think this is a misreading of the situation. It's almost impossible for Clinton to win the nomination at this point. She can't afford to "do the smart thing," help her campaign do a bit better, and then lose anyway. She can't afford to let the game come to her. If she's not going to drop out (which is what she ought to do), then she needs to push everything as hard as she can. She needs to make long-odds plays, because only long-odds plays have any chance of resulting in a Clinton win. It's smart, disciplined, rational politics. It's also extremely selfish, but that's another matter.

Joe Lieberman crosses the line: Goodbye, Joe

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/18/the_line_you_may_not_cross/

George Stephanopoulos will have McCain on his show Sunday. Let’s watch to see if he delivers the kind of questions to Honest John that he delivered to Obama in the Penn debate

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/18/161938/049

Some suggestions: http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/cliffs-corner_18.html

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/so-i-assume-stephanopoulos-is-going-to.html

How the Right has disciplined the press: now credible reporters do the Swift-Boating for them

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189901.php

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/courtiers-by-tristero-michael-danger-is.html

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/17/about_last_night/

Rove 101: Obama says, “Wearing a flag pin isn’t what makes you patriotic.” Rove says, “Obama says flag pin wearers aren’t patriotic”

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804180006

Bonus item: The Goofus Files return! (this used to be a regular feature, but Bush’s bumbles and malapropisms are just too plentiful to track every day). But this is a special day

http://www.first-draft.com/2008/04/your-preside-14.html
“On the other hand, it's the kind of place that you know the -- you knew the local shop person or the -- my friend, Jackie Hanks's Uncle Brutus had the local grocery store. And it was just that -- that fabric of the community was the small business owners”. . . . [read on]

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:07 AM

 
THE OLD POLITICS

Obama turns the Pennsylvania debate into a referendum on attack politics: is this the kind of campaign you want in the Fall? Given a lemon of a performance, he makes lemonade – very, very smart

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/17/that-was-the-rollout-of-the-republican-campaign-in-november/
“The truth is... that was the rollout of the Republican campaign in November.... that is what they will do. They will try to focus on all these issues that don't have anything to do with how you are paying your bills at the end of the month . . .”

Watch: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/about-last-night/index.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15247.html

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Obama_on_debate_Senator_Clinton_looked_in_her_element.html

In case you missed the debate

“Highlights” http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189602.php

Quote of the day: http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_04_13_archive.html#72685805948012577
“I think Obama sounded very defensive when he talked about the cookies”

It looks as if the aftermath of the debate may help Obama after all. Howard Dean says “Enough!”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/17/20555/1974
Last month Howard Dean did his best to take the "let's just wait until the convention" option away from Clinton when he said we would have a nominee no later than July 1st. Last night Hillary Clinton undermined her own private argument that he can't win by publicly declaring that Barack Obama can defeat John McCain. This evening, quite possibly in reaction to the travesty of last night's debate, and probably because he's hearing increasingly frantic concerns from leading Democrats that the longer Hillary Clinton stays in a race she can't win the longer John McCain gets a free pass, Howard Dean scrapped his July 1st deadline:

An increasingly firm Howard Dean told CNN again Thursday that he needs superdelegates to say who they’re for – and "I need them to say who they’re for starting now."

"We cannot give up two or three months of active campaigning and healing time," the Democratic National Committee Chairman told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. "We’ve got to know who our nominee is."

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/how-dean-superdelegates-need-to-decide.html
[John Aravosis] If this isn't a reaction to last night's debate debacle, I don't know what is. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/us/politics/18dems.html
Throughout their contentious debate on Wednesday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton tried again and again to put Senator Barack Obama on the defensive in a pointed attempt, her advisers say, to raise doubts about his electability among a small but powerful audience: the uncommitted superdelegates who will most likely determine the nomination.

Yet despite giving it her best shot in what might have been their final debate, interviews on Thursday with a cross-section of these superdelegates — members of Congress, elected officials and party leaders — showed that none had been persuaded much by her attacks on Mr. Obama’s strength as a potential Democratic nominee . . .

All you need to know about the ABC questioning: Sean Hannity fed George Stephanopoulos a key question

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/17/steph-hannity-audio/

Who is Nash McCabe, and how did she get chosen to ask a question?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189807.php

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/34071.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15249.html

David Brooks thought the debate was just wonderful

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/no-whining-about-the-media/index.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15242.html

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013548.php

Yes, the debate did tell us something about elitism: but not Obama’s

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/17/133440/937

An opportunity for media criticism and analysis

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/17/2035/

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/17/debate/index.html

I’ve met Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn and had dinner at their house – they are wonderful people. Are we really going to dredge up the Weather Underground? Okay, then, let’s ask Hillary about Bill’s pardon of two other members

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/041708.html

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/04/7998_clinton_bashes.html

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/reporter_to_wolfson_what_does.php

The Bush gang: corruption as a way of life

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/washington/18jackson.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189720.php

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/committee-probes

More GOP corruption: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15245.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15243.html

Congress tells Karl Rove, Come on down, we have a few questions to ask you (under oath)

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/house_panel_calls_roves_bluff.php

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/17/conyers-to-turdblossom-if-youll-talk-to-gq-and-fox-why-not-hjc/

Mr. “Torture Depends on Your Reasons” decries moral relativism

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/17/BL2008041701895.html

Bush’s climate change speech, annotated with extra snark

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/the-annotated-climate-speech/index.html

Stunning: the Bush gang has no plan for going after or finding Bin Laden, or weakening the newly re-established base of Al Qaeda operations in Pakistan. None

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15244.html

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/bin-laden-determined

McCain: the lies and deception that brought us into war in Iraq are now just an “academic argument”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15246.html
“We can look back at the past and argue about whether we should have gone to war or not, whether we should have invaded or not, and that’s a good academic argument. But we’re there now, and the question is, is what we do in the future.”

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/17/casus-bullshit/

As we stand up, they run away

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/iraqi-troops-abandon-positions-again.html

Message discipline?

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iySWjciIrjB8hbu450lIABfnYcjwD903AJBG0
Hillary Rodham Clinton said emphatically Wednesday night that Barack Obama can win the White House this fall, undercutting her efforts to deny him the nomination by suggesting he would lead the party to defeat.

"Yes, yes, yes," she said when pressed about Obama's electability during a campaign debate six days before the Pennsylvania primary. . . .

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/03/clinton-strateg.html
Though the campaign later argued that he hadn't said it, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief campaign strategist told reporters this morning that Sen. Barack Obama "can't win the general election." . . .

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/candidate-clint.html
Sources with direct knowledge of the conversation between Sen. Clinton and Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., prior to the Governor's endorsement of Obama say she told him flatly, "He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win." . . .

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/17/910262.aspx?p=1
When asked whether Clinton's admission that Obama could win in November undermined or contradicted the electability argument she was making to superdelegates, Wolfson said it did not and said that saying somebody can win isn't the same as saying that he will win. . . .

Hillary denies making “screw ‘em” comment

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/clinton_campaign_denies_screw.php

Oh oh: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/17/what_she_said/
I was there . . .

Bonus item: For real political junkies only: now you can eavesdrop on the conference calls the Obama and Clinton campaigns run with the press

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189646.php

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:44 AM

 
TRAIN WRECK

The Bush gang explains: see, this is why you can’t go after these people with trials. Better to just find the bad guys, lock them up in Gitmo, and keep them there forever. Due process is for suckers

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189355.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/04/deadlocked_jury_forces_2nd_mis.php

Civil war

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_04_13_archive.html#8461674436239671320
[Atrios] It's a good thing we didn't leave Iraq and let a violent civil war break out. . . . [read on]

http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/sunni-shiite-divide-in-baghdad-worsens.html
Sunni-Shiite Divide in Baghdad Worsens . . .

http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/islamic-radicals-announce-accord-with.html
Islamic Radicals Announce Accord with Sunni Tribes . . .

The State Dept may have to FORCE reluctant staffers to go to Iraq

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jSQ14PoKO8jjCLmzfdzIzty14IjwD902QQ9G0

Rice "offended" http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/15/rice-diplomats-iraq/

Condi seems to think she can just go back to Stanford after her stint with the Bush gang. Given the new torture revelations, I wouldn’t be so sure. One thing I know: her conceivable future for any electoral office is zero

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/its-her-baby-by-digby-i-couldnt-agree.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/16/2007/96425

You know what they say: you can keep your mouth shut and people may think you’re stupid, or you can open it and confirm their suspicions. Doug Feith opens his mouth (don’t miss it!)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189368.php

Uhhh. . . . well. . . . I wouldn’t put it that way

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/16/netanyahu_911_good_for_israel/
In a speech yesterday, leader of the Israeli opposition, Binyamin Netanyahu, said . . . "We are benefiting from one thing that happened, which is the terror attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the Americans' battle in Iraq. This changed US public opinion significantly in our favor."

Netanyahu's remarks echoed those he made on September 11, 2001 when he said about the day's attacks: "It's very good. Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.''

He predicted that the attacks would ''strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.''

Bush’s bob and weave on climate change

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/16/BL2008041601732.html
[Dan Froomkin] Bush's trick on climate change is to wait until others are about to embrace mandatory limits on greenhouse gases, then make a major speech about goals and process, without any specifics on measures or penalties.

His planned speech this afternoon recalls his two earlier attempts to muddy the debate and buy time. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/16/165555/779
[Devilstower] Just as Bush's "Clear Skies" plan allowed older power plants to increase pollution, and his "Healthy Forests" plan allowed more forests to be converted into wood pulp, this "Climate Change" program is designed to make sure that the climate gets to go on changing, unimpeded by any environmental legislation. . . .

Head-banging time: the Dems have WON on FISA and telecom immunity. They’ve won. The issue is off the table. Now guess who wants to bring it up again?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/16/another-fisa-push-this-time-with-congressional-help/

Cleansing the ranks of US Attorneys – and she’s just the woman to do it

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/confirmed_doj_investigators_pr.php

This is a bad guy, and he’s about to get what he deserves

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/senate_to_vote_to_investigate.php
[Paul Kiel] It's a cause that has united lawmakers from right and left alike. How did Rep. Don Young (R-AK) manage to insert an earmark that benefited a campaign contributor after the bill had cleared both houses of Congress? . . . [read on]

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_318.php
[Paul Kiel] Rep. Don Young (R-AK) has spent more than one million dollars on criminal defense lawyers . . .

More bad economic ideas from John McCain

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/04/16/mccains-economic-cure-is-the-worst-idea-weve-heard-so-far/

The Pennsylvania debate: a real low point in the process

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_04_13_archive.html#5958493829914121779
[Atrios] "Gibson and Stephanopoulos shame media, America". . . . . It gets worse and worse. Just move the whole thing to Fox.

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_04_13_archive.html#2621238816347810985
[Atrios] Aside from the lack of policy questions, so far this "debate" has been played entirely on wingnut ground. If BillO and Sean Hannity hosted it the questions would've been the same. . . .

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/abcs_ignominy_continues.php
[Greg Sargent] So, thus far, questions on:

"Small-town" comments

Wright

Weather Underground

Flag-pin/patriotism

Gun control

Affirmative Action

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/16/debate/index.html
[Steve Benen] One gets the distinct impression that the debate is geared towards the chattering class, not the nation at large. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/16/213611/545
[Smintheus] Let's tote up the colossal, the major, and also the very, very big issues that ABC's Gibson and Stephanopoulos have not deigned to bring up: Health care; the recession; Afghanistan; the mortgage crisis; deregulation; veterans' care; torture; restoring America's image abroad; the surveillance state; the environment. . . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/16/22542/3692
[Todd Beeton] I feel like taking a shower after that debate. It was tabloid hour on ABC. . . Check out this post over at ABCNews.com: over 4,000 comments, the bulk of which seem to just rip ABC. . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/does-abc-love-america-as-much-as-you-do.html
[John Aravosis] Wow, major loathing of ABC on the Web tonight. . . .

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003790556
[Greg Mitchell] In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/17/2262/26092
[BarbinMD] To anyone with a functioning brain, the performance by ABC's Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos at last night's Democratic debate was nothing less than an embarrassment. . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/disastrous-debate-reprise.html
[Joe Sudbay] Wow. What the hell was that? Seriously, I'm a bit stunned. The level of discourse has reached a new low . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/16/221752/394
[DHinMI] The questioning in tonight's debate--—mostly straight out of 1988—was an abomination. . . .

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/16/democratic-debate-wrap-up/
[Eli] Well, that was really, really horrible . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189511.php
[Josh Marshall] [T]he moderators, mainly Charlie Gibson, but not exclusively, were awful. . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013543.php
[Kevin Drum] A trainwreck. . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/grate-debate-by-digby-i-missed-debate.html
[Digby] I missed the debate tonight and forgot to set my DVR, but from a cursory look around the blogosphere, it must have been quite the media atrocity. Anyone who reads this blog will know that it doesn't come as a surprise to me. . . .

How Obama supporters saw it

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/plouffe_clinton_attackedattack.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189521.php

How Hillary supporters saw it

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/17/41155/9796

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/debate_wrap_what_do_you_think.php

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/keeping_the_score_card_theres.php
[Marc Ambinder] Keeping the score card, there's no way this debate could have fared worse for Barack Obama. . . .

The media echo chamber has passed judgment that Obama is “wounded” by Bitter-gate. Well, maybe so – but the evidence doesn’t support it

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/04/signals-noise-and-polling.php

I know Hillary is supposed to be the new savior of working class whites, but, uh, it wasn’t always that way

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15234.html
“Screw ‘em,” she told her husband. “You don’t owe them a thing, Bill. They’re doing nothing for you; you don’t have to do anything for them.”

Clinton’s last stand

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillary_tv_ad_campaign_is_100.php

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/hillarys_turn.php

Joe Lieberman says he’s ready to give the keynote address at the GOP convention. I’ll be happy when the Dems have a margin in the Senate so they can send this guy to purgatory where he belongs

http://hill6.thehill.com/leading-the-news/lieberman-willing-to-star-at-republican-convention-2008-04-15.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15232.html

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/16/2952/82447

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/16/kick-joe-out/

Do we EXPECT them to play by the rules?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9645.html
House Democrats will file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday charging that the National Republican Congressional Committee and the conservative organization Freedom’s Watch are illegally coordinating campaign activities. . . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:47 AM

 
RACE TO THE BOTTOM

A little glimpse into Bush’s mind – how he rationalizes the authorization of torture. The man thinks like a twelve year old (which is probably a slander against twelve year olds)

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/14/bush-the-country-is-at-war-therefore-we-do-not-torture/
PRESIDENT BUSH: Our country is at war, and our government has the obligation to protect the American people. The executive branch has the obligation to protect the American people; the legislative branch has the obligation to protect the American people. And we are aggressively doing that. We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture.

And, therefore, we're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible -- more possible to do our job. There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans, and wants to hurt America again. And so, you bet, we'll aggressively pursue them. But we will do so under the law. And that's why you're seeing members of my administration go and brief the Congress. We want to work together in this matter. We -- all of us have an obligation, and it's a solemn obligation and a solemn responsibility. And I'm confident that when people see the facts, that they'll recognize that we've -- they've got more work to do, and that we must protect ourselves in a way that is lawful. . . [read on]

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/15/more-thoughts-on-torture/

The Bush gang backs down on their proposed rule exempting US companies and contractors from overseas corruption and fraud laws – and says it was all just a big misunderstanding

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_317.php

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15223.html

Trouble for the FBI?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/15/2141/41172

A new HUAC?

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/the-new-huac

McCain’s destructive economic policies: his bogus gas-tax proposal, and more

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/15/more_reasons_to_worry_about_mc/

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/04/john_w_mcdoles_excellent_adventure_in_economics.php

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/mccains_economy_where_will_the_money_come_from.php

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/mccains_economy_major_tax_refo.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/15/AR2008041502885.html

McCain on the GI bill

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/cornering-market-on-bipartisanship-by.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15219.html

The media on McCain and Obama: even-handed?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/fred-hiatt-strikes-again-attacks-obama.html
Fred Hiatt Strikes Again. Attacks Obama on campaign finance while McCain is breaking the law. . . .

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/14/foggy-fred-hiatt/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041402633_pf.html
[Dana Milbank] John McCain and Barack Obama both appeared before the nation's newspaper editors yesterday. The putative Republican presidential nominee was given a box of doughnuts and a standing ovation. The likely Democratic nominee was likened to a terrorist. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15222.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/14/53340/7701

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/zing-by-digby-dear-god.html

With no actual primary votes to talk about, the media has played with Obama’s “bitter” remarks like a chew toy. Is there anything new left to say about it?

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/04/obama-bitterness-meet-press-and-old.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188886.php

http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/bittergate-what.html

Interesting back-story: the original comments were secretly recorded and posted to a web site by an Obama supporter. If this actually ends up costing him the nomination, or election (I think it won’t), will she become the “Steve Bartman” of the campaign?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-rosen/the-uncharted-from-off-th_b_96575.html?view=print
Mayhill Fowler . . [read on]

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/us/politics/14web-seelye.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-hansen/bittergate-its-not-about_b_96455.html

Has “Bitter-Gate” hurt Obama? Apparently, not much: he probably will still lose Pennsylvania, which he would have lost anyway – but by a surprisingly small margin. Meanwhile, his national numbers are growing

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189174.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15220.html

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/politicalinsider/2008/04/signs-obama-is-weathering-cont.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/14/142152/440

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189080.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/15/121738/882

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189107.php

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/16/21343/7215

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/the_democrats_pennsylvania_pol_1.php

Here’s the big problem: tearing down Obama doesn’t necessarily equate with enthusiasm for Clinton

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/15/132153/559

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/cq-predicts-pennsylvania-will-give.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/15/20037/4726

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/15/AR2008041502883.html

Hillary’s new ad: could it backfire?

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2008/04/will-clintons-bitter-ad-turn-s.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/14/191930/729

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189259.php

Does McCain WANT to run against Hillary instead of Obama?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/mccain-reportedly-tells-staff-to-leave.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041403057.html

“Boy”? He called him BOY?

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/04/obama-bitterness-meet-press-and-old.html
Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) on Obama: "I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button. He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country."

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15214.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/14/17581/0608

Don’t think for a second that the Republicans can run this election without playing the race card – and it will get worse

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/louisiana_mississippi_post.php
[Eric Kleefeld] An intriguing pattern has emerged in two special elections for the House in Louisiana and Mississippi: Both of the candidates backed by the National Republican Congressional Committee have had a bit of a, shall we say, white supremacy issue.

This is not to say that the two are white supremacists -- rather, they have both flirted with organizations and/or people who are known for, at a minimum, dabbling rather heavily in such sentiments. . . .

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/14/blowing-the-dog-whistle/

Alice stumbles into the truth!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/15/164649/365
“I think that Senator McCain can make his case. And he's our nominee, and we're very excited about it. And I think that getting the White House involved every day in the '08 -- day-to-day '08 election is not the best use of our time, and certainly not good for the candidates.”

Bonus item: Joe Lieberman hits rock bottom

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/14/lieberman-its-a-good-question-to-ask-if-obama-is-a-marxist/
[Fox News] Hey Sen. Lieberman, you know Barack Obama, is he a Marxist as Bill Kristol says might be the case in today’s New York Times? Is he an elitist like your colleague Hillary Clinton says he is?

LIEBERMAN: Well, you know, I must say that’s a good question. . . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:07 AM

 
BITTER TRUTHS

Progress report

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15198.html
[NYT] An $833 million Iraqi arms deal secretly negotiated with Serbia has underscored Iraq’s continuing problems equipping its armed forces, a process that has long been plagued by corruption and inefficiency. . . . [read on]

http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/iraqi-government-has-discharged-1300.html
[Juan Cole] The Iraqi government has discharged 1300 officers, troops and policemen who declined to fight the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr in late March . . . [read on]

Still waiting for serious attention to the disclosure that Bush personally knew about and authorized torture policies

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/whatever-by-digby-both-tristero-and-i.html

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/012334.php

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/13/the-wapo-did-not-scoop-this-story-in-2005/

What to do about it: http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2008/4/12/165449/167

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/make-them-listen-by-digby-john-amato-at.html

It looks as if the Pope really is blowing off a White House dinner over Bush and torture allegations – and, boy, the White House DOES NOT want to talk about it

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15200.html

Boo effing hoo

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/washington/13gonzales.html
Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster . . .

[NB: Well, you know, he has such an unusual skill set. It’s hard to find just the right position for a lying weasel who will tell his bosses whatever they want to hear. Wait . . . why IS he having such a hard time finding a job?]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15196.html

Just the facts

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/crime_control_/2008/04/comparison.php
[Mark Kleiman] According to the FBI, in 2006 there were 17,000 murders and non-negligent manslaughters in the United States. According to the Institute of Medicine, "Lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year."

The debate still rages: was Obama’s “bitter” comment condescending and elitist? Did it really hurt him with working class voters?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/obama-allies-av.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080414/ap_on_el_pr/obama;_ylt=AjDT4xAVym2PKXrpjHSeyzas0NUE

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/barack_obama_/2008/04/counterpunching.php

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/hillarys-new-message-im-more.html

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5127

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/13/173039/214

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/13/obama_steps_back_on_bitter_voter_comments.html

Yep

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/12/elitism-for-elites/
[Barbara O’Brien] It always amuses me when upper-class people with power and privilege start screeching about “elitism.” . . . [read on]

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/14/let-me-tell-you-who-an-elitist-was/

No comment (thanks to AmericaBlog)

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/12/clinton-portrays-herself-as-a-pro-gun-churchgoer/
For the third time since Mr. Obama’s remarks were made public Friday night, Mrs. Clinton criticized him at length, saying his comments seemed “kind of elitist and out of touch.” . . .

She described herself as a pro-gun churchgoer, recalling that her father taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a young girl and said that her faith “is the faith of my parents and my grandparents.” . . .

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/13/clinton-not-relevant-last-time-i-went-to-church-fired-gun/
[CNN] After a weekend spent making direct appeals to gun owners and church goers, Hillary Clinton said Sunday a query about the last time she fired a gun or attended church services "is not a relevant question in this debate” over Barack Obama’s recent comments on small town Americans.

“We can answer that some other time,” Clinton said . . .

Snark: http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2941

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/hillary-doesnt-think-pennsylvania.html

Who said it?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/13/193218/058
“The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet.”

Obama and Clinton on abortion and choice

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/012331.php

Why the Clinton camp believes Obama CAN’T win

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/13/15172/7248

The current state of the Senate races – good news for the Dems

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/13/102531/244

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:06 AM

 
KEEPING YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT

The media’s strange lack of interest in the Bush gang’s embrace of torture policies – including the Boss himself

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15190.html
[Steve Benen] ABC News reported this week that a group of so-called “Principals” — including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice — met dozens of times in the White House to “discuss and approve” specific interrogation techniques to be used against suspected terrorists.

The AP added to the revelations yesterday, noting, among other things, that Cheney and Co. “took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved.”

Yesterday, perhaps anxious to dispel the notion that he was out of the loop, the president said — arguably, bragged — that he endorsed the Principals’ work from the outset. . . .

Curiously, the president’s concession to ABC seems to be of only mild interest this morning. The WaPo had an item on page A3, but the NYT didn’t mention the remarks, and there’s no AP story. Even ABC News itself is downplaying the significance of its own story . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/they-did-this-in-your-name-americans.html

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/12/bush-oks-torture-media-yawns/

The ACLU asks for an independent counsel

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/aclu-calls-for-independent-counsel-by.html

“An open-ended commitment” in Iraq

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15194.html

“Please Condi, run”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/condi-rice-as-vp-richard_b_96373.html
Dana Priest of The Washington Post -- who won a second Pulitzer this week and is usually very careful in her public comments -- joined with Richard Clarke in thoroughly mocking the very idea of McCain getting a Condi fix.

"Maybe political reporters don't have anything better to write about," Priest observed. "She probably will go down in the history books as one of the worst secretaries of state ever." And that is really saying something, given the long, checkered history of the position.

But Clarke seconded the idea, and Priest continued, "and the worst national security adviser, where she was completely ineffective." . . . [read on]

A jaw-droppingly specious argument : why torture isn’t “cruel and unusual punishment”

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/12/scalia-yoo-and-fitzgerald/

Is Pope Benedict refusing to meet with Bush because of the issue of torture?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/12/does-the-former-holy-inquisitor-refuse-to-eat-with-torturers/

One step ahead of the law. . . .

http://www.first-draft.com/2008/04/heckuva-job-alp.html

This “Obama calls out-of-work Pennsylvanians ‘bitter’” pseudo-scandal is the kind of fabricated faux-outrage that is running out of control during this primary season. Everyone knows what he was trying to say, and aside from some unfortunate word choices, everyone would agree with the underlying point. But Clinton is desperate to find something to change the dynamic as she sees her lead slipping in PA, and once again she seems happy to reinforce Republican talking points to do so

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15189.html
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/obamas_bitter_taste_of_own_wor.html
Sen. Barack Obama, who concedes he could have chosen his words better when he spoke about a bitterness among working class voters last week in a closed-door setting, is paying for those words with a weekend of public complaints from the Clinton campaign about his “condescending’’ attitude toward small-town America. . . .

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/11/880232.aspx
[Clinton] "I've spent a lot of time traveling around this beautiful, historic state... I have a great deal of affection for the state and for the people and this campaign has been a privilege and a joy," Clinton told an enthusiastic crowd packing the same hall at Drexel University, where she took part in a fateful debate last fall. "It's being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who've faced hard times are bitter. Well, that's not my experience. As I travel around Pennsylvania, I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive who are rolling up their sleeves. They're working hard every day for a better future for themselves and their children. Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/12/182217/466
[DHinMI] Barack Obama's comments about the bitterness of Americans let down by their government has prompted derision from the Clintons, John McCain and the Congressional Republicans, who are all saying roughly the same thing. Is it good for Democratic politics to have message discipline between Hillary Clinton and the GOP? . . . [read on]

Debating the “gaffe”: http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/clinton-delivers-gop-attack-against.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/12/182618/616

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15194.html

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/illogic_and_rhetoric.php

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/bittergate_going_forward.php

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/bittergate_day_two.php

http://ostroyreport.blogspot.com/2008/04/obamas-bitter-remark-draws-duplicitous.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/12/131221/779

http://www.correntewire.com/what_obama_really_meant_its_the_new_game_thats_sweeping_the_nation

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188674.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillary_hits_obamas_small_town.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillary_chief_strategist_geoff.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188673.php

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/attack-from-multi-millionaires-clinton.html
[Joe Sudbay] A CNN panel comprised of Jeffrey Toobin, Gloria Borger and Jack Cafferty also obliterated the Clinton/McCain attack. Obliterated. Seriously. Watch this. . .

No comment

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/clinton_my_dad_taught_me_how_t.php
[Clinton] "You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught be how to shoot when I was a little girl," said Clinton.

"You know, some people now continue to teach their children and their grandchildren. It's part of culture. It's part of a way of life. People enjoy hunting and shooting because it's an important part of who they are. Not because they are bitter."

She later added, however, that she is not herself an expert with firearms: "As I told you, my dad taught me how to shoot behind our cottage. I have gone hunting. I am not a hunter. But I have gone hunting."

Where the major blogs stand on Clinton/Obama

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/12/16546/0952

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/12/AR2008041201784.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Former senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.); national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D), Olympic medalist Joey Cheek, Washington Capitals player Alex Ovechkin.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Hadley, former president Jimmy Carter.

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Democratic strategists James Carville and Bob Shrum; republican strategists Mary Matalin and Mike Murphy.

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. Richard J. Lugar (R-Ind.), Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.); Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari.

Bonus item: The silly season

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/12/35450/1226
NEWSCASTER BOB: Good evening, and welcome to the news. A disturbing revelation tonight, as reports indicate the abusive treatment of prisoners in United States custody was specifically endorsed at the highest levels of government. . . .

PUNDIT 1: Bob, I'm going to have to break in here. We have breaking news that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama today turned down a cup of coffee, asking for orange juice instead. Could this be the gaffe that brings down the Obama campaign? . . . [read on]

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:37 AM

 
PANTS ON FIRE

The other shoe drops on high-level WH discussions about torture

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/story?id=4635175&page=1
President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency . . .

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/bush_yeah_we_signed_off_on_tor.php
"Well, we started to connect the dots, in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC New s White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. . . . [read on]

[NB: “Connecting the dots” – what a charming way to put it.]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/04/cheney_others_okd_harsh_interr_1.php
[AP] The officials also took care to insulate President Bush . . .

[NB: “Insulate” – isn’t that what you do when you think you have something to hide?]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/this-is-your-baby-go-to-it-by-digby-i.html
[Digby] I thought I was long past the point of being shocked at anything the Bush administration did. . . [read on]

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/11/bush-to-raddatz-so/

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/11/and-i-approved/

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188504.php
[David Kurtz] House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has invited former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former CIA Director George Tenet, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, Chief of Staff to the Vice President David Addington, and former Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin to testify to his committee about those Principals meetings on torture.

Not seeing that happening without subpoenas, executive privilege claims and a few trips to court. But stay tuned.

(Think people are still gonna talk about Condi for VP?)

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=308561

Asking for legal justification AFTER THE FACT

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_315.php

You might think a Law School dean would be a bit better at fashioning arguments than this pile of beans

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/berkeley_law_dean_yoo_was_not.php
[Paul Kiel] John Yoo is a professor of law at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law. He's never been a particularly popular faculty member there, but the recent release of his March, 2003 Justice Department memo, in which he advised that military interrogators could torture detainees as long as their only motivation wasn't sadism, has made him considerably less popular. Earlier this week, the National Lawyers Guild called for Berkeley to fire Yoo.

In a statement posted on the school's website today, the school's dean Christopher Edley, Jr. offers a statement "as dean, but speaking only for myself" for why he does not think that Yoo should be fired. . . . [read on!]

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/11/yoo-and-academic-freedom/
[Emptywheel] I had a conversation with the Provost of a prestigious private university recently; we spoke about his efforts to ensure the law faculty included good, but conservative, thinkers. I raised Yoo and it was clear that Yoo has become every Dean's worst hiring nightmare--the young, controversial, but apparently brilliant academic who goes on to do horrible things in government after he has gotten tenure. . . .

I'm disappointed that Edley didn't say more about my biggest worry: Yoo's teaching. . . . [read on]

Yoo - lazy and sloppy too: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/11/boilerplate/
[Looseheadprop] John Yoo has said that portions of the chilling March 14, 2003 memo he wrote are just cut and paste of boilerplate from other OLC opinions.

You know what? I believe him. Really, I do. I absolutely believe him. . . [read on]

Bush admits that he lied

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/11/1559/82046
[Devilstower] You know all those times when Bush told us things were going great in Iraq? Turns out he didn't really mean it.

"How worried were you?" Raddatz asked.

"I was worried. Look, I'm worried any time it looks like we're going to fail in Iraq," Bush said.

During that time in 2006, when many were saying Iraq was in a full-blown civil war, Bush kept his rhetoric upbeat saying in speeches that, "We're winning" and "We have a plan for victory."

Raddatz asked the president about that and the president insisted he did it to keep up troop morale.

“That's as much to try and bolster the spirits of the people in the field as well -- you can't have the commander-in-chief say to a bunch of kids who are sacrificing that either it's not worth it or you're losing. What does that do for morale?" Bush said.

Apparently the president's job isn't to tell the American people or the American military the truth, it's to tell them a comforting (and self-aggrandizing) lie. You can't tell soldiers that they're dying for no good reason -- especially if you expect them to keep on dying indefinitely.

Sound familiar? http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/08/bush-lied-rumsfeld/
[TP] Last week, President Bush unequivocally told a group of reporters that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney would “remain with him until the end of his presidency, extending a job guarantee to two of the most-vilified members of his administration.” Bush said, “Both those men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them.”

Today, he announced Rumsfeld is resigning and being replaced by former CIA Director Robert Gates. At the press conference, Bush said that “the only way to answer that question, and get it on to another question, was to give you [the reporters] that answer.” Bush admitted that he had talked to Rumsfeld about resigning and was actively searching for his replacement at the time.

Four more Bush lies

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/11/3-stories-illustrate-bushs-unrelenting-dishonesty/

Cheney is lying too (but that’s hardly even news anymore)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15182.html

Mukasey tries (again) to explain away his claim that crucial pre-9/11 intelligence went uncollected – and only makes it worse

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/11/120/37971

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/11/mukasey/index.html

Well, we can sleep better at night now. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041103655.html
The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon. . .

More: http://www.correntewire.com/the_administrations_newest_spy_agency

Another politicized US Attorney prosecution

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15179.html
[Steve Benen] Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh, has long been the subject of questions about partisan prosecutions. But in 2006, Buchanan raised more than a few eyebrows when she went after former Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht . .

This week, a jury mulled over Buchanan’s case against Wecht.

The case ended, at least in the short term, with a hung jury. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188486.php
[David Kurtz] The government immediately declared it would retry the case, but in the meantime the FBI has been contacting jurors asking about their deliberations. . . . [read on]

More: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/fbi_agents_contacted_wecht_jur.php

Here’s a Republican Senate candidate in a whole mess of trouble

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188488.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188558.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188564.php

McCain’s deeply dishonest policy positions

McCain on torture: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/11/940/06731
[Smintheus] Time's Michael Scherer asks: Has McCain flip-flopped on torture? Simple answer to a simple question: Yes. . . [read on]

McCain on campaign finance: http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/mccains-record-on-campaign-finance-is.html
[Joe Sudbay] John McCain can't raise campaign money, no one is donating to him. So, he's planning to enter the public finance system for the general election (this, after he just pulled out of the campaign finance system, after having gone in last fall) - and is trying to goad Obama into joining him. But, McCain isn't in a position to challenge anyone on campaign finance. McCain is a campaign finance criminal . . [read on]

McCain on the mortgage crisis: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15176.html
[Steve Benen] About two weeks ago, John McCain, in a high-profile speech, unveiled his response to the mortgage crisis. Despite the seriousness of the issue, the GOP presidential nominee unveiled a classic YOYO policy: “You’re on your own.” . . .

Yesterday, in one of the quicker flip-flops in recent memory, McCain reversed course. The Washington Post, apparently anxious to give McCain a hand, said the senator was “refining” and “revising” his plan. That’s enormously generous of the newspaper, but in reality, McCain’s proposal was an embarrassing dud, so he gave up on it. . . [read on]

McCain on CEO salaries: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/obama_to_take_on_mccain_over_b.php

More: http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/dems-foresee-mccains
[Holly Yeager] Sen. John McCain became the presumptive Republican nominee for president not with flashy speeches or a long embrace of traditional conservative values, but with a reputation as a straight-talking iconoclast.

Now, as the general election approaches, McCain (R-Ariz.) must somehow finesse his policy positions to hold on to GOP voters and appeal to independents – without jeopardizing the maverick reputation that is at the core of his national appeal. . . . [read on]

The OJ scandal: Chris Matthews, who can be a real idiot sometimes, declares Obama not a “regular guy”

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804110009

Who’s “out of touch”?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/12/us/politics/12campaign.html

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/11/obama-defends-bitter-remarks/

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/obamas_gaffe_some_perspective.php

Interesting case study: same Bush speech, eight different headline descriptions

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/state-of-play-bush

Bonus item: The Daily Show takes down Fox News (as only they can)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15185.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:27 AM

 
BUSH GIVES A SPEECH

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_04_06_archive.html#1150552944630339057
[Attaturk] All the networks seem to be replaying some Bush speech from 2005, 2006, or 2007. . . .

“Significant progress” http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15172.html

More: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_314.php

http://www.slate.com/id/2188863
[Daniel Politi] Democrats, including the party's presidential contenders, immediately criticized Bush's statements yesterday as an endorsement of a war with no end and made it clear that they expect to soon start clashing with the White House over the war-funding bill. Members of both parties also said that Bush is trying to direct war policy after he leaves the White House by signing a long-term agreement with Iraq relating to the status of U.S. forces there. Although the administration insists the agreement won't tie the hands of the next president, the WP points out that the White House "has only vaguely outlined what the commitment would be."

No accident

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080410/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_congress_ap_poll_2
Public approval of President Bush has dipped to a new low . . .

The Republicans are just lying now about McCain’s “one hundred years” comment

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188271.php

What McCain says, and what McCain does

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15174.html
[TP] On ABC’s The View this morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was asked about the great strain placed on U.S. troops due to the Iraq war. McCain recognized the strain and said that in order to motivate Americans to join the military, the government should provide stronger “educational benefits”: “[O]ne of the things we ought to do is provide them significant educational benefits in return for serving.”

[Steve Benen] Why, that’s a great idea. Why hasn’t someone thought of that before?

Oh wait, someone did — and for reasons that defy comprehension, McCain refuses to support the legislation. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013500.php

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/vets-up-pressure-on

Can McCain fulfill his expanded military aspirations without a draft?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_04_06_archive.html#4522003747771796679

Remember the recently discovered Yoo memorandum, not the torture one – the one declaring the Fourth Amendment no longer applicable to domestic searches and seizures? A terrible mistake, right? An echo of an unfortunate past? Huh-uh: they’re still claiming it

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/mukasey_the_4th_amendment_appl.php
[Paul Kiel] During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing this morning, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) questioned Attorney General Michael Mukasey about that October, 2001 Justice Department memo in which John Yoo found that the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against "unreasonable searches and seizures," had "no application to domestic military operations."

Has that memo been withdrawn? If not, was it still in force? Feinstein wanted to know.

She found it difficult to pry an answer loose. "I can't speak to the October, 2001 memo," Mukasey said . . .

Feinstein said. "I'm just asking you, 'Is this memo in force that the Fourth Amendment does not apply?"

"The principle that the Fourth Amendment does not apply in wartime is not in force," Mukasey replied.

"That's not the principle I asked you about," Feinstein countered. The memo referred to domestic military operations, she said.

"There are no domestic military operations being carried out today," Mukasey replied.

"I'm asking you a question. That's not the answer."

"I'm unaware of any domestic military operations being carried out today," he repeated.

"You're not answering my question," she said.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/washington/11justice.html

Looks like the Republicans are rolling back their efforts to get the FISA bill with telecom immunity passed

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/10/fisa/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] [T]hey have come to accept that they are not going to win the fight any time soon and they are not getting any real political traction from their scare-mongering campaign. Other than AT&T, Verizon, Fred Hiatt and Dick Cheney, there is not -- and there never was -- any constituency in the U.S. demanding new warrantless eavesdropping powers and telecom amnesty. And the ongoing disclosure of still-new secret surveillance programs, combined with increasing dishonesty from the likes of Michael Mukasey and Mike McConnell, only made the prospect of GOP success here that much more unlikely. . .

Contempt

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1279

Word choice

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/11/result-driven-injustice/
[AP] Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality . . [read on]

Now THIS is what you call a scandal

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/10/133411/641

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/schaffer_was_key_ally_for_mari.php

More on Lieberman’s phony “hacker “accusations against Ned Lamont. The FBI knew it wasn’t true, but didn’t disclose that information before the election. The Connecticut Attorney General knew about the FBI conclusions – and what did he do?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/10/16643/4733

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/10/did-ct-attorney-general-richard-blumenthal-cover-for-joe-lieberman-video/

No apology from Lieberman: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/10/12281/3790

Bonus item: How they print ballots down in Mississippi

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/10/13152/4713

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:24 AM

 
WAR CRIMES

Now we know why Dick Cheney wants to keep his Secret Service detail after he leaves office: he needs someone to protect him from being arrested, especially if he ever travels outside the country (I'm serious)

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4583256
In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency. . . .

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft. . . .

[T]his is the first time sources have disclosed that a handful of the most senior advisers in the White House explicitly approved the details of the program. According to multiple sources, it was members of the Principals Committee that not only discussed specific plans and specific interrogation methods, but approved them. . . .

Then-Attorney General Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.

According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly." . . . [read on]

One hundred years. You said it, and we're not gonna let you forget it, John. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188129.php
[Josh Marshall] Why doesn't every Democrat, when saying anything about the presidential race, start their remarks by saying: John McCain says he'd be happy to see our troops in Iraq for another hundred years. I just can't agree with that.

That's really all you need to say. . . .

Hillary gets it: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/clinton-uses-100-year-remark-to-fault-mccain/

MoveOn.org nails it, brilliantly. Watch this! http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/9/17648/97417

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15153.html
[Steve Benen] Republicans are not only concerned about John McCain having said — more than once — that he’s willing to maintain a U.S. troop presence in Iraq for 100 years, they’re apparently in a near panic about it. . . [read on]

Here’s a novel analogy, from “Red State”: Keeping US troops in Iraq for 100 years is just like the nearly 150 year old occupation of . . . . the Confederacy!

http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/occupying-iraq-just-occupying-alabama

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15161.html

The entire Crocker/Petraeus performance, in 14 words

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/09/BL2008040902028.html
[Dan Froomkin] Well, it's official. Getting out of Iraq is now exclusively the next president's problem. . . [read on]

Holy Grail?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/petraeus_were_not_after_the_ho.php
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) asked "Please tell us, general, what is winning?"

"We're not after the Holy Grail in Iraq . . .” Petraeus responded.

Turning the corner?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/09/petraeus-kills-gop-talking-point-on-iraq/

Who said it?

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003787168
"Tell me how this ends."

We’re there because. . .

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/ackerman-how-do-we
Gary Ackerman [D-NY] "We're there because we're there because we're there because we're there, and that's it."

What Petraeus and Crocker learned

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/33224.html
The Bush administration had hoped that the testimony of the top two U.S. officials in Baghdad would educate Congress about the situation in Iraq. But by the time Congress gaveled the hearings to a close Wednesday evening, Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Army Gen. David Petraeus had gotten an earful about political conditions at home. . . .

Petraeus and Crocker seemed flummoxed by the tenor of questions on Capitol Hill, which was starkly different from the warm reception they received during their September appearance. . . .

Petraeus lied

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/9/114159/0930

From the Brits: what’s in that long-term security agreement the US is secretly forging with Iraq?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/09/signing-up-for-the-forever-war/
[The Guardian] The draft strategic framework agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, dated March 7 and marked "secret" and "sensitive", is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorises the US to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security" without time limit.

The authorisation is described as "temporary" and the agreement says the US "does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq". But the absence of a time limit or restrictions on the US and other coalition forces - including the British - in the country means it is likely to be strongly opposed in Iraq and the US. . . .

There’s always a catch, isn't there?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/09/AR2008040902225.html
President Bush plans to announce today that he will cut Army combat tours in Iraq from 15 months to 12 months, returning rotations to where they were before last year's troop buildup in an effort to alleviate the tremendous stress on the military . . .

But Bush's decision will affect only those troops sent to Iraq as of Aug. 1 or later, meaning that those already there still have to complete 15-month tours. Bobby Muller, president of Veterans for America, an advocacy group, said that nearly half of the Army's active-duty frontline units are currently deployed for 15 months, and that Bush's decision leaves them out.

"In short, this is a hollow announcement; it has no immediate effect," Muller said. "It is nothing more than political posturing at the expense of our troops. Our soldiers are unraveling and they need their commander in chief to provide immediate relief." . . .

More like this, please: Bush tells Congress, You MUST vote on my Colombia trade pact right now – Congress says, Go suck eggs

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/9/14618/77900
[AP] Defying the White House, Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday the House will change its rules to avoid a required vote this year on a hotly disputed free-trade agreement with Colombia. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/washington/09cnd-trade.html
Ms. Pelosi’s action, which appeared to stun the White House, came just two days after Mr. Bush attempted to gain the upper hand by sending the bill to Congress with the understanding that current trade laws required a vote this year. . . .

Bush loves bipartisan bills – except when he doesn’t

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/bush-throws-gop-senators-under-bus-on.html
Bush throws GOP Senators under the bus . . .

More politicized prosecutions from Bush’s US Attorneys?

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Diaz_placeholder_0408.html

Our sweatshops

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188185.php
[Josh Marshall] They had a great thing going because they were able to slap Made In The USA labels on clothes and other items made in Saipan by female guest workers imported from other parts of East Asia to work in sub-Third World labor conditions. That is, when the guest workers weren't busy getting beaten, raped or coerced into having abortions. . . . [read on]

Henry Waxman, still trying to get answers from the EPA

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/waxman_issues_third_subpoena_f.php

Destruction of evidence – a way of life in Bushville

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_313.php
[Paul Kiel] Last Halloween, at a fundraising event for charitable organizations held at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Headquarters Building, they held a costume contest. And the winner was a white lawyer dressed in dreadlocks and prison stripes. [and blackface]

When it came time to present himself to the judges, among them Julie Myers, the chief of ICE, he said "I’m a Jamaican detainee from Krome — obviously, I’ve escaped.” Krome is an ICE Detention facility in Miami that is mostly filled with Jamaican, Haitian and Latin American detainees. The judges, Myers among them, laughed, according to a report issued yesterday by the House Committee on Homeland Security. Later, Myers posed with the winner . . .

At some point later that day, Myers apparently realized that others might not appreciate the fun of the costume and ordered that the pictures be destroyed. . . . [S]he ordered the pictures deleted, according to yesterday's report, as part of ""a coordinated effort to conceal the circumstances surrounding the party." Myers' nomination was still pending before the Senate at that time. The committee report is titled "The ICE Halloween Party: Trick, Treat, or Cover-up?" The committee appears to come down on the cover-up side of the question. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15159.html

Excuse me Mr. McCain, but I knew Ronald Reagan – and you’re no Ronald Reagan

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/asked-about-the-economy-mccain-cites-reagans-example/

McCain’s friends and supporters – people like this

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188029.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15158.html

The real McCain, on “The Real McCain”

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/mccain-isnt-happy-about-real-mccain-and.html

Joe Lieberman’s campaign web site crashed during the run-up to the Connecticut primary. His people flooded the news outlets with outrage and demands that his opponent, Ned Lamont, apologize for dirty tactics. Guess what?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/9/112321/0016

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188016.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15154.html

More: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/localnews/ci_8859029
The FBI office in New Haven found no evidence supporting the Lieberman campaign's allegations . . . "The server that hosted the joe2006.com Web site failed because it was overutilized and misconfigured. There was no evidence of (an) attack," according to the e-mail. . . .

"New Haven will be administratively closing this investigation," it concluded.

The e-mail, dated Oct. 25, 2006 . . .

[NB: Why does that date matter? Because the FBI reached this conclusion BEFORE the November election (in which Lieberman, running as an Independent, beat Lamont), but they didn't disclose it! Thanks to Keith Olbermann for the catch: no one else seems to have noticed it.]

Obama/Biden?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15162.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013496.php

I’ve said this here before, but it bears repeating. On health care, I think Hillary’s got the better plan. Elizabeth Edwards thinks so too

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/elizabeth_edwards_i_just_have.php

Hillary: the only real antiwar candidate?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/09/AR2008040904190.html

Looks like we’ll still have Mark Penn to kick around a while longer

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/702675/the_resignation_of_mark_penn_the_nonresignation.html

Things could change, but right now the Dems look poised for an electoral tidal wave in the Fall

On the Senate side: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/senate_post.php

On the House side: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/house_post.php

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/33180.html

The best and the brightest

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/33077.html
The Pentagon told a North Carolina lawmaker Tuesday that he couldn’t re-air a video he'd shot in Baghdad after accusations surfaced that he breached operational security in detailing enemy rocket attacks.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican, traveled to Iraq with other lawmakers for the first time on March 22. The video was the second incident stemming from that trip that has drawn unwanted attention to McHenry. Earlier, he was criticized for berating a guard in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone for not allowing him into a gym there because the congressman did not have the proper identification credential.

The new criticism stems from a video that was featured on his Web site last Friday. Shot in the Green Zone, it showed McHenry gesturing to a building behind him and saying that one of 11 rockets “hit just over my head.” Then he named two other places struck by the rockets. . . .

“This kind of help I don’t need, but thanks anyway. . .”

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/craig-offers-support-to-vitter-2008-04-08.html
Embattled Louisiana Sen. David Vitter (R) is getting support from fellow Republicans who say he should not resign over a public sex scandal — including from someone who can speak from experience.

Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho was among several GOP senators who say Vitter’s testimony in the “D.C. Madam” prostitution case should not compel his resignation. . . .

Craig said he has told Vitter he regretted the fact that his own case seemed to cause the media to dredge up and rehash Vitter’s situation.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15156.html

Bonus item: Because you just can’t have too much Islamofascist awareness, dammit!

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/188028.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15160.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:37 AM

 
NO MORE BENCHMARKS

Uh, were there some kind of Congressional hearings yesterday?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/08/AR2008040803501.html
Asked repeatedly yesterday what "conditions" he is looking for to begin substantial U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq after this summer's scheduled drawdown, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said he will know them when he sees them. . . .

A few overviews: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/08/dog-n-pony-too/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013490.php

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/08/question-for-mccain/

Notable quotes: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gAUuS6yFVNIHNdQvPGolUbArIYmwD8VTVKT00

Remember those “benchmarks” for measuring success in the war? No one is talking about them any more

http://www.c-span.org/pdf/IRAQ_BENCHMARKS090707.pdf

I like it

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080409/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq
Democrats plan to push legislation this spring that would force the Iraqi government to spend its own surplus in oil revenues to rebuild the country, sparing U.S. dollars. . .

I think the whole idea that a few minutes questioning in a Senate hearing is the new litmus test of Presidential competence is pretty silly. Both Clinton and Obama did well – though I thought Clinton had the better of it

Watch Clinton: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/clinton_its_time_to_begin_the.php

Watch Obama: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/obama_we_have_to_apply_measure.php

Clinton gets off the line of the day:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/08/AR2008040801613.html
CLINTON: Let me ask you: Do you anticipate that the Iraqi government would submit such an agreement to the Iraqi parliament for ratification?

U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ RYAN CROCKER: The Iraqi government has indicated it will bring the agreement to the Council of Representatives. At this point, it is not clear, at least to me, whether that will be for a formal vote or whether they will repeat the process they used in November with the declaration of principles, in which it was simply read to the members of the parliament.

CLINTON: Does the administration plan to submit this agreement to our Congress?

CROCKER: At this point, Senator, we do not anticipate that the agreements will have within them any elements that would require the advise-and-consent procedure. We intend to negotiate this as an executive agreement.

CLINTON: Well, Ambassador Crocker, it seems odd, I think, to Americans who are being asked to commit for an indefinite period of time the lives of our young men and women in uniform, the civilian employees, whom you rightly referenced and thanked, as well as billions of dollars of additional taxpayer dollars, if the Iraqi parliament may have a chance to consider this agreement, that the United States Congress would not.

More: http://www.first-draft.com/2008/04/today-on-hold-1.html

Biden: you damn well better bring it to Congress

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/biden-you-need

IS Iraq “the central front in the war against terror”? Crocker and Petraeus just admitted that it isn’t

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/08/crocker/index.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/joe-biden-just-obliterated-every.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/187959.php

McCain AGAIN confuses whether Al Qaeda in Iraq is Sunni or Shia – then shrugs it off, “Whatever”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/8/154120/4187

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013485.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15146.html

More misstatements: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/8/113015/4722

The GOP knows that McCain’s “hundred years in Iraq” line is electoral poison – so they’re engaged in an across-the-board offensive to deny, obscure, and redefine McCain’s plain meaning when he said it

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/187967.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/187881.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/187920.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/9/4138/32764
[Hendrik Hertzberg] McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal - that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we'll stay.

Joe Lieberman is getting worse and worse

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/08/because-nobody-wants-to-end-the-war-more-than-joe/

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15147.html

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/lieberwhat.php

9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton: Either Mukasey made that story up, or the Bush gang withheld evidence from the Commission

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/8/204216/0009

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/08/hamilton/index.html

John Conyers: Mr. Yoo, we have some questions to ask you

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/conyers_schedules_hearing_with.php

Harry Reid offers another compromise on FISA: Republicans say, “we’d rather have the issue”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/8/141132/0083

The New Corporatism

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/washington/09justice.html
In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years.

Instead, many companies, from boutique outfits to immense corporations like American Express, have avoided the cost and stigma of defending themselves against criminal charges with a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, which allows the government to collect fines and appoint an outside monitor to impose internal reforms without going through a trial. In many cases, the name of the monitor and the details of the agreement are kept secret.

Deferred prosecutions have become a favorite tool of the Bush administration. But some legal experts now wonder if the policy shift has led companies, in particular financial institutions now under investigation for their roles in the subprime mortgage debacle, to test the limits of corporate anti-fraud laws. . .

Theocracy watch: McCain’s “Compassion Tour.” Hey, when you need to organize an orchestrated campaign to demonstrate your "compassion," you might as well not bother

http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/353264.aspx

I like the 50-state strategy: it’s what a confident, assertive party does

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/dscc_chief_schumer_well_keep_r.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/senate_post.php

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5036

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:25 AM

 
RUNNING IN PLACE

The Basra fiasco seems to have shaken the conventional wisdom in the DC circuit – maybe the Iraqi government really CAN’T ever get to the point where it can govern and defend itself. Conditions on the ground really AREN’T getting any better. (None of this is news to us, of course.)

With that, the administration (and McCain) rationale has shifted (again): not “we are winning” but “we can’t afford to lose”

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/04/ap_iraqgoals_040608/
The United States is no closer to achieving its goals in Iraq than it was a year ago but a quick military withdrawal could lead to massive chaos and even genocide . . .

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/04/14/080414taco_talk_coll
[Steve Coll] A war born in spin has now reached its Lewis Carroll period. (“Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”) . . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15139.html
Q: Also, how does this latest violence in Iraq and the latest uncertainty about what’s going on color the Petraeus-Crocker testimony this time around? It obviously has changed the equation. I mean, weeks ago it looked like the surge was — you know, had this pretty rosy cast, and now with all this renewed violence, I think it has changed the dynamics. So how has this changed the equation?

FRATTO: Well, I think we’ve thrown out all of the rose-colored glasses in how we look at Iraq, and try to look at it through clear lenses as to what is actually going on in the country.

[Steve Benen] [H]earing Fratto today, I kept thinking that I’ve heard the White House use this phrase before. And then I remembered . . . . [read on]

The shift in media coverage

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/msm-acknowledges-the

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/07/BL2008040701344.html

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/012293.php

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/surge-protectors-the-medi_b_95436.html

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/08/we-all-cheer-when-the-swallows-return-to-hinckley-ohio/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/06/AR2008040602430.html
In this volatile Shiite redoubt, animosity toward Prime Minister Nouri-al Maliki and his allies has deepened in the aftermath of Iraq's worst violence in months, threatening to escalate a conflict among Shiites that could further draw in U.S. troops. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/world/middleeast/08iraq.html
A crackdown on the Mahdi Army militia is creating potentially destabilizing political and military tensions in Iraq, pitting a stronger government alliance against the force that has won past showdowns: the street power wielded by the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr. . .

More: http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/4-us-troops-killed-hundreds-flee.html
[Juan Cole] I am always astounded at the combination of unrealistic optimism and foolish gullibility that marks political discourse on the Right in Washington. . . . [read on]

McCain on Iraq

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/mccain_on_basra.php
“Look, I didn’t particularly like the outcome of this thing, but I am convinced that we now have a government that is governing with some effect and a military that is functioning very effectively,” . . . [read on]

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/07/the-surge-is-over-why-arent-we-leaving/
"We are no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success . . .” [read on]

[NB: Looking ahead to the prospect of success; now THERE’S some encouraging news]

One big problem: the Bush gang doesn’t actually WANT Maliki to govern his own country

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL0745560420080407
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has criticized the renewing of a U.S. contract with Blackwater to protect American diplomats, saying the security firm had committed a "massacre" against Iraqis. . . .

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gY55hLX4e83dV80DrwDy7VJdhxzg
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the the US State Department had renewed the contract of private security company Blackwater USA without the approval of the Baghdad government. . .

G.W. Bush: History will not be kind (it already isn’t)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/glib-contemptuous-ignorant-incurious-by.html

Michael Mukasey, in his confirmation hearings, promised a new era of openness at the DOJ. Okay, Mike, then open up

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/07/AR2008040702363.html
Despite repeated congressional requests, some made as long as three years ago, key legal opinions and other department documents remain under wraps. That has prompted Democrats to accuse the Bush administration of trying to run out the clock. . . .

William Haynes, whom the Bush gang desperately wanted to put on the federal bench, now faces legal problems instead. And who is his lawyer?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/07/cheneys-lawyer-now-defending-haynes/

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/07/haynes-armed-services-perjury/

Don Siegelman calls out Karl Rove: testify under oath!

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/07/siegelman-all-roads-lead-to-rove/

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_311.php

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/07/siegelman-rove-needs-to-testify-about-my-case/

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/07/haul-karls-ass-into-congress/

David Vitter’s (R-LA) prostitute problem may not be over: he might have to testify

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15136.html

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/witness_for_the_prosecution.php

Watch, and laugh: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/187770.php

Republicans invent new ways to create unaccountable third-party groups to run vicious attack ads the McCain campaign can keep its distance from

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/conservatives_planning_new_att.php

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/nonprofits_are_the_new_527s.php

McCain gets roughed up by a high school student

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/7/153542/7787
"I think judging by the amount of press representatives here and also by the integration of your previous political endorsements in your earlier personal narrative, we can see that this isn't completely absent – er political motivation isn't completely absent," she said. "Yet we were told that this isn't a political event. So what exactly is your purpose in being here . . .”

“The Real McCain”

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/you-can-meet-real-mccain-courtesy-of.html

What he called his wife in public: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/07/monday-late-nite-andrew-dice-clay-blushes/

No, no, no, no, no, no, no: There is NO WAY Condi Rice is going to be McCain’s VP. There is NO WAY she is ever going to run for elective office, ever. Two simple reasons: she cannot withstand the constant questioning and scrutiny she would receive for her pathetic performance as National Security Advisor and Sect’y of State; second, she has no capacity, disposition, or patience to undergo the actual electoral process. Can you imagine Condi, in jeans and boots, in the cattle pen at the Iowa State Fair? Eating donuts and drinking stale coffee in a living room in West Virginia, listening to people talk about losing their jobs and homes? Shaking hands in a rope line on a sweltering day in Houston? Come on

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/07/865186.aspx

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/7/135835/1703

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15137.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/07/mccain_rice/index.html

The Dems still can’t get their act together to focus attacks on McCain during this crucial, image-defining period of the campaign

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-are-they-waiting-for-by-digby-d.html

“The Experience Factor.” Okay, it’s a fair question: between Clinton and Obama, who has run the better campaign?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9436.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/07/AR2008040702196.html

Sure enough, Mark Penn wasn’t quite, exactly, fired

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/penn_out_then_in.php

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/07/penn-speaks-in-private-wi_n_95508.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2188429

Did Penn ruin Hillary’s campaign?

Yes: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/187740.php

No: http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/dont_blame_penn_for_everything.php

Bonus item: What Jeremiah Wright actually said

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/religion_and_politics_/2008/04/full_audio_of_jeremiah_wrights_jeremiad_.php

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:51 AM

 
SMELLS LIKE VICTORY

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/06/two-us-soldiers-killed-in-green-zone-attack/
The AP reports that a “rocket attack on the U.S.-protected Green Zone on Sunday killed three American soldiers and wounded at least 31 people, a military official said. The strike came after heavy fighting in a Baghdad neighborhood that left 20 dead and more than 50 wounded in the worst violence here since a cease-fire was declared a week ago.”

More: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174915/ira_chernus_the_general_and_the_trap

Here’s why the Bush gang is pushing so hard to get a long-term security arrangement locked in with Iraq now

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/expiring_authority.php

This is what we’ve been fighting for?

http://www.correntewire.com/women_in_iraq_back_to_the_dark_ages
[Sarah] Shi’a Iraq militias are threatening women for things like driving cars, not wearing veils, and going to school or work. US “advisers” think this is just fine . . . [read on]

McCain: still lying about Iraq

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/06/mccain-ceasefire-sadr/
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) repeated the false claim that Muqtada al-Sadr declared the ceasefire in Basra last week, which he pointed to as proof that Sadr didn’t “think he was winning” the battle in Basra. He also said that the Iraqi army performed “pretty well” . . .

The reality: http://www.correntewire.com/pre_petraeus_counter_talking_points

The incoherence of McCain’s on-again/off-again embrace of Bush’s policy, thanks to Mark Kleiman

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/john_mccain_/2008/04/say_what_dept.php
John McCain, in the midst of his latest blunder about what's going on in Iraq, engages in a bit of Straight-Talk-speak-with-forked-tongue:

We're paying a huge penalty for a failed strategy I voted hard against . . .

OK. I give up. When did John McCain "vote hard" against the Bush strategy in Iraq? Was it before, or after, he

supported Bush on Iraq more than anyone else

No one has supported President Bush on Iraq more than I have.

Look, McCain didn’t call for a hundred years war in Iraq; but he DID say that a hundred year troop commitment (a la Korea) would be just fine with him. The latter is a bad enough idea to go after on its own – let’s not help him out with easily-discredited hyperbole

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15128.html
[Jamison Foser] Michael Dobbs concluded that McCain critics who claim that the Republican presidential candidate wants to continue the Iraq war for 100 years are distorting his comments. Dobbs’ article came one week to the day after a New York Times article about criticisms of McCain that “mischaracterize and distort” McCain’s 100-years comments. . . [read on]

http://www.correntewire.com/pre_petraeus_counter_talking_points
[Shystee] Basically, John McCain is not advocating fighting a 100 year war, but he is advocating staying in Iraq for 100 years. McCain’s statement is framed by his comparison of Iraq to the Korean war. There would be about 10 years of hard fighting ahead of us in Iraq but after that there would be a stalemate and the US would hunker down for a century guarding the border.

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/07/and-so-it-continues/

More hard-hitting journalism

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/compulsory-ring-kissing-under-fire-by.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804060001

Hey, when a candidate has enough doctors to call together a “summit,” you know he has a health issue

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/mccain_camp_plans_public_summi.php
[Eric Kleefeld] In a sign that age could be a serious issue for John McCain, his campaign reportedly has plans for a public meeting of his doctors next month, at which they will take questions about the Senator's health and assure the public that he's in good shape. . . .

It’s long overdue, but it really came to seem inevitable. Mark Penn is o-u-t as senior Clinton campaign strategist. He was widely hated even by people within the Clinton campaign. But, not so fast – except for a diminution of title, it isn’t clear how much his campaign role will actually change

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/06/penn/index.html
[Alex Koppelman] On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported on a meeting Penn had with the Colombian ambassador to the U.S. to discuss a bilateral trade deal Clinton opposes. Penn was reportedly there in his role as chief executive Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, a communications and lobbying firm.

According to ABC News' Political Radar blog, Penn resigned "under pressure from an angry Sen. Clinton, who believed that Penn had recused himself from any clients who might pose a conflict for her campaign." . . .

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/penn_is_run_out.php
[Marc Ambinder] That Mark Penn would one day step aside from the Clinton campaign has been, as they say in sociology, overdetermined for a while. He had few allies inside the campaign, he was subject to withering criticism in the press, and he simply refused to give up his outside work, some of which conflicted with Sen. Clinton's policy positions. . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/187589.php
Penn Sorta Not Really Resigns from Clinton Campaign . . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/187620.php

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/mark-penn-quits-as-clintons-chief.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/6/20525/15947

Hillary’s latest line: except for one vote, Obama and I have the same record on the Iraq war. (No, that isn’t true.)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_04_06_archive.html#6462378945954296801

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/please_stop.php

More: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/in-oregon-clint.html

Why the AP puff piece on Michael Mukasey? And why now?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/06/mukasey/index.html

“A Combination of Ideology and Incompetence”

http://www.first-draft.com/2008/04/a-combination-o.html

Please explain to me, PLEASE, why anyone gives a damn about what Cokie Roberts thinks about anything?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/blithering-idiocy-of-dc-establishment.html

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4996

The smug and condescending attitude of the Old Media

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/06/sunday-late-nite-the-banality-of-howell/

Bonus item: Maladies of blogging

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4993

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/death_by_blog.php

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:29 AM

 
HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

The US shows the Iraqi government just what it thinks of them

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/04/05/iraq.blackwater/index.html
The U.S. State Department's renewal of Blackwater's contract to provide security in Iraq "is bad news," an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said.

Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 people, including women and children, last September, prompting an outcry and protest from Iraqi officials. . . .

The US can’t get NATO to boost its troop commitment to Afghanistan unless it increases its own

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-bush5apr05,1,6245802.story
President Bush told a NATO summit that the United States would increase its number of troops in Afghanistan . . . U.S. officials previously made it clear that the foreign force of 59,000, including 31,000 Americans, was insufficient. But they had not committed the U.S. to providing more troops. . .

“Bush broke the Army”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/washington/06military.html
Army leaders are expressing increased alarm about the mental health of soldiers who would be sent back to the front again and again under plans that call for troop numbers to be sustained at high levels in Iraq for this year and beyond. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/5/19267/67022

General Petraeus comes back to Congress: will he answer the question this time?

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=23B0DC51779C7FD80647B2ECB8E3553C?diaryId=4988
“How has this effort in Iraq made us safer and how do we expect it will make us safer in the long run?" [read on]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/05/ST2008040502476.html
In the waning months of his administration, Bush has hitched his fortunes to those of his bookish four-star general, bypassing several levels of the military chain of command to give Petraeus a privileged voice in White House deliberations over Iraq . . .

More: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/mccain_obama_clinton_and_petra.html

A Basra post-mortem – and how it hurts McCain

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/5/145955/7472

I think we’re going to have to rename the Department of “Justice”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/boatloads-of-bad-apples-by-digby-high.html
The Justice Department's inspector general is looking into whether Hagen was dismissed after a rumor reached [Monica] Goodling that Hagen is a lesbian.

As one Republican source put it, "To some people, that's even worse than being a Democrat." . . . [read on]

Christ: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/5/175023/6092
Yoo advised top Bush administration officials that interrogators could employ mind-altering drugs if they did not produce "an extreme effect" calculated to "cause a profound disruption of the senses or personality." . . . [read on]

Clinton’s congressional supporters, and Obama’s: an analysis

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/the_congressional_divide.php

Here’s a list showing how the presidential candidate who raises the most money isn’t always the one who wins – but what jumped off the page for me were these numbers. In 1996, the two candidates together raised less than $100 million; in 2004, the two candidates raised $700 million. And who knows about this year?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/5/174229/8400

Mark Penn disses the government of Colombia, which then fires him. Over to you, Hillary . . .

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Colombia_fires_Penn.html
The Colombian Government announces its decision to terminate the contract with Burson-Marsteller. This firm conducts public relations and communications consulting services on behalf of Colombia in the United States for the approval of the Free Trade Agreement . . .

Mr. Mark Penn, President and CEO of Burson Marsteller, reponded to claims by Union representatives who questioned his relationship with the Colombian Government by declaring that it was an "error in judgment" to meet with his client the Colombian Ambassador on March 31. The Colombian government considers this a lack of respect to Colombians, and finds this response unacceptable. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15125.html

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/time_for_someone_to_go.php

Obama’s “patriotism problem”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15124.html

This is getting ridiculous. Are campaigns now supposed to be held responsible for what every supporter of the candidate might say?

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/mccain-called-a-warmonger-at-obama-event/index.html
On the air, Ed Schultz, a liberal talk show host based in Fargo, N.D., is well-known for his blunt criticisms of the Bush Administration and the Republican Party. But Mr. Schultz, a fervent supporter of Senator Barack Obama, may have gone too far late Friday when he called Senator John McCain “a warmonger.” . . .

“Enough is enough,” said Robert M. Duncan, the chairman of the Republican National Committee. “Senator Obama has an obligation to speak out and publicly reject and denounce — not applaud — the shameful and contemptible remarks made by his surrogates.”

Mr. Obama was not present at the fund raising event . . .

But he IS a warmonger: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/if-shoe-fits-by-digby-mccain-giving.html

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200804040009
When McCain cries foul, the media are eager to agree . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/he-didnt-mean-what-he-meant-by-digby-i.html

Karl Rove thinks McCain is running an excellent campaign – and he should

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15122.html

A clarification, from Matt Yglesias

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/correcting_john_mccain.php
[I]t's not fair to say that McCain is just like Bush -- he's been a much more consistent proponent of the worst policies associated with the Bush administration. . . . [read on]

More: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/fear_the_return.php

Who McCain really is

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/5/214717/7994
[MoveOn] 10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."

3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.

4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."

5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.

6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.

7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.

9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."

10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0--yes, zero--from the League of Conservation Voters last year.

McCain on health care – if you can figure out what he’s saying

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/6/91155/74099

The US media always keeps it priorities straight

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/05/media/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to "domestic military operations" within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.

Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:

"Yoo and torture" - 102

"Mukasey and 9/11" -- 73

"Yoo and Fourth Amendment" -- 16

"Obama and bowling" -- 1,043. . . [read on]

It’s really quite an indictment when bloggers are better-informed and clearer about the issues than the professional press corps

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/5/10050/11057/358/489838
[DHinMI] Campaign Finance Primer . . .

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/05/AR2008040502149.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and James Webb (D-Va.) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Cardinal Francis George, president, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Dean.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D), Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson and former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young.

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.); Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.); Martin Luther King III; Catholic University president, the Very Rev. David M. O'Connell; former labor secretary Robert Reich; and McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

Bonus item: It would be unbelievable, if we hadn’t come to expect things like this

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/incredible-by-tristero-just-when-you.html
[Tristero] Johns Hopkins University said Friday that it had programmed its computers to ignore the word “abortion” in searches of a large, publicly financed database of information on reproductive health after federal officials raised questions . . . [read on]

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:49 AM

 
EASILY DISTRACTED

Here’s what happens when you take your eyes off the ball

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/012278.php
[Turkana] The Washington Post reports that things still aren't going so well, in Afghanistan. For the U.S. and its allies, anyway. For the Taliban and al-Qaeda, things are going quite well, indeed. . . [read on]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-mosul5apr05,1,1338725.story
Far from the volatile Shiite rivalries that have shaken Baghdad and Basra, this city has been devastated by an epic struggle for land and power between Sunni Arabs and Kurds that has shattered the social fabric and could very well shape the future boundaries of northern Iraq. . . .

Is the groundwork being laid for an attack against Iran? The Brits think so

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/05/wiran105.xml

What’s in that mysterious NIE? Why can’t we see it? Why are admin figures selectively leaking the best parts, and hiding the rest?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_310.php
The general conclusion of the report is evident from the headlines this morning. "Report: Security in Iraq is improving," says the AP. "U.S. Study Finds Progress in Iraq, but Fragile Security and Potential for Terror Attacks," says the Times. A senior administration official tells The Wall Street Journal, "The NIE update confirmed that the surge strategy the president announced in January of last year is working. There's more work to be done, but progress has obviously been made."

And that pretty much seems to be the scope of it. Democrats who have read it are mightily unimpressed and say that it's just part of the broader PR push which will culminate in next week's testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

As Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) puts it, "The stuff that was positive, they emphasized. The negative, they stated, but deemphasized." Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) complains that it doesn't cover most of the stuff you'd want it to cover: "It's much less insightful than other, recent products and focuses narrowly on counterterrorism efforts in Iraq and the progress of the Iraqi leadership."

And Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), a member of the House intelligence committee, is mighty suspicious -- both of the report's content and its timing: "One might ask whether the timing of the release and the apparent departure from usual procedures means this is more of a political document than an intelligence document," he tells the Journal.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/4/22517/66252

The Bush gang supports “terrorists” joining the Iraqi security forces

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/the-white-house

Bush: bored with NATO

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/04/entangling-alliances/

Whoa!

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/04/who-is-lying-about-the-yoo-memo-approval/
[Interview with John Yoo on his infamous torture memo] Esquire: That’s the one that’s been so strongly criticized. Goldsmith said it was slapdash and wasn’t well reasoned.

Yoo: I think that’s unfair, first because Goldsmith never issued an opinion of his own. He’s certainly free to criticize. It goes back to unless you’ve actually made the hard decision yourself, then you don’t really know how you think it through, what you would do. So he says “slapdash opinion,” but we have no idea what he would have done, because he left. Second thing is, it went through the normal process opinions go through in the Justice Department. It was primarily worked on by career staff people, and then went through a process of editing and review by different offices within the department, no different than any other.

Esquire: Ashcroft saw it?

Yoo: He approved it. And so the idea that’s its slapdash, or it was haphazard -- I don’t think was true.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/post_ashcroft_didnt_sign_off_o.php
More evidence that John Yoo was the most powerful deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's history. The Washington Post reports this morning that when Yoo issued his now-infamous March 14, 2003 memo to the Pentagon, neither Attorney General John Ashcroft, nor his deputy Larry Thompson "were aware." . . .

The banality of evil

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/opinion/04fri1.html
[NYT] You can often tell if someone understands how wrong their actions are by the lengths to which they go to rationalize them. It took 81 pages of twisted legal reasoning to justify President Bush’s decision to ignore federal law and international treaties and authorize the abuse and torture of prisoners.

Eighty-one spine-crawling pages in a memo that might have been unearthed from the dusty archives of some authoritarian regime and has no place in the annals of the United States. It is must reading for anyone who still doubts whether the abuse of prisoners were rogue acts rather than calculated policy. . .

Shredding the Constitution

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040304136.html
The Justice Department concluded in October 2001 that military operations combating terrorism inside the United States are not limited by Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, in one of several secret memos containing new and controversial assertions of presidential power. . . .

Administration officials declined to detail what domestic military operations were being contemplated at the time, and the legal status of the secret memo is now unclear.

No court has ever ruled that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to the military, said Jameel Jaffer, national security director at the American Civil Liberties Union. "In general, the government can't send an FBI agent to search your home or listen to your phone calls without a warrant, and it can't send a soldier to do it, either," Jaffer said. "The applicability of the Fourth Amendment doesn't turn on what kind of uniform the government agent is wearing." . . . [read on]

More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/04/was-the-october-23-2001-olc-opinion-the-basis-for-the-illegal-wiretap-program/

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/04/warrantless-wiretap-memos-timeline/

The DOJ comments on the astonishing claim from Michael Mukasey that the Bush gang failed to pick up on vital information before 9/11. How are they going to get out of this?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/04/doj/index.html
"We have provided Congress with examples in which difficulties with collections under [Executive Order 12333] resulted in the Intelligence Community missing crucial information. For instance, one of the September 11 hijackers communicated with a known overseas terrorist facility while he was living in the United States. Because that collection was conducted under Executive Order 12333, the Intelligence Community could not identify the domestic end of the communication prior to September 11, 2001, when it could have stopped that attack. The failure to collect such communications was one of the central criticisms of the Congressional Joint Inquiry that looked into intelligence failures associated with the attacks of September 11.”

[Glenn Greenwald] For multiple reasons, this response heightens, rather than resolves, the severely misleading nature of Mukasey's claims. . . [read on]

Somebody’s lying: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/4/16251/91614

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/04/the-joint-inquiry-and-mukaseys-call/

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/crying-wolf-and-crocodile-tears-by.html

NO accountability. None

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/blackwater_still_in_business.php
[AP] The State Department says it will renew Blackwater USA's license to protect diplomats in Baghdad for one year . . . A top State Department official said that because the FBI is still investigating last year's fatal shooting of Baghdad civilians, there is no reason not to renew the contract . . .

Another rape and cover-up with KBR in Iraq (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.alternet.org/story/81266/

But THIS case – a stabbing during a knife fight – they take very seriously

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-Contractor-Charged.html

One aftermath of the passport-peeking scandal (hmmmm . . . isn’t there an investigation supposedly going on?)

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=115097

Worse than “don’t ask, don’t tell” – don’t die

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15118.html
[Steve Benen] Maj. Alan Rogers, an American serviceman, was killed in Iraq in January. The tragedy wouldn’t otherwise have any real political considerations, except for the fact that Rogers was gay.

And someone at the Pentagon doesn’t want people to know that. . . [read on]

Recession

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040403840.html
The Labor Department numbers released yesterday were far worse than economists had forecast. The unemployment rate rose to 5.1 percent from 4.8 percent in February and 4.4 percent in March 2007. Employers reduced their payrolls by 80,000 jobs in March, the third straight month of decline. And the department revised the previous two months' employment levels down by 67,000 positions.

"We're in recession," said David Wyss, chief economist of Standard & Poor's. "It's hard to conclude anything else." . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/business/05econ.html
Democrats Call for New Aid Package as 80,000 Jobs Are Cut . . .

Rove’s involvement with the Siegelman scandal – his fingerprints are everywhere

http://www.atlargely.com/2008/04/rove-caught-in.html

Background: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1627427,00.html

John McCain opposed the Martin Luther King holiday. So how much gall does it take for him now to try to score points on the anniversary of MLK’s assassination?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/4/132157/3599
[Kos] John McCain voted against the Martin Luther King holiday in 1983. Asked about today, he made a startling revelation . . . [read on]

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/mccain_i_was_wrong_to_vote_aga.php
[Greg Sargent] John McCain journeyed to Memphis today to speak about Martin Luther King's assassination 40 years ago and apologized for voting in 1983 against making MLK day a holiday. And it didn't go all that well . . .

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/mccain_at_the_lorraine_motel.php
Those who gathered in the rainy, muddy parking lot of the Lorraine Motel did not expect this presidential candidate to show up. . . . "Boy, he has some stones," one young woman said as an organizer announced McCain's name. . . .

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4974
[Matt Stoller] [A]bove is an amusingly coincidental picture of a black guy holding an umbrella for McCain as he gives a speech apologizing for his vote against a holiday honoring MLK. The video of McCain being heckled is worth watching. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15107.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/4/154420/4702

Okay, John, your turn: where are YOUR tax returns?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/now-its-john-mccains-turn-where-are-his.html

An unbelievable hypocrite on campaign finance

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/04/john-mccain-preparing-to-accept-public-financing/

McCain on the stump: a real snooze-inducer

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/the_best_years_of_my_life.php

And his ads! http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/the_snitchin_candidate.php

McCain and the media

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4979

The Clinton tax returns

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/04/05/golden_years_for_the_clintons/

A big deal over nothing? http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15120.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/4/225142/0245

Popular vote scenarios for the Dem primaries: Clinton’s last hope?

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4973

This won’t fly. It just won’t

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-trailguide_rightrail_0404apr04,0,2244606.story
"There is no such thing as a pledged delegate," Clinton said in Burbank, Calif. . . .

Both Democratic campaigns realize that NAFTA is an especially sensitive issue. We’ve seen some delicate parsing on all sides. So, how stupid is THIS?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/04/clinton_aide_sorry_for_trade_m.php
Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief strategist apologized Friday for meeting with Colombian officials pushing a free trade agreement that the presidential candidate opposes. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/4/105951/2947

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15114.html

Let’s see, what did Hillary say when one of Obama’s advisors was caught talking out of turn to a foreign government?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/hillary-clinton-thinks-its-major-issue.html

Fire him? http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/penn_i_am_sorry_for_meeting_wi.php

The other day I linked to a piece called “Clinton’s base,” and some of my loyal readers chided me for its overly snarky tone toward some ill-informed Clinton backers. Let’s be fair – every candidate has supporters you would be embarrassed to have held up as typical of the whole. For the sake of balance, here’s an alternate take on the same issue, from Susie Madrak

http://susiemadrak.com/2008/04/02/22/07/the-tao-of-rocky/

Bonus item: Glenn Beck loses his mind

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/04/beck-inhofe-bears/

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:28 AM

 
THESE PEOPLE

Wrong track: 81%

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/cbsny-times-polls-81-say-us-is-on-wrong.html
“Most negative response in the history of the poll”

So, when Michael Mukasey said there was a call from a known Al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan into the US, just before 9-11, which the US didn’t pay any attention to – was he lying? hyperbole? or did he blurt out one of the greatest intelligence failures and cover-ups of the Bush admin? Congress demands to know

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1254
Before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, you stated, “we knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn’t know precisely where it went. You’ve got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn’t come home, to show for that.”

This statement is very disturbing for several reasons. Initially, despite extensive inquiries after 9/11, I am aware of no previous reference, in the 9/11 Commission report or elsewhere, to a call from a known terrorist safe house in Afghanistan to the United States which, if it had been intercepted, could have helped prevent the 9/11 attacks. In addition, if the Administration had known of such communications from suspected terrorists, they could and should have been intercepted based on existing FISA law. For example, even assuming that a FISA warrant was required to intercept such calls, as of 9/11 FISA specifically authorized such surveillance on an emergency basis without a warrant for a 48 hour period. If such calls were known about and not intercepted, serious additional concerns would be raised about the government’s failure to take appropriate action before 9/11. . . . [read on]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/03/mukasey/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Yesterday, I contacted Lee Hamilton, the 9/11 Commission Vice Chairman, to ask him whether the Commission was ever told about Mukasey's alleged Afghan Terrorist 9/11-planning telephone calls and/or the Bush administration's failure/inability to eavesdrop on such calls. Hamilton refused to comment, first claiming that he was in meetings all day yesterday and had no time to talk to me. When asked if he would comment today or whenever he had time, he said he was not going to comment on this ever, since he had not read Mukasey's speech. Calls to 9/11 Executive Director Philip Zelikow seeking comment were not returned and 9/11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean could not yet be reached. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/3/125847/1914

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/3/114315/2684

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013462.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15104.html

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/03/another-possibility-with-mukaseys-911-story/
[Emptywheel] In other words, on the matter of what the NSA intercepted before 9/11, on that matter above all, the 9/11 Commission report is not complete. The Commission (in spite of the laudable efforts by Fenner) did not adequately review all the NSA archives relating to Al Qaeda. . . . [read on]

How bad is the Yoo memo authorizing torture and prisoner mistreatment?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/03/the-yoo-memo-time-to-stop-crying-and-get-to-work/
[Looseheadprop] It took me all day yesterday to get through the Yoo memo. I kept tearing up. My law partner asked me if someone close to me had died. . . [read on]

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/03/yoo-memo-deliberately-undercuts-military-law-rumsfeld-kabuki-anyone/
[Christy Hardin Smith] Having read through and digested the Yoo memorandum that was recently declassified, the most striking feature of it -- beyond its utter twisting of the law in a "might equals right" stomach churning justification tango -- is that it reads like a document written in an after-the-fact criminal defense posture. Especially Part IV of the memorandum which spends pages outlining potential defenses and the mindset needed therefor should anyone be accused of committing war crimes or criminal acts. . . . [read on]

War crimes? http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/04/theres-war-crimes-tribunal-in-your.html

Yoo now wants us to believe that he thinks it really is a shame that people actually DID the things his memo authorized

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/yoo_i_thought_torture_was_a_ba.php
“I did not think as a matter of policy that it was a good idea for the military to use aggressive interrogations of the kind that would be permitted to the CIA,” he said . . .

More: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_309.php

Marty Lederman was the first to nail this, and now the rest of us are catching up: WHY was Yoo’s torture memo classified?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/03/surely-theyll-resort-to-pixie-dust-on-this/
“The document in question is purely a legal analysis,” he said, and it contains “nothing which would justify classification.” [read on]

The end of the Fourth Amendment

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/yoo_warrant_schmarrant.php

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15103.html

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/03/snowball/

Bush wants to “compromise” on FISA? There’s no compromising with these people

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/3/1104/69882

An interview with Eric Lichtblau: What exactly IS the Bush gang’s warrantless wiretapping program? Why DID the NYT delay running a story about it?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/interview_with_the_new_york_ti.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/03/BL2008040302203.html

The disastrous Basra fight gives every reason to doubt that the Iraqi government can EVER stabilize and unify the country

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013467.php

http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/clashes-continue-in-basra-badr-militia.html

Good: Senators demand that the Bush gang declassify and release portions of the latest NIE

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/007257.html

From the very start, the Iraq war has been draining resources and attention from the real trouble spots of Al Qaeda: Afghanistan and Pakistan. It still is

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/02/mullen.iraq.afghanistan/index.html
The U.S. military has too many troops tied down in Iraq to send needed reinforcements to Afghanistan this year, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said Wednesday. . . .

As with McCain, we ask: gaffe? or subliminal hint?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/03/grasping-at-what-the-meaning-of-is-is/
[Joe Lieberman] If we did what Sen. Obama wanted us to do last year, Al-Qaeda in Iran would be in control of Iraq today. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15097.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/clever-gaffes-by-digby-glenn-is-on-to.html

We’ve seen these stories a hundred times: Bush regulatory agencies, staffed with former employees and lobbyists for the industries they’re supposedly overseeing, ignore their responsibilities and put citizens’ safety at risk, Now, the FAA

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/faa-ignored-serious-safety-issues-on.html

McCain MIA on the GI Bill

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/3/16442/55634

In 1999, when McCain last ran for President, he released all of his medical records. This time, he won’t. (Well, he’ll have to before this campaign is over, that’s for sure)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15098.html

A persuasive, “fair and balanced” view of the electoral map

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/the_electoral_map_nbc_newss_ta.php
[Marc Ambinder] McCain's base is larger if Clinton is the nominee, but his route to victory is a little thornier. With Obama as the nominee, Virginia and Colorado are tossups; with Clinton as the nominee, they lean to McCain. Clinton keeps Florida as a tossup, while Obama seems less competitive.

I agree that New Jersey is less solidly in the Dem column if Obama is the nominee.

I'd quibble with the placement of Pennsylvania: Chuck and Tim believe it to be a tossup for both Clinton and Obama matchups, but I'd give the edge to Clinton (i.e., by making it a lean Clinton state), although McCain could certainly make it competitive. I also think that New Mexico is a pure tossup regardless of who the Democratic nominee is; I do agree with Clinton as the nominee, Nevada leans toward McCain, while with Obama as the nominee, it's a tossup. Provocatively, Chuck and Tim make Mississippi only a McCain-leaning state if Obama's the nominee. I think that's probably right. . . .

Obama raised more money in March than Clinton and McCain COMBINED

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/3/115936/4607

$130 million in the first quarter! http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/3/12647/72400
Sen. Barack Obama. . . boosted his vast network of donors to nearly 1.3 million. . .

Jimmy Carter almost sorta endorses Obama

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013460.php

No thanks? http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/04/carter_endorses_obama_no_thanks.php

Love that Ann Coulter (thanks to Leslie R for the link)

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2008/04/03/obamas_dimestore_mein_kampf
If characters from "The Hills" were to emote about race, I imagine it would sound like B. Hussein Obama's autobiography, "Dreams From My Father." . . .

Which is it, guys?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/03/clinton_says_obama_cant_win.html
"Sources with direct knowledge of the conversation between Sen. Clinton and Gov. Bill Richardson prior to the Governor's endorsement of Obama say she told him flatly, 'He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win.'"

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillary_spokesperson_yes_obama.php
Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson was asked whether it's the Hillary campaign's official position that Obama can't win a general election against McCain, as Hillary is reported to have privately argued to Bill Richardson.

Wolfson's answer: "No."

Hillary’s people say her only chance is if she wins the popular vote

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/top_hillary_supporters_split_o.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/corzine_if_hillary_doesnt_win.php
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine not only said it would be very tough to for Hillary Clinton to get super-delegate support if she loses the national popular vote — he himself is "reserving the right" to switch his own vote if she doesn't come out on top in that metric . . .

The superdelegates: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4947

When this is all over, the post mortems will focus on the utterly destructive impact of Mark Penn on the Clinton campaign. Here’s more:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/187264.php

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/mark-penn-met-with-his-client-colombian.html

Bonus item: Forty years ago today

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HY-WfDPm7s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cDRWvDx8h4

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:53 AM

 
MORAL AUTHORITY

Afghanistan: FUBAR

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080402/ap_on_re_eu/bush
President Bush urged NATO allies on Wednesday to recognize the seriousness of the anti-Taliban mission in Afghanistan and step up with more troops for the fight. . . .

Must read: picking up after Maliki’s mess in Basra

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/world/middleeast/03basra.html
Mr. Maliki overestimated his military's abilities and underestimated the scale of the resistance. The Iraqi prime minister also displayed an impulsive leadership style that did not give his forces or that of his most powerful allies, the American and British military, time to prepare. . . . [read on!]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-battle3apr03,1,7627791.story
Can Iraq's soldiers fight?

If you haven’t seen the PBS series on “Bush’s War,” it’s terrific tv. I would quibble with some aspects – devastating as it is, it’s probably too kind to the Bush gang on their prewar lies and other subjects. But the overall impression is of a dysfunctional bunch of zealots locked in their own power struggles, with a “leader” at the top who was unable to control the process

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/

By the way, John Yoo, in that show and in his comments following the release of his infamous torture memo, repeatedly says it’s all about protecting the powers of the Commander in Chief during wartime. Uh, doesn’t that require. . . .err. . .ah. . . a declaration of war? Or does the President get to declare that unilaterally too?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_308.php

Where the Bush gang’s torture policies came from

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/torture_from_the_top_down.php

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/one_policy_two_stories.php

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_03_30_archive.html#7456410911374715714
[Atrios] I'm not entirely sure why there's something about John Yoo and our nation's fond embrace of torture which bothers me even more than do Dick Cheney and George Bush. Obviously they're the ones who have ultimate responsibility for all of this stuff, but there's something peculiarly evil about not just doing bad stuff but providing elaborate justifications for it.

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/02/yoo/index.html

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/04/post-no-4-yoochertoffashcroft-memo-how.html

Now this!

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/04/memo_justified_warrantless_sur.php
[AP] For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn't apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism. . . .

The kind of people they are

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/feith_only_assholes_fret_about.php
It won't surprise anyone that the least sympathetic portrayal in Phillipe Sands' Vanity Fair piece is of former Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith.

Not only did Feith play a major hand in promoting the myth of Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda before the invasion of Iraq, but he also played a major role in developing the interrogation policy for Guantanamo Bay.

Feith boasted to Sands that back in 2002, he "was really a player" in ensuring that Gitmo detainees would not receive Geneva protections. But when Sands asked him "whether, in the end, he was at all concerned that the Geneva decision might have diminished America’s moral authority," Feith got nasty:

He was not. “The problem with moral authority,” he said, was “people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the assholes, to put it crudely.”

More: http://www.first-draft.com/2008/04/a-certain-satis.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013457.php
[Joe Klein!] On the day that John Yoo's remarkable torture memo is released, this foolishness is a reminder that none of these people — none of the vicious, mendacious, naive, simplistic, unapologetic, neo-colonialist ideologues who promulgated this disaster — should have even the vaguest claim on the time or tolerance of fair-minded people. . . .

Bush MIA on the economy. He’s a war-time prezdent, dammit!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/washington/03bush.html
For a man who came into office as the nation’s first M.B.A. president, Mr. Bush has sometimes seemed invisible . . .

You’ve heard the expression: privatize the profits, socialize the losses. Looks like that’s where we’re headed with the mortgage crisis (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/04/treasury-bear-stearns-collateral-is.html

Congress tries to take care of homeowners – but of course the Republicans can’t just let that happen

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahxzNeEDeWoU

Everyone is linking to this study: all income groups, at all levels, do better under Democratic administrations

http://commentsfromleftfield.com/2008/04/everyone-does-better-under-democrats
[Ben Hyde] Don’t ever forget this chart. Don’t ever pretend it’s not the single most fundamental issue in American politics. Don’t tolerate diversions, this is it. It’s not about war. It’s not about race. It’s not about religion. It’s about who gets the spoils of economic growth. One side is fighting a class war and the other side is not. . .

The DOJ’s politicized hiring and firing policies apparently extended to getting rid of gays too – and guess who was in the middle of it?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/doj_investigators_probing_whet.php

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15092.html

The consequences of know-nothing “abstinence” sex education—about what you’d expect

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_03_30_archive.html#6187298597341146898
A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy . . .

Think the far right has made its peace with John McCain? Not so fast

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15089.html

What exactly did McCain say about “100 years in Iraq”? No, to be fair, he didn’t mean continuing the war for that long. But if he thinks a Korea-type deployment is possible there, with no attacks against US troops, he hasn’t been paying attention. Either way, he’s dead wrong

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15085.html

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/just-another-outpost-by-digby.html

More on the media’s love affair with McCain

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/2/124114/1386

I’ve had just about enough of Joe Lieberman

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/02/joe-lieberman-attacks-barack-obama-on-fox-news-video/

Will July 1st become the “superdelegate primary”?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15086.html

Hey, Bill: “chill out”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/02/bills-tirade-in-private-_n_94605.html
"It was one of the worst political meetings I have ever attended” . . .

Drip, drip, drip. . . .

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/02/852607.aspx
Obama picked up another superdelegate . . .

Clinton: “Obama can’t win” (even though he’s beating the heck off me)

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/candidate-clint.html

Post-Wright, Obama is still outraising Clinton by a large amount

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/02/obama_raised_more_than_clinton_in_march.html

Clinton’s base?

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/02/obamas_lama_problem/

Bonus item: Playing by the rules

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/2/174343/2241

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:22 AM

 
CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE

There have been hints all along that the Bush gang dropped the ball in picking up or responding to copious evidence before 9/11 that a major attack was imminent. We all know the highlights: (Condi Rice), “"No one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon . . . into the World Trade Center, using planes as a missile." (The infamous August 6, 2001 PDB) “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” (Bush) "All right. You've covered your ass, now.” And on and on.

I expect that under a Democratic administration we will find hidden evidence (if it hasn’t been destroyed) that the failings were even greater than we know. Even now, indications are leaking out that there is more to the story . . .

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Mukasey_US_had_attack_evidence_before_0401.html
Attorney General Mukasey . . . argued that officials "shouldn't need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went."

Blogger Glenn Greenwald picked up on Mukasey's statement, suggesting, "If what Muskasey said this week is true -- and that's a big 'if' -- his revelation about this Afghan call that the administration knew about but didn't intercept really amounts to one of the most potent indictments yet about the Bush administration's failure to detect the plot in action. Contrary to his false claims, FISA -- for multiple reasons -- did not prevent eavesdropping on that call."

Keith Olbermann . . . asked incredulously after quoting Mukasey. "The government knew about some phone call from a safe house in Afghanistan into the U.S. about 9/11? Before 9/11? ... You didn't do anything about it?"

"Either the attorney general just admitted that the government for which he works is guilty of malfeasant complicity in the 9/11 attacks," Olbermann commented, "or he's lying."

"I'm betting on lying," concluded Olbermann. "If not, somebody in Congress better put that man under oath right quick."

After September 11, 2001, it was revealed that the CIA and FBI had intercepted a variety of messages including phrases such as "There is a big thing coming," "They're going to pay the price" and "We're ready to go." None of these messages gave specific details and none reached intelligence analysts until after the destruction of the World Trade Center.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Mukasey did not specify the call to which he referred. He also did not explain why the government, if it knew of telephone calls from suspected foreign terrorists, hadn't sought a wiretapping warrant from a court established by Congress to authorize terrorist surveillance, or hadn't monitored all such calls without a warrant for 72 hours as allowed by law. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for more information."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/29/mukasey/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Even under the "old" FISA, no warrants are required where the targeted person is outside the U.S. (Afghanistan) and calls into the U.S. Thus, if it's really true, as Mukasey now claims, that the Bush administration knew about a Terrorist in an Afghan safe house making Terrorist-planning calls into the U.S., then they could have -- and should have -- eavesdropped on that call and didn't need a warrant to do so. So why didn't they?

Watch: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/
Knowing about 9/11 beforehand . . .

With all deliberate speed: how the memo justifying torture got hustled through the Dept of Justice just in time to brief Gen. Geoffrey Miller before he went to oversee detentions and interrogations in Iraq

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/01/acting-counsels/

Thank Yoo very much

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040102213.html
The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes. . . .

Sent to the Pentagon's general counsel on March 14, 2003, by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war. It contends that numerous laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment should not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president's inherent wartime powers. . . .

Interrogators who harmed a prisoner would be protected by a "national and international version of the right to self-defense," Yoo wrote. He also articulated a definition of illegal conduct in interrogations -- that it must "shock the conscience" -- that the Bush administration advocated for years.

"Whether conduct is conscience-shocking turns in part on whether it is without any justification," Yoo wrote, explaining, for example, that it would have to be inspired by malice or sadism before it could be prosecuted. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/washington/02terror.html
Some legal scholars said Tuesday that they were amazed at the scope of the memorandum.

“This is a monument to executive supremacy and the imperial presidency,” said Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School and the Washington College of Law at American University. . .

“Even if an interrogation method arguably were to violate a criminal statute, the Justice Department could not bring a prosecution because the statute would be unconstitutional as applied in this context,” it reads. . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013450.php
“Any effort by Congress to regulate the interrogation of enemy combatants would violate the Constitution's sole vesting of the Commander-in-Chief authority in the President....Congress can no more interfere with the President's conduct of the interrogation of enemy combatants than it can dictate strategic or tactical decisions on the battlefield. . .

Any presidential decision to order interrogations methods that are inconsistent with [the Convention Against Torture] would amount to a suspension or termination of those treaty provisions. . .”

[Kevin Drum] Marty Lederman asks a good question: now that we know what was in the memo, what justification was there for classifying it in the first place? It wouldn't have been moot in 2003, and there was nothing in it that compromised national security either then or now. The only thing it compromised was the president's desire not to have to defend his own policies — policies that led directly to the abuses at Abu Ghraib, among others.

Critiques: http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/04/march-2003-yoo-memo-emerges-not-april.html

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/04/full-employment-memo-for-bloggers-and.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/007245.html

The full memo: http://gulcfac.typepad.com/georgetown_university_law/files/march.14.memo.part1.pdf

http://gulcfac.typepad.com/georgetown_university_law/files/march14.memo.part2.pdf

Bush sees that he’s not going to get the FISA bill passed through bullying and fearmongering – his preferred methods. So now he says, “let’s sit down and reach a compromise.” But since he won’t actually say what he is willing to negotiate about – if anything – this looks to me like a trap to get the issue back on the front burner and put “obstructionist” Dems on the defensive again

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/1/13743/98745

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/todays_must_read_307.php

Be careful! http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hoyer_the_administration_wants.php

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/01/it-turns-out-there-was-no-wolf/

Amazing how joining the Bush admin turns otherwise decent and honorable people into lying crooks like the rest of them

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/186769.php
[David Kurtz] It doesn't take much to gain a reputation in Washington as a straight-shooter, and it takes a lot to lose it.

Adm. Mike McConnell came in as the Director of National Intelligence with a rep for being professional and non-partisan . . . [read on]

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/01/feingold-calls-out-intel-_n_94450.html

CIFA – another lawless operation of domestic surveillance – dead and buried now

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/04/01/pentagon-closing-cifa/
[Emptywheel] You all remember CIFA, don't you? It's the Pentagon's very own counter-intelligence organization, one with the added benefit that, like all things Pentagon, it can serve as the source of contracting bounty for corrupt Republican cronies (up to and including Stephen Cambone, who created the damn organization). CIFA has spied on, among other things, the Quakers and Jesus' General. You know, because peaceniks and DFH satirical bloggers are apparently the biggest threat to our military . . .

I've long suspected that CIFA was a clever plot, on the part of the Republicans, to outsource their Nixonian domestic spying, so as to hide it from oversight better than Nixon managed to. That suspicion only hardened when I learned that the CIFA database (including its records on the Quakers and Jesus' General) went "poof" one day, remarkably enough at the same time as Carol Lam was closing in on the Mitch Wade subcontractor associated with CIFA, MZM (the same organization that had a contract with OVP to do something with emails).

It's a real treasure trove of civil liberties atrocities, CIFA is. . . . [read on]

Poof! http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/more-funny-busi.html

Who needs to follow the law when you know you’re always right?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-04-01-border-fence_N.htm?csp=34
The Bush administration will use its authority to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations in an effort to finish building 670 miles of fence along the southwest U.S. border by the end of this year, federal officials said Tuesday. . . .

Oh, what a lovely war

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/staff/warren_strobel/story/32337.html
The Bush administration was caught off-guard by the first Iraqi-led military offensive since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a weeklong thrust in southern Iraq whose paltry results have silenced talk at the Pentagon of further U.S. troop withdrawals any time soon. . . .

"There is no empirical evidence that the Iraqi forces can stand up" on their own, a senior U.S. military official in Washington said . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/186849.php
[David Kurtz] Within less than a week the Basra offensive has gone from "a defining moment" in Iraqi's history, in the President's words, to an operation conceived by Maliki that the U.S. didn't plan, had little warning of, and couldn't control.

It gets worse: THOUSANDS of US-trained Iraqi troops just went mutinous, and have been fired. To make up their numbers, militias from the major religious parties have just been absorbed into the national army!

http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/badr-inducted-into-army-as-thousands.html

Here’s how desperate the recent situation in Basra got: British troops had to be pulled back into the fighting to prevent a complete collapse of the Iraqi army!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013448.php

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040102444.html
Senior Army and Marine Corps leaders said yesterday that the increase of more than 30,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has put unsustainable levels of stress on U.S. ground forces and has put their readiness to fight other conflicts at the lowest level in years. . . .

Bad news? Good news? The Bush gang has been taking heat for saying they wouldn’t release the latest NIE. Well, it’s written now and in the hands of Congress – but they say we’ll never see it. Why? Because, well, you see, it isn’t really an NIE after all

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/no-iraq-intelligence
"It's not a formal report," the official said, "it's more or less an assessment memo, an update . . . Generally, the officials looked at it and did not see any type of overwhelming need to put this in the public domain.”

And this is the area of expertise McCain BRAGS about

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/ignorance-is-bliss-by-dday-while-media.html
[Dday] While the media obsess over bowling scores, the ability to understand and explain basic concepts of domestic and foreign policy is not up for question in the narrow political debate. If it were, then John McCain's stark ignorance about what is happening in Iraq would be a major story. . . [read on]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15077.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/01/cnn-catches-mccain-making-contradictory-statements-about-sadr/

The McCain party-switching story won’t go away. Let’s just sit on this one, okay guys? Hold onto it until next September or October

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080401155541.aspx

Not this time

http://firedoglake.com/2008/04/01/you-cant-get-fooled-again/

Let’s see. The Clinton campaign said they’d never use the Wright issue for political advantage. Check

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/ickes_confirms_hes_been_pushin.php
Hillary adviser Harold Ickes confirmed that Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a key topic in discussions with uncommitted super-delegates . . .

The Clinton campaign said if Hillary is leading the popular vote at the end of the process that should decide things, because that’s a better indicator of support than delegate numbers. Check

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/1/17559/60484
[Clinton advisor Harold Ickes] In the wide-ranging interview, Ickes also [confirmed] that the Hillary campaign could still try to woo super-dels even if she lost the popular vote . .

More: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4911

The Clinton campaign, which planned to wrap everything up by Super Tuesday (thereby rendering all the later primaries irrelevant) now says that if Obama gets the nomination before the last primary he is depriving the citizens in later states of their right to vote. Check

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillarys_new_strategy_telling.php

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/2/41752/39541

The Clinton campaign, which based their early arguments on the inevitability of her campaign juggernaut, now likens her to that brave underdog, “Rocky.” Check

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/1/12642/62874

Oops! THIS wasn’t in the script

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/hillarybacking_congressman_i_w.php
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), who is supporting Hillary Clinton, went seriously off-message in an interview with Canadian public radio.

"If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say Barack Obama is going to be the next president," Cleaver said. "I will be stunned if he's not the next president of the United States."

Well, the numbers don’t lie

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4913

Fox News: in decline

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15081.html

Bonus item: Seen our Sect’y of State lately? Me neither. But now we know how she’s been keeping busy

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/the_daily_five_all_labor_editi.php

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:04 AM

 
APRIL FOOL

Foreign policy “expert” John McCain is really, really surprised that Iraq has destabilized. Gee, and everything looked so calm on those military-supervised tours he was given

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/mccain-surprised-by-iraq-developments/index.html

http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/mccain-surprised.html

Photo: http://vagabondscholar.blogspot.com/2008/03/lovable-saint-mccain.html

What’s really going on over there

http://www.americablog.com/2008/03/iraqs-latest-battle.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4618

It IS “a defining moment in the history of Iraq”

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/todays_must_read_306.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15060.html

Treasury Sect’y Paulson’s new plan for the Fed: like all Bush policies, it will either do nothing to solve the problem, or make a bad situation worse

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/31/paulsons_fig_leaf/

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/too-big-to-fail-by-dday-so-treasury.html

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/03/31/the-rhetoric-of-more-of-the-same/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/business/01regulate.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080331/pl_nm/usa_economy_regulation_dodd_dc;_ylt=Ai53vUVWAY05MUik05TJTcSs0NUE

Yeah, they hate big-spending govt departments (except when they don’t)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013441.php
[Kevin Drum] DoD sloppiness is getting worse and worse. The Pentagon is bulking up with ever more systems that are ever more complex, and cost overruns and schedule delays are getting bigger and longer. There aren't enough people to oversee all these systems, so the number of outside consultants has increased and oversight has been spread thin. And of course, the worst part is that this growth is not only producing overruns and delays, but it's unnecessary in the first place. The Pentagon has treated 9/11 as a gigantic treasure chest to justify acquisition of lots of shiny new systems designed to fight Russians and Chinese, and an awful lot of them are close to useless for the kind of war we're more likely to fight in the next few decades. . . .

Apparently, the Bush gang did brief Congressional leaders on their warrantless wiretapping. But they didn’t tell them that their own Justice Dept didn’t think it was legal

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/harman_i_didnt_know_surveillan.php

The FISA fight continues (though it doesn’t seem that the GOP really has their hearts in it)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/31/94750/0896

Uh-huh

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/jackson_bows_out_to_attend_mor.php
[AP] The Bush administration's top housing official, under criminal investigation and intense pressure from Democratic critics, announced Monday he is quitting. . . . "There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters. Now is such a time for me." . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/31/135513/917

http://firedoglake.com/2008/03/31/monday-late-nite-after-you-alphonso/

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15062.html

Another part of the proud Bush legacy – the most feckless set of Inspectors General (supposed watchdogs over their units) one can imagine – if you can imagine wiccans and email snooping

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/feds_still_investigating_iraq.php

Heh

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/03/31/BL2008033101215.html
[Dan Froomkin] There's a reason President Bush almost never appears before members of the general public: They really don't like him. . . [read on]

One of the many reasons I want this Democratic fight to be over is so that I don’t have to see Clinton or her people actively promoting right-wing media, pundits, and GOP talking points any more. This may be the dumbest of them all

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/31/1402/43872
[Ed Rendell, Gov PA] I think during this entire primary coverage, starting in Iowa and up to the present -- FOX has done the fairest job, and remained the most objective of all the cable networks. You hate both of our candidates. No, I’m only kidding. But you actually have done a very balanced job of reporting the news . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15069.html

A pro-Hillary take: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/3/31/172351/5