Favor
For any reporters interested in digging. Remember that Times story back in February about whether Sen. McCain did special favors for Lowell Paxson and his lobbyist Vicki Iseman? Someone needs to ask some questions about whether McCain threatened to block the reappointment of one of the then-commissioners if Paxson didn't get his way.
--Josh Marshall
Election Central Saturday Roundup
Barack Obama says John McCain's campaign aren't racists -- they're just being cynical. That and other political news in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.
--Eric Kleefeld
Must-Read
Stop what you're doing and read this article. Very acute take on the latest turn of the campaign.
--Josh Marshall
Gramps/Grumps
From the ChiTrib ...
Ed Rollins, a longtime Republican strategist, said McCain sometimes appears frustrated and angry when he talks about Obama, especially when complaining that the press does not treat him fairly. "John needs to be the deliberate, experienced veteran and not the grumpy old man," Rollins said. "If he's the grumpy old man, angry that the media is not in love with him anymore because they're in love with Barack Obama, that's not going to play well with the public."
I guess it falls to someone like Ed Rollins to cut to the quick of this. As a number of articles have reported over the last few days, there's a palpable sense of contempt for Obama within McCain campaign -- one that positively drips out of this new run of commercials. Not that we expect presidential campaigns to like each other; the intensity and stakes make that almost impossible. But in his affect and words, the message from McCain is more like, "Why do I even have to run against this guy?" That anger and frustration that someone like Obama might be overshadowing him is his achilles heel in this campaign.
"McCain for President: Because You Know He Should Be"
--Josh Marshall
It's Hard
I'm amused to hear the McCain camp's deep sense of "grievance" over any suggestion that McCain is running a xenophobic and often race-tinged campaign against Barack Obama. It's amazing how you can be pushing a message that your opponent is in league with foreign terrorists and comparing him to twenty-something white women best known for their 'behind the music' episodes and so many people can get the wrong idea.
--Josh Marshall
Aggrieved
McCain camp aggrieved over being called on racialized campaign message. From the Post ...
the sense of grievance over this issue within McCain's high command is deep and palpable. Those emotions led to the decision to have Davis call out Obama on Thursday with his extraordinarily provocative statement: "Barack Obama has played the race card and he played it from the bottom of the deck," he said. "It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."Before all this happened, McCain advisers believed that the Obama campaign successfully pinned a racist label on Bill Clinton during the during primaries -- for comments that drew protests from some leading African American politicians -- and were determined not to let the same happen to McCain. Also, they take personally any suggestion from the Obama campaign that they are part of a campaign that would play the race card and are indignant about it.
Ironically, the McCain camp's celebrity ad comparing Obama to the vapid pair of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears drew some criticism as a subtle attempt to play the race card in the same way Republicans did against Harold Ford in the 2006 Senate race with the ad that concluded with an attractive young blonde woman saying, "Harold, call me." McCain advisers are as incensed over those suggestions as Obama advisers are over Davis's charge.
--Josh Marshall
Hedging
To hear the accepted account, John McCain was with the surge from the beginning, not just after violence started to decline in mid-2007. Actually for most of the first half of the year, he was hedging his bets, saying he doubted it would work because there weren't as many troops as he said there should be. In other words, he was having it both ways.
--Josh Marshall
Desperation
Late Update: TPM Reader LD isn't sure ...
You Say DesperationBut I just watched ABC Nightly News with incredulity. They said the McCain campaign said it had a "great week." The anchor turned to Stephanopoulos and said "Is that true?" George said, "Yes it is. The McCain campaign drove the debate." Oh and they played the "The One" ad with no irony or commentary to the effect that it was the fourth straight negative ad.
--David Kurtz
How It Works
Let's see how this works. McCain runs his Britney/Paris ad on the alleged but improbable basis that they're the #2 and #3 celebs in the world, according to Rick Davis. McCain camp seizes on Obama statement that Obama has made multiple times before, accuses him of playing "race card". Now McCain repeats Race Card, Race Card, Race Card a hundred times.
McCain has made the strategic decision that he can only win the election on the basis of Obama as friend of terrorists, unpatriotic suspicious outsider and radical, black guy who's really more a flashy showbiz star (call it playing the Diddy card) than someone with the heft to be president. He's probably right. That's his only chance. And it may work.
--Josh Marshall
ABC Signs on With McCain
ABCNews is now running a handline that reads: "Obama Camp Admits Playing Race Card"
--Josh Marshall
Tick Tock Tick
John McCain has a big ego. And if there's one thing John McCain prizes it's the high regard many prestige Washington reporters hold him in. Or did. People like Joe Klein, who now says he was wrong to think McCain was an "honorable man." Now he has a new post about McCain with the word "scum" in the title. Klein's out in the lead on this. But he's not the only one-time McCain fan thinking the same thing. And you're already starting to see some editorials in regional dailies calling him sleazy and a liar. So given McCain's temper, when can we get some questions posed to him about that?
--Josh Marshall
Good Help Is Hard To Find
The group of former lobbyists* running the McCain campaign includes a guy who has lobbied extensively for the softening of U.S. sanctions against Cuba -- a stance at odds with McCain's own publicly stated position on the issue.
TPM Election Central reports the details.
*Ed. Note: "Former" only in the sense that they were lobbyists before the campaign and will be again afterwards, unless McCain wins, in which case they may pass through the revolving door into government for a while before resuming their lobbying practices.
--David Kurtz
Election Central Morning Roundup
John McCain gets full swing into his campaign's new "Country First" slogan with a country music concert tonight. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.
--David Kurtz
TPM Reader YF shares his thoughts ...
I think the whole "McCain's going negative" snit is a really defensive and weak position for the Obama camp. Sure- mention that McCain went negative, contrary to all his stated values- "All it take is a little dip in the polls for John McCain to cast aside his values." But it seems to me there is very simple way to turn this around on McCain, and be on the offensive: "How bad does John McCain want to avoid talking about real issues? He's running ads with Britney and Paris. Is that what American's are concerned about? Britney and Paris? Do you want to know how we are going to right the ship of our economy? Or do you want to hear about Britney and Paris? Want to talk about how we are going to extract our troops from Iraq? Or do you want to hear about Britney and Paris?" Just pound away at this. This is what John McCain wants to talk about. Point out how frivolous it is to even spend any time developing this ad when there are so many important issues to address. Bitching about it being unfair or over some imaginary line that Karl Rove can't even see is going to get them nowhere.
--Josh Marshall
Yep, That Too
And what was the logic of choosing Britney and Paris again? Yet more ..
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: Dana Milbank, We Salute You
All it took to set off a full 24 hours of cable news hysteria was one quote that the Washington Post's Dana Milbank attributed to Barack Obama - secondhand, unsourced, out of context, and eventually widely disputed. Nice work, everybody ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Ben Craw
How Low Can He Go
It seems we're in for another bout of that great biennial bit of sad-sackery just can't help unwittingly stumbling into racialized imagery and code-words when all they're trying to do is create a good old fashioned smear ad. I feel their pain. Love is a battlefield. But before returning to that subject I wanted to hit briefly on a related matter.
Yesterday at TPMCafe, Theda Skocpol wrote that whatever the McCain camp is doing, the Obama campaign, writ large and small, will only play into his hands by getting into an argument about race. That after all is one of the things the McCain camp is trying to do. What they need to do is go on the offense, hitting McCain with vivid ads on his numerous vulnerabilities. Like the fact that he embraces all of George W. Bush's policies and his own evident desperation.
It may surprise you. But I completely agree. As a matter of messaging and campaigning, parrying this sludge requires a deft hand, and the Obama campaign can't let itself get sucked into a debate about race and racialized campaign messages. But that's their issue. Not ours. My interest is on shining a spotlight on what McCain's doing.
It was always clear that it was going to be hard for John McCain to emerge from this campaign with his reputation and the presidency, simply because of the rough terrain any Republican faces this year. At this point, it's clear that by the end of this, the reputation is going to be shot. There's just been too much demonstrable lying on the candidate's part, too much sleazy campaigning, too much outsourcing his campaign to Karl Rove. More and more editorialists and even some of the prestige pundits are starting to see it.
So that means, he has to win. Because if he doesn't, he's got nothing left. All he is is a four term senator from a medium-sized state with no legislative record. It's an eminently worthwhile task to chronicle his descent.
--Josh Marshall
Marty Lederman dissects today's ruling on executive privilege and separation of powers.
--David Kurtz
Lieberman: "Just Relax And Enjoy It"
Joe defends the new McCain attack ad: "To some extent the appearance of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears -- people complain about it -- they should just relax and enjoy it."
--David Kurtz
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is at TPMCafe discussing his proposal for a new strategy against extremism and terrorism.
--David Kurtz
Special Treatment
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is still working the angles:
Stevens had been scheduled to appear at a pretrial services office earlier Thursday, to be interviewed by court officials but, under an unusual arrangement, he arrived for that meeting Wednesday afternoon, avoiding the media attention. U.S. Marshal George Walsh, whose office is in charge of booking defendants, said he was unaware of the arrangement until Thursday and was disappointed that it would appear Stevens received special treatment.Court spokeswoman Jenna Gatski said Stevens made an early appointment with a pretrial services officer. Though a judge's order called for Stevens to appear for that meeting Thursday, Gatski said the pretrial office sets its own schedule. Stevens appeared late Wednesday afternoon but within business hours.
Late Update: Stevens still has to show up for arraignment today, and reporters are camped out waiting for that -- so I'm not exactly sure how going early yesterday for pretrial services helped him avoid media scrutiny. Maybe DC readers familiar with federal court booking procedures can explain that one to me.
--David Kurtz
Court Rules on Miers/Bolten Subpoenas
Just in: A federal district court in DC has overruled the White House-backed motion to dismiss the House lawsuit to enforce contempt of Congress proceedings against former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten.
The court also granted the House Judiciary Committee's motion for partial summary judgment in part.
In doing so the U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ruled:
Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena from plaintiff; and Ms. Miers may invoke executive privilege in response to specific questions as appropriate
and that:
Joshua Bolten and Ms. Miers shall produce all non-privileged documents requested by the applicable subpoenas and shall provide to plaintiff a specific description of any documents withheld from production on the basis of executive privilege consistent with the terms of the Memorandum Opinion issued on this date
Just a reminder: The Judiciary Committee is seeking testimony and documents from the White House relating to the U.S. attorneys firings. Bolten is a party because he is the custodian of White House records, but it's really the White House on the line here.
--David Kurtz
Election Central Morning Roundup
New polling from Quinnipiac has Obama ahead in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.
--David Kurtz
Jake, Jake, Jake
Jake Tapper says Obama's is being 'inflammatory' for hinting that McCain is doing what he's doing.
Late Update: Jake responds.
--Josh Marshall
Newton, Race and Karl Rove
As I wrote below, it seems we're now in for another round of that biennial bit of sad-sackery, Republican ad makers who are just trying to create a good old fashioned smear ad but just can't help stumbling into racialized imagery and code-words. Now, I note that the McCain/Britney/Paris ad seems to be getting panned pretty widely, quite apart from any suggestion that it's pushing any offensive race-laced messages about Obama. And we've gotten a few emails from regular readers who write in and say, in so many words, 'Yes, that's a trashy ad. But the Britney and Paris stuff isn't about race. They're just trying to say Obama is frivolous and insubstantial like so much else in our celebrity culture.'
Meanwhile, Robert George says that in addition to the racial angle, he believes the ad is even more clearly "designed to politically emasculate Obama." And I think, albeit implicitly, Robert gets at the fallacy inherent in how many people think about the way race is used in political messaging -- which is to see it in operating in some hyper-linear, almost Newtonian fashion. Is the ad designed to say Obama is a frivolous part of the celebrity culture? Or is it meant to associate him with white women half his age, most of whose public notoriety is tied to their sexuality? If it's one ... well, it obviously can't be the other.
And in this case, if all McCain's ad guy is trying to do is make the apparently unobjectionable argument that Obama really isn't a politician but more like a flashy showbiz act then it's not his fault if he also happens to hit Obama with a handful of themes and bits of imagery that have been used about black men for a century or two. Because that's not what the ad is about ... it's about saying he's a frivolous dandy. And if it's one, it can't be the other any more than 2 + 2 equals 4 and not 5.
But the truth is that when you're trying to understand how race is injected into a political campaign, if you're looking for a physics analogue, it's not Newtonian mechanics but quantum theory. It's not one or the other. Effective messages hit multiple themes, different messages in different people's minds and even read differently on the first or the third reading. So is the Britney ad about emasculating Obama, as Robert George says? Yes. Is it also about simply pairing Obama up with Britney and Paris? Absolutely. It's both. And a lot more. In many cases, this game is simply a matter of taking charged images out into the public consciousness. They don't necessarily 'mean' one thing or another. You just push them out and they take on a life of their own.
In this case, if the point is to say that Obama's a celebrity, how exactly do you get from there to Britney Spears? Paris Hilton? Mull on that for a second. Are those the most logical analogues to Obama? Play it any way you want but somehow at the end of the day we end up with a campaign message based on promoting Obama as a song and dance man and paired with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. How'd we get here? It's the GOP race and sex equivalent of all roads lead to Rome.
To understand the dynamics of this campaign you have to understand the role of Karl Rove and his proteges who've taken over McCain's campaign. Rove himself previewed the key messages of the campaign early in the year in two vignettes about Obama -- first, Obama as the "trash-talking" basketball player who's both cocky and "lazy", and second, Obama as the cocky black guy at the country club with a hot chick on his arm who's looking down at you.
These are the themes that are going to be returned to again and again in this campaign. They're what McCain is running on. Obama as a flashy entertainer, the guy reaching above his station, the guy who ends up in video montages with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. The Rove-McCain line is that none of this stuff is beyond the pale. How are they supposed to help it if they're running against a guy who's more suited to be an entertainer than a leader and uppity and lazy to boot?
--Josh Marshall
Telling Moment
This is definitely inside baseball. But sort of like a person with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, John McCain had his reform/Dem-leaning advisors and others who were more conventionally Republican. John Weaver through most of the last decade was McCain's inner-Reformer, inner-Dem. I think at some point in the early part of this decade he switched his own party registration to Democrat. In any case, he was dropped in the big house-cleaning McCain did late last year. He's bitten his lip until now. But apparently, with McCain's Britney-Paris-Obama ad, he's finally had enough.
--Josh Marshall
Riffing Over at Cafe
Kurt Andersen weighs in on the Netherland discussion at Cafe, noting that after 60 years of American dominance of global pop culture, stories about restless, striving, self-reinventing characters are appearing in all sorts of countries and cultures without necessarily seeming "American" at all.
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: Down the Tubes
Today is a special day for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). Not only is it his first 24 hours in ignomy as the first sitting senator in over 20 years to be indicted on federal charges, it's also the one-year anniversary of the FBI raid on his Alaska home ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Ben Craw
Higher Quality Smears, Please
The Post's Dana Milbank jumps on the presumptuousness bandwagon and manages to confuse the British Prime Minister (Gordon Brown) with the Leader of the Opposition (David Cameron). (Correct account here.)
Dana, Brown's the guy who's been patiently waiting his turn. Cameron's the young-man-in-a-hurry. He even has a vlog.
Late Update: Todd Gitlin has more.
Dana-RNC Tag Team Update: Greg has more.
--Josh Marshall
Keeping Track
I note with interest today, John McCain's new tactic of associating Barack Obama with oversexed and/or promiscuous young white women. (See today's new ad and this from yesterday.) Presumably, a la Harold Ford 2006, this will be one of those strategies that will be a matter of deep dispute during the campaign and later treated as transparent and obvious once the campaign is concluded.
But what I'm most interested in today is the new meme the McCain campaign has been pushing for the last few weeks that Obama is presumptuous, arrogant and well ... just a bit uppity. Ron Fournier picked the ball up early in his reporting for the AP. And John King was pushing it over the weekend on CNN. Is it arrogant or above Obama's station for him to meet with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve? If I'm not mistaken he is a sitting United States senator and also the presidential candidate of the Democratic party. Such meetings are actually the norm.
Now, I note that the Post, which has generally been in McCain's camp, has a front page story today that comes about as close as they feel able to confirming that McCain campaign and McCain personally have spent most of the last week peddling what they knew was a lie about Obama's called-off trip to the US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. And there's also this piece in today's Times noting 'concern' among some Republicans over McCain's increasing use of personal attacks on Obama with what are often demonstrably false claims. How many demonstrable lies does the McCain campaign have to push before it colors the portrayal of his campaign?
As I alluded to at the top of this post, it is the norm that obvious campaign tactics that are treated as obvious after a campaign is over are nonetheless treated by most reporters as ambiguous or unclear during a campaign. But in this case it would be nice if that were not the case. Because here we have a candidate, John McCain, who is running on a record of straight talk and honorable campaigning running a campaign made up mainly of charges reporters are now more or less acknowledging are lies. But there's precious little drawing together of the contradiction. What's more, as everyone will acknowledge after the campaign, the McCain campaign is now pushing the caricature of Obama as a uppity young black man whose presumptuousness is displayed not only in taking on airs above his station but also in a taste for young white women.
So please keep an eye out for references to Obama's presumptuousness, arrogance, etc., from John King and other reporters. Let us know when you see them and send us in examples -- in text or video. McCain gets to run the campaign he wants. Remember, he hired the operative who put together the Ford/Bimbo ad. But I want to keep tabs on which reporters are helping him retail the message.
--Josh Marshall
McCain/Rove
Can we note that Karl Rove is now working as an outside advisor to John McCain? So shouldn't McCain be asked about today's developments?
--Josh Marshall
Rove In Contempt
The House Judiciary Committee just voted to hold Karl Rove in contempt for refusing to testify about his involvement, if any, in the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.
--David Kurtz
Election Central Morning Roundup
The McCain TV ad falsely attacking Obama over that canceled troop visit in Germany has only run as paid commercial about a dozen times. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.
--David Kurtz
Hobgoblins, Consistency, Etc.
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), who once bashed Janet Jackson and that Justin guy for their "liberal values" as displayed in the wardrobe malfunction is now holding fundraisers at Las Vegas strip clubs.
Here's one of the employees at the establishment crawling on all fours wearing a belt and a leather bra. Not that there's anything wrong with that ...
--Josh Marshall
Bad for the Jews
The literary critic in me senses certain Godzilla v. Mothra dimensions to the controversy. But good for Joe Klein for taking these folks on.
--Josh Marshall
Maybe He's on Retainer?
From the Politico ...
Before Ron Fournier returned to The Associated Press in March 2007, the veteran political reporter had another professional suitor: John McCain's presidential campaign.In October 2006, the McCain team approached Fournier about joining the fledgling operation, according to a source with knowledge of the talks. In the months that followed, said a source, Fournier spoke about the job possibility with members of McCain's inner circle, including political aides Mark Salter, John Weaver and Rick Davis.
Salter, who remains a top McCain adviser, said in an e-mail to Politico that Fournier was considered for "a senior advisory role" in communications.
--Josh Marshall
Lobbyist Ban Deep-Sixed?
A while back the McCain put a new rule in place that no one involved in their campaign could be a federal lobbyist or foreign agent. But CBS has an interview out with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis that appears to say that rule is no longer in effect. Asked how many lobbyists work on the campaign, Davis tells Katie Couric: "We don't make it a litmus test for employment at the McCain campaign."
The Obama camp is flogging this tonight. But how is this not a reversal of their rule?
--Josh Marshall
All Clear
It got some notice yesterday when Sen. McCain had what was described as a "mole-like" growth removed during a routine exam. Turns out to have been benign. This statement just out from the campaign ...
"Senator McCain visited the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, yesterday for a routine check of his dermatological health. The biopsy that was performed did not show any evidence of skin cancer. No further treatment is necessary."
--Josh Marshall
Yglesias does a micro-bio on one of DC journalism's rapidly-rising young bullshit artists.
--Josh Marshall
Reelin'em In
How 'ambivalent' is John McCain about running on his POW record, as claimed by the Times. Check out this from December in the Post ...
Most presidential campaigns warm up the crowd for their candidate with some pop music, some remarks by a local supporter, or instructions by a staffer on how to go about volunteering or getting to the polls on election day.John McCain has the film. At many of his events, his campaign sets up a screen and plays for the crowd a three-minute film called "Service with Honor," telling the story of McCain's more than five years of captivity in a North Vietnamese prison after his Navy plan was shot down in 1967. As sonorous music plays in the background, McCain's mother Roberta recounts her reaction on hearing of his capture, images of McCain in captivity are flashed on screen, and two fellow POW's describe his comportment. "He was offered early release and he told 'em to shove it," says one, Paul Galanti. "He has been there, he's done that, he's been miserable he's been tortured, beaten to a pulp and yet he still comes up with that patented McCain smile."
McCain himself concludes the film with these words: "The only reason I am here today is because I believe a higher being has a mission for me and my life."
How does any reporter with an ounce of dignity get caught retailing this malarkey?
--Josh Marshall
Stevens' Road To Ruin: The TPM Timeline
If you're just catching up on the case of the first U.S. senator to face federal criminal charges since ABSCAM, we've got a handy dandy guide to the basic contours of Alaska muck.
--David Kurtz
Hi: I'm Stupid
My favorite part of the 2008 presidential campaign is watching normally sentient reporters tell me how John McCain is either reticent about talking about his POW experience, or ambivalent, or reluctant, or one of about a hundred other adjectives meant to tell me he doesn't talk about it very much and doesn't like doing so.
Five years as a POW involved a kind of suffering and terror I think very few of us can even comprehend. McCain has every right to talk about it constantly. But let's get real. He does talk about it constantly.
Where to start? Probably half of John McCain's ads contain photographs of either his time as a POW or his home-coming from Vietnam POW captivity. (That says quite a lot.) Those that don't refer to it explicitly refer to it implicitly by referencing sacrifice, heroism, etc. He and his campaign frequently talk about his days as a POW. The candidate frequently makes pseudo-self-deprecating jokes in campaign appearances about his time as a POW.
Beside his 2000 presidential run, it's been a very long time since McCain was in a competitive election race. And it's not too much to say that McCain's POW status -- both in explicit telling and in implicit references -- is the dominant theme of his entire campaign.
I understand why the campaign pushes this line: having McCain being 'reluctant' to talk about his heroism but then be a hero twice over by overcoming his reluctance to share the story with us is the ultimate spin twofer. But for the reporters, please don't treat us like we have the intelligence of field mice by trying to dump this nonsense on us.
--Josh Marshall
Ted Stevens: Good For Charities
Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) becomes the first to disgorge Stevens-tainted contributions.
Who will follow?
--David Kurtz
MoveOn is No Movement
John Stauber weighs in on MoveOn.org: MoveOn's accomplishments are good, but its limitations are becoming more and more glaring and, in the case of the continued Democratic funding of the war in Iraq, problematic.
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: What's Next for Afghanistan?
At the Netroots Nation conference in Austin, TPMtv talked to former NATO Commander and retired General Wesley Clark and former Bush administration counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke about what course America needs to take to save a darkening situation in Afghanistan ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Ben Craw
Breaking
Sen. Ted Stevens indicted on seven counts.
Just to give you a little background on this story. We keep our ears pretty close to the ground on Ted Stevens. And while an eventual indictment was not at all unexpected, I feel pretty confident saying that this indictment coming down now was. There was a pretty broad expectation that Stevens' son, former Alaska state senate president Ben Stevens, would be indicted first.
As you know we've been on the Stevens story for some time. And here's our archive of Stevens coverage going back now almost two years. Here's our TPMtv episodes on the Stevens' case.
--Josh Marshall
Gates of Hell or Pakistan -- Whichever Comes First
A year ago, John McCain pledged to capture Osama bin Laden even if it meant going to gates of hell. Last night, McCain told Larry King that he wouldn't even chase bin Laden into Pakistan:
--David Kurtz
Not Muslim
The AFL-CIO is targeting blue collar voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania with a big mailing designed to counter the "Obama is Muslim" rumors.
--David Kurtz
Bitch Slap Alert!
John McCain campaign manager Rick Davis: "Barack Obama has more fans across the world than Paris Hilton does."
--David Kurtz
Election Central Morning Roundup
McCain still throwing around random Iraq withdrawal timetables: How about one month? That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.
--David Kurtz
Shouldn't They Tell You?
This is a story I've been wanting to dig into for a while.
We're regularly told that we should be looking into the background of a presidential candidates key advisors. And in the on-going contretemps over who's got the best judgment and experience on Iraq, John McCain voice and brain is Randy Scheunemann. Look at the key statements from the campaign, the enunciations of policy and so forth and you'll see they're almost all statements from him. So who is it that's speaking for John McCain on Iraq and shaping his views of what our policy there should be?
It comes as no surprise that Scheunemann was a staunch supporter of the war. But he was much more that. He was not only a key behind-the-scenes promoter and architect of the war. He also had a troublingly close relationship with Ahmad Chalabi -- the Iraqi exile we now know fed the US reams of bogus intelligence about phantom WMD and ties to al Qaeda and allegedly also shared highly classified US intelligence with the Iranians. Indeed, something I didn't realize, back when he and other neoconservatives were cooking up the Iraq War in 2002, Scheunemann's lobbying firm, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which he set up with the White House's blessing to gin up support for the Iraq War and Chalabi's handler/spokesman Francis Brooke all shared an address. Almost as if they were different arms of the same operation.
And it's not just what happened before the war. He was also a big time advocate of most of the biggest policy screw ups of the post-war period -- like the aggressive 'debaathification' program that everyone now realizes was a disaster as well as the decision to freeze the UN out of any role in the reconstruction of the country.
All of this information is contained in Zachary Roth's first installment of his reporting on Scheunemann. John McCain is basing his campaign now on his judgment and experience on Iraq. So why is he still taking the advice of the guy who was the conduit between him and Ahmad Chalabi an who has been wrong about Iraq so many times?
McCain's whole campaign now is based on his judgment on Iraq. So why aren't the campaign reporters telling you more about his top foreign policy advisor's iffy past?
--Josh Marshall
Symptom
Bob Novak caught a lot of grief for that incident last week in which he struck a pedestrian in downtown DC and then kept driving until flagged by a bicyclist. Novak said he didn't realize he'd hit anyone. And he may have been telling the truth. According to the Associated Press this is sometimes a symptom of a brain tumor ...
Last week, Novak was given a $50 citation after he struck a homeless man with his black Corvette in downtown Washington. Novak kept going until he was stopped by a bicyclist, who said the man was splayed on Novak's windshield.Dr. Lynne Taylor, a neuro-oncologist at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, said residents at the hospital are taught to check for brain tumors in patients who report having a recent car accident in which they didn't realize they struck something.
"People get spatial and visual neglect of a certain part of their bodies and they don't realize they've done what they've done," said Taylor, a fellow with the American Academy of Neurology.
--Josh Marshall
Heightened Alert
US to be place on "heightened terror alert" in response to Republican efforts to maintain hold on presidency.
--Josh Marshall
New and Improved McCain Timeline
Thanks to input from readers, we've expanded and updated our "Definitive McCain Iraq Timeline." If you thought it was definitive before, you should see it now.
--David Kurtz
TPMCafe Book Club: Joseph O'Neill
This week at Cafe, novelist Joseph O'Neill is joining us for a Book Club discussion on his new book Netherland. Visiting the Club will be novelist and critic Dale Peck, New York Magazine writer Kurt Andersen, Mia Carter, professor of English at University of Texas at Austin, and Will Buckley of The Guardian.
In addition, Chris Hayes is at Cafe all week for a discussion on his recent Nation article, "MoveOn at Ten." Joining him will be Eli Pariser, director of MoveOn.org, Ben Brandzel, founder of MoveOn Student Action, Matt Stoller, a political consultant and blogger, John Stauber, founder of the Center for Media and Democracy, and Marshall Ganz, public policy lecturer at Harvard University.
--David Kurtz
Latest Polls in Your Inbox Every Morning
Would you like to get a daily briefing from TPM every morning, including links to our most popular stories, the latest polls, a list of the coming days political events and more? That's what we send out to about 10,000 TPM Readers every weekday morning in our TPM Daily Digest. And for the last three months of the 2008 election cycle, we've reconfigured it to give extra priority to the latest polls. You'll get it every morning with all the campaign polls from the previous 24 hours -- presidential, senate and house, all of them.
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--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: Sunday Show Roundup: McCain's Campaign of Honor
One of John McCain's repeated promises once he won the Republican nomination was that he would wage an honorable and dignified campaign against the Democratic nominee. It seems a significant development therefore that McCain has abandoned this pledge in his constant impugnment of Barack Obama's commitment to the troops and to victory in Iraq ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Ben Craw
Novak Has Brain Tumor
Bob Novak has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and is now in a Boston hospital awaiting further tests. According to late reports, doctors have not yet determined whether the tumor is malignant, but a biopsy is planned for later today. We wish him the very best.
--Josh Marshall
DOJ Releases Goodling Report
The report of the joint investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General into politically tainted hiring practices at the Justice Department is just out.
The report is here (.pdf).
We'll be going through the report at the TPMmuckraker.
Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, plays a prominent role in the report, too.
Late Update: Here's a prize catch from the report, by the Washington Post:
Goodling regularly asked candidates for career jobs, "What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?"
More subtly worded questions here.
--David Kurtz
Calling a Spade a Spade
The big news outfits have trouble bringing themselves to point out the untruths in the latest McCain attack ad.
Late Update: MSNBC does the impossible and points out why the ad is false. --gs
Late Late Update: The McCain campaign is out with yet another misleading statement on this. --gs
--David Kurtz
Election Central Morning Roundup
Barack Obama convenes an economic summit in Washington with such luminaries as Warren Buffett, Paul Volcker, and Robert Rubin. Meanwhile, John McCain has no public events today. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.
--David Kurtz
Did McCain Hedge His Bets?
February 20th, 2007, Salon.com ...
A war veteran and presidential contender for 2008, McCain seemed to be squarely in the president's corner during the Senate debate.In fact, McCain has increasingly hedged his position on the surge, showing full support for Bush's plan one moment and then