Mission Critical
I'm reassured that we have time to spend on stuff like this ...
Hold on, NFL. Spygate isn't over. Not if the "incensed" Pittsburgh Steelers fan in Congress has anything to do with it. Sen. Arlen Specter on Wednesday called for an independent investigation of the New England Patriots' taping of opposing coaches' signals, possibly similar to the high-profile Mitchell Report on performance enhancing drugs in baseball."What is necessary is an objective investigation," Specter said at a news conference in the Capitol. "And this one has not been objective."
The Pennsylvania Republican was unforgiving of his criticism of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, saying that Goodell has made "ridiculous" assertions that wouldn't fly "in kindergarten." The Senator said Goodell was caught in an "apparent conflict of interest" because the NFL doesn't want the public to lose confidence in the league's integrity.
Late Update: Several TPM Reader confidently assert that Specter is an Eagles, not a Steelers fan. And since he comes out of Philly, that makes sense. On such a life and death issue for our nation, I would expect more accurate reporting from the AP.
--Josh Marshall
More on Obama's Appalachia Problem
Newhouse's Jonathan Tilove explains: It's not a white problem. Obama has an Appalachia problem.
--Josh Marshall
Maybe the Key is Repetition
It hasn't worked yet, but the NRCC signaled today that it will continue to try to tie down-ballot Dems to Obama.
--David Kurtz
Closing Time
Solicitor General Paul D. Clement submits his resignation, effective June 2.
--David Kurtz
Charlie Black Catapulting the Propaganda
I see that all the foreign lobbying work done by the various lobbyists running John McCain's presidential campaign is now becoming a big story. And after the two lobbyists for the Burmese dictatorship had to leave, attention has now focused on Charlie Black, McCain's top advisor.
Now Black's been an interest of ours at TPM for 
years. So when it comes to foreign lobbying, I'm most interested in the work Black and his firm have done for various parties in Iraq.
Remember, Black worked on behalf of none other than Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, the arch-WMD and Iraq-al Qaeda bamboozler who now complacently says that whatever garbage he sold the Americans that was just the cost of doing business and he got us to get rid of Saddam so basically whatever it took, who cares?
But here's another chapter of Black's work on the Iraq bamboozlement front that I'm not sure has gotten that much attention.
You may remember that back in late 2005 news emerged that the Pentagon had contracted with an outfit called The Lincoln Group to pay off Iraqi journalists to 'write' articles about just how great things were going in their country despite all the negative reports being filed by the biased Western media. Not only was that problematic in terms of our democratizing Iraq but a lot of that 'good news' from Iraqi journalists ended up making its way back into the American media stream, often becoming fodder for right wing bloggers and columnists arguing that the American people weren't getting the real story about how good things were going.
Here's an article from December 1st, 2005 in the Times that gives the basic run-down of the story.
But as we noted at the time, The Lincoln Group appears to have turned around and subcontracted the Iraqi 'good news' psy-ops account to none other than Charlie Black's lobbying outfit.
The following update ran in the July 27th 2005 edition of the PR industry trade sheet, Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter ...
Burson-Marsteller's BKSH & Assocs. has been hired by The Lincoln Group, one of three firms selected last month by the U.S. Special Operations Command, to wage psychological warfare on behalf of the Pentagon in Iraq and other hot spots.Chairman Charlie Black, the former Republican National Committee spokesperson and advisor to Presidents Reagan and Bush, heads the account with Gardner Peckham, senior policy advisor to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
BKSH has experience on the Iraqi front earned from work for Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress.
Col. James Treadwell, director of the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element, said TLG was selected to develop "cutting-edge types of media," including radio/TV ads, documentaries, text messages, Internet spots and podcasts for the U.S. military.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: GOP House of Cards
Last night the Democrats snatched up the open House seat in Mississippi's heavily Republican 1st district, their third pickup this year of an open seat previously held by a Republican. In each case, the national GOP threw everything they had at holding onto the seat. In today's episode we explore just how bad a sign this could be for the GOP's prospects come November ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Ben Craw
A Cry for Help
The House GOP's new slogan -- "the change you deserve" -- also happens to be the marketing slogan for an anti-depressant drug.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
Forget good v. evil. In the Bush Administration, it's a comic book battle between incompetence and malfeasance. You can never be quite sure which will prevail.
In today's installment, the U.S. asylum process trips up Iraqis friendly to U.S. forces, including a leading anti-corruption crusader who embarrassed the chronically corrupt Maliki government.
--David Kurtz
Never Die!!
Even with Hillary's blow-out win in West Virginia and the amazing Democratic victory in Mississippi, for me tonight's going to be about Terry McAuliffe's tour de force moment when he turned projectile nonsense into something approaching the sublime ...
--Josh Marshall
Quaking
Not only is Childers, the Democrat, winning that Mississippi House seat. It's really not even that close. With 94% of the votes in, he's winning by a 6 point margin.
Late Update: Scratch that. With 99% in, it's an 8 point spread. Not even close.
--Josh Marshall
Childers On Track To Win It
I didn't think the Dems would pull this one off. The Republicans brought Cheney in late bout of campaigning -- maybe not such a bad idea. But it looks like Childers is going to win this thing. He's only narrowly ahead. But it's pretty much only his strong precincts that are still to report.
Late Update: AP's called it. Childers takes Mississippi's 1st district, an incredibly Republican district.
Later Update: To put this into some broader perspective, the Republicans have lost three straight Republican districts to the Democrats in by-elections this year. Hastert's district in Illinois, Louisiana 6th, and now Mississippi 1st. Each successively more Republican than the last. In Mississippi 1st, President Bush got 62% of the vote there in 2004.
Symbolic Number Update: On the symbolic level, this pulls the House GOP caucus down to 199 -- below 200.
--Josh Marshall
Upcountry
If the exit polls (and the pre-election polls) are accurate, Hillary Clinton is set to win West Virginia by roughly a 2 to 1 margin over Barack Obama. Oregon, next Tuesday, favors Obama. But Kentucky, which votes the same day, seems likely to yield a similar margin for Sen. Clinton. So what is it about these two states that makes them so favorable to Hillary Clinton?
There's been a lot of talk in this campaign about Barack Obama's problem with working class white voters or rural voters. But these claims are both inaccurate because they are incomplete. You can look at states like Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states and see the different numbers and they are all explained by one basic fact. Obama's problem isn't with white working class voters or rural voters. It's Appalachia. That explains why Obama had a difficult time in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why he's getting crushed in West Virginia and Kentucky.
If it were just a matter of rural voters or the white working class, the pattern would show up in other regions. But by and large it does not.
In so many words, Pennsylvania and Ohio have big chunks of Appalachia within their borders. But those regions are heavily offset by non-Appalachian sections that are cultural and demographically distinct. West Virginia is 100% Appalachian. If you look at southeastern Ohio or the middle chunk of Pennsylvania, Obama did about the same as he's doing tonight in West Virginia.
Below is a map of the Appalachian counties stretching from New York down into Mississippi. Below that is a map of counties that Hillary Clinton has won by more than 65%. As you can see match up quite closely -- the grey gaps are Kentucky and West Virginia which hadn't voted yet.
So what is it about this region?
Let me offer a series of overlapping explanations. First, some basic demographics. It's widely accepted that Hillary Clinton does better with older voters, less educated voters and white voters. These demographics perfectly match West Virginia -- and, more loosely, the entire Appalachian region. A few key points from tonight's exit polls demonstrate the point: 4 out of 10 voters were over 60 years of age. 7 out of 10 lacked a college degree -- the highest proportion of any electorate in the country. And 95% of the electorate was white.
Basically you have a state that is made up almost exclusively of Clinton's voters. But there's a deeper historical explanation that we have to apply as well -- one nicely illustrated by the origins of West Virginia itself.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, in the middle Atlantic and particularly in the Southern states, there was a long-standing cleavage between the coastal and 'piedmont' regions on the one hand and the upcountry areas to the west on the other. It's really the coastal lowlands and the Appalachian districts. On the other side of the Appalachian mountain range the pattern is flipped, with the Appalachians in the east and the lowlands in the west.
These regions were settled disproportionately by Scots-Irish immigrants who pushed into the hill country to the west in part because that's where the affordable land was but also because they wanted to get away from the more stratified and inegalitarian society of the east which was built by English settlers and their African slaves. Crucially, slavery never really took root in these areas. And this is why during the Civil War, Unionism (as in support for the federal union and opposition to the treason of secession) ran strong through the Appalachian upcountry, even into Deep South states like Alabama and Mississippi.
As I alluded to earlier, this was the origin of West Virginia, which was originally the westernmost part of Virginia. The anti-slavery, anti-slaveholding upcountry seceded from Virginia to remain in the Union after Virginia seceded from the Union. Each of these regions was fiercely anti-Slavery. And most ended up raising regiments that fought in the Union Army. But they were as anti-slave as they were anti-slavery, both of which they viewed as the linchpins of the aristocratic and inegalitarian society they loathed. It was a society that was both more violent and more self-reliant.
This is history. But it shapes the region. It's overwhelmingly white, economically underdeveloped (another legacy of the pre-civil war pattern) and arguably because of that underdevelopment has very low education rates and disproportionately old populations.
For all these reasons, if you're familiar with the history, it's really no surprise that Barack Obama would have a very hard time running in this region.
--Josh Marshall
Results
West Virginia is the expected blow out. But look at the results in Mississippi (on our election scoreboard). It's starting to look like the Dems may bag a pick up in this race too.
With 70% of the results in, Childers, the Dem, has a 4 point lead. And the counties that are still out seem to favor Childers.
Our resident vote counter, Eric Kleefeld, says that Childers seems to either matching or out-performing the results he got in the open primary (which has the Dems and Republicans voting together and was basically a trial heat for this race).
--Josh Marshall
Swirling
This is fascinating. I spent most of the evening writing a sprawling post about the historical and demographic roots of Sen. Clinton's strength in Appalachia (which accounts for almost all of her purported strength with rural and working class white voters). But now I'm listening to the MSNBCoids discussing the finer points of objective fact versus epistemological relativism, or, in this specific case, whether Sen. Clinton simply has a different, equally valid, opinion on the closeness of the race or whether she's living in her own separate reality. So I'm not really sure there's any point.
Late Update: Now Terry McAullife is losing his mind and his voice live on TV.
--Josh Marshall
A Chris Matthews Moment
Hillary is "the Al Sharpton of white people"? So says Chris Matthews:
He actually returned to this notion a few minutes later with another guest.
--David Kurtz
McCain Predicts Perfect First Term
John McCain is set to deliver a speech Thursday laying out the accomplishments he predicts he'll achieve by the end of a first term: Victory in Iraq, the death of bin Laden, strong economic growth, a guest-worker program and a flat tax.
Edwards Endorses Obama
Former candidate endorses the frontrunner at a Michigan rally.
- Rahm Emanuel Crashes House GOP Strategy Session
- Obama Apologizes To Reporter He Called "Sweetie"
- Obama Keeps Racking Up Superdelegates After West Virginia Loss
- McCain Makes Another Miniscule Ad Buy
- Clinton and Obama Agree to Joint Fundraising With DNC
- Libertarian Candidates to Debate on Fox Business Network
- Cindy McCain Sells Sudan-Linked Investments
- David Broder Taking WaPo Buyout
- Judge: Dems Must Wait Until June to Sue McCain
- Red Cross: Up To 128,000 May Have Died In Myanmar
- Michael Moore Planning Follow-Up To Fahrenheit 9/11
- Lebanon Revokes Anti-Hezbollah Measures That Led to Fighting
- Suspected U.S. Missile Hits House in Pakistan
- Specter Calls For Independent New England Patriots Probe
- Hooker Booker Pleads Guilty in Spitzer Probe
- Suicide Bomber Kills 22 at Sunni Funeral Near Baghdad
- Red Cross: Myanmar Death Toll Could Be As High As 127,990
- Larry Craig Comes Out of Hiding to Fight GI Bill
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