Results from Ames
So, how'd things turn out in the Ames Straw Poll? The final tally was delayed after a voting-machine error (insert sly joke here), but here are the results, by way of IowaPolitics.com:
1. Mitt Romney
2. Mike Huckabee
3. Sam Brownback
4. Tom Tancredo
5. Ron Paul
6. Tommy Thompson
7. Fred Thompson
8. Rudy Giuliani
9. Duncan Hunter
10. John McCain
11. John Cox
Marc Ambinder has more details on the final tallies.
Keep in mind, organizers hoped for 20,000 straw-poll participants today, and the total was just over 14,000. Eight years ago, nearly 24,000 Republicans took part in the event.
Some of this, it's fair to say, is the result of some top-tier candidates deciding not to participate in Ames, but it also speaks to the ongoing lack of enthusiasm for the GOP field of candidates. (When Obama polls better among Iowa Republicans than several Republican candidates, I think it's fair to say the field is struggling to inspire the GOP faithful.)
--Steve Benen
A not-quite-shining city on a hill
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) recently told Glenn Greenwald that the United States' legal system -- with its respect for the rule of law and citizens' civil liberties -- has been the envy of the world for years. But as we've departed from our principles, others are following suit.
"[T]here has been an erosion in the world with the rule of the law," Dodd said. "Having led the world in the rule of law in the post-World War II period, and having nations reluctantly moving in the direction we were moving in, and they now see the U.S. has retreated, and they are making a hasty retreat themselves."
Rick Perlstein pointed to Exhibit A.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday signed into law the controversial Interception of Communications Bill, which gives his government the authority to eavesdrop on phone and Internet communications and read physical mail. [...]
Secretary General Welshman Ncube of the MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara called it a "final straw to the curtailment to the liberties of Zimbabweans.". [...]
But Communications Minister Christopher Mushowe said Zimbabwe is not unique in the world in passing such legislation, citing electronic eavesdropping programs in the United States.
Was Mugabe inspired by Bush? It's unlikely; Mugabe didn't need an extra motivation for a power-grab. But as Glenn noted today, "[T]he fact that such powers exist here does provide a potent refutation for those who want to suggest that Mugabe is doing anything extraordinarily tyrannical."
--Steve Benen
Given his track record, Alberto Gonzales probably isn't the best person to be giving anyone, better yet Iraqis, advice about the rule of law.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, under fire at home with calls for his resignation, is spending some time in Iraq.
The Justice Department said that Gonzales arrived in Baghdad on Saturday for his third trip to Iraq to meet with department officials who have been there to help fashion the country's legal system.
"I am pleased to see firsthand ... the progress that the men and women of the Justice Department have made to rebuild Iraq's legal system and law enforcement infrastructure," Gonzales said in a statement released by the department.
First, it's not at all clear why Gonzales is encouraged by the status of Iraq's legal system. Iraq is beset by what the AP charitably described as "sectarian lawlessness."
Second, I suppose there are less qualified officials in the Bush administration to oversee Iraq's drive to fashion a legal system, but no one comes to mind.
--Steve Benen
With McCain, Giuliani, and Fred Thompson sitting this one out, the results of Ames Straw Poll are fairly predictable -- Romney's going to come out on top. But there are still plenty of reasons to keep an eye on the results, and plenty of questions that will be answered once the votes are tallied.
* How much will Romney win by? -- Though Giuliani aides have been trying to raise expectations beyond reason (they've suggested Romney has to win by an 8 to 1 margin), Romney will realistically have to get more than 30% support to have a good day. (Bush won with 31% in 2000.) A big win will solidify Romney as the Iowa frontrunner. A narrow win will raise questions about his chances.
* Who'll come in second? -- With so many second- and third-tier candidates cluttering the Republican field, the race for second is fierce. Either Huckabee or Brownback will use a second-place finish to argue that they belong in the top tier (at least as much as McCain). Also keep an eye on Tancredo, this cycle's Alan Keyes.
* Is Brownback for real? -- The Kansas senator apparently has an impressive Iowa operation, including a fleet of buses to transport supporters. But as Chris Cillizza noted, "If he doesn't place second or -- maybe -- third, it's hard to see how Brownback justifies going on."
* Who'll drop out? -- "Those who fail miserably [in the Straw Poll] are out of the race," said Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Iowa Republican Party. "That's just the coldhearted truth of it all." Tommy Thompson has already suggested he'll likely withdraw unless he finishes in the top two, which is rather unlikely. Huckabee has also hinted he'll "reevaluate" if he fares poorly in Ames. Brownback, meanwhile, has said today is not a "make or break" event for him.
* Is Paul a player? -- Ron Paul has fared poorly in Iowa polls, but the Straw Poll is all about organization, and the Texas congressman has some loyal and active fans. If he manages a strong showing -- say, top three -- Paul will be hard to dismiss as a fringe candidate.
* What about the no-shows? -- As Eric Kleefeld and T. W. Farnam noted, if Giuliani, McCain, and/or Thompson actually generate some decent results without trying, there will be even more pressure on candidates who compete and come up short.
The voting is ongoing right now and will wrap up at 7 p.m. eastern. The results will be announced an hour later. Stay tuned.
--Steve Benen
Obama addresses question of whether he's "black enough" head on. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
'He had his own elevator'
Wayne Barrett has done the political world a great service with a devastating piece in the Village Voice on Rudy Giuliani and the "five big lies" surrounding the former mayor's claim to fame: his performance on 9/11. The entire piece -- which, if read, should effectively end Giuliani's presidential ambitions -- is important, but there's one part of the story that's particularly worth highlighting.
It's Lie #3: Giuliani doesn't deserve the blame for putting the city's emergency-command center in the World Trade Center, an obvious, and once-attacked, terrorist target. The former mayor was warned, in writing, about the inherent flaws in the choosing the site, and was offered a better and more effective alternative, but Giuliani moved forward anyway. As Barrett explained, "The 1997 decision had dire consequences on 9/11, when the city had to mobilize a response without any operational center."
So, why is it, exactly, that Giuliani picked the WTC site? The mayor personally established a specific standard: he had to be able to walk to the command center from his office. ("I've never seen in my life 'walking distance' as some kind of a standard for crisis management," said Lou Anemone, the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the NYPD. "But you don't want to confuse Giuliani with the facts.")
There is, however, an explanation for the walking-distance standard.
The 7 WTC site was the brainchild of Bill Diamond, a prominent Manhattan Republican that Giuliani had installed at the city agency handling rentals. When Diamond held a similar post in the Reagan administration a few years earlier, his office had selected the same building to house nine federal agencies. Diamond's GOP-wired broker steered Hauer to the building, which was owned by a major Giuliani donor and fundraiser. When Hauer signed onto it, he was locked in by the limitations Giuliani had imposed on the search and the sites Diamond offered him. The mayor was so personally focused on the siting and construction of the bunker that the city administrator who oversaw it testified in a subsequent lawsuit that "very senior officials," specifically including Giuliani, "were involved," which he said was a major difference between this and other projects.
Giuliani's office had a humidor for cigars and mementos from City Hall, including a fire horn, police hats and fire hats, as well as monogrammed towels in his bathroom. His suite was bulletproofed and he visited it often, even on weekends, bringing his girlfriend Judi Nathan there long before the relationship surfaced. He had his own elevator.
For the city, this meant that on 9/11, the NYC make-shift command center didn't exist until seven hours after the attack. As for Giuliani's poor judgment, the most rational conclusion is that he put his center in the wrong place because he was creating a "convenient love nest."
Kevin Drum wonders how the GOP base is going to respond to news like this.
Right now, they're probably not aware of the whole story, and simply perceive Giuliani as someone who held some impressive press conferences on 9/11. But it's only a matter of time. Giuliani's decisions should be a national scandal that not only force him from the presidential race, but may even shame him permanently.
Inevitably, this is going to become a part of this campaign, and when it does, it's going to be ugly.
--Steve Benen
'It's the kiss of death'
Last weekend, during a GOP debate in Iowa, George Stephanopoulos noted that Bush's alleged democracy-spreading foreign policy hasn't exactly worked out well: "There have been free elections in Gaza; they elected Hamas. There have been free elections in Lebanon; they empowered Hezbollah. There have been free elections in Iran; they elected President Ahmadinejad." Asked about the track record, former Gov. Mike Huckabee responded, "Sometimes when you get what you want, you don't want what you get."
With that background in mind, Hassan Fattah has a terrific report on how the U.S. government can promote elections, champion democracy, and stand behind like-minded international allies, but our support doesn't always translate well.
Lebanon's political spin masters have been trying in recent days to explain the results of last Sunday's pivotal by-election, which saw a relatively unknown candidate from the opposition narrowly beat a former president, Amin Gemayel.
There has been talk of the Christian vote and the Armenian vote, of history and betrayal, as each side sought to claim victory. There is one explanation, however, that has become common wisdom in the region: Mr. Gemayel's doom seems to have been sealed by his support from the Bush administration and the implied agendas behind its backing.
"It's the kiss of death," said Turki al-Rasheed, a Saudi reformer who watched last Sunday's elections closely. "The minute you are counted on or backed by the Americans, kiss it goodbye, you will never win."
The paradox of American policy in the Middle East -- promoting democracy on the assumption it will bring countries closer to the West -- is that almost everywhere there are free elections, the American-backed side tends to lose.
Throughout the post-WWII era, foreign leaders used to promote their bonds with the United States as a sign of strength and credibility. We were a beacon of hope that countries were anxious to be associated with. Not anymore.
In reality, Bush's democracy talk has always been more about rhetorical games than actual policy anyway, but so long as the administration continues to call for more elections, it can continue to expect discouraging results.
Digby added a compelling approach to what has to happen moving forward, starting in 2009.
--Steve Benen
Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) may have inadvertently leaked classified information during a Fox News interview, disclosing an aspect of a FISA court's decision regarding warrantless wiretapping. On Thursday, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, may have unintentionally done the same thing.
ABC News' (and TPM alum) Justin Rood explains.
For the second time in as many weeks, a senior House Republican may have divulged classified information in the media.
In an opinion article published in the New York Post Thursday, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., reported the top-secret budget for human spying had decreased -- the type of detail normally kept under wraps for national security reasons.
"The 2008 Intelligence Authorization bill cut human-intelligence programs," Hoekstra wrote in the piece, in which he also criticized "leaks to the news media."
Formerly the chairman of the intelligence committee, Hoekstra is now its highest ranking Republican. In its recent budget authorizations, that committee kept from public view all figures and most discussion of spending on such classified items as human spying. Hoekstra's apparent slip was first noted on the liberal Web site, Raw Story.
"If Mr. Hoekstra wants to break ranks and disclose that information, that's fine with me," said Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert who has long pushed to declassify overall spending on intelligence. "But it is the sort of thing he has harshly criticized in the past."
Given Hoekstra's hackish history, this week's alleged disclosure is par for the course. After all, Hoekstra has had a series of recent intelligence-related embarrassments.
* In November 2006, Hoekstra pushed the administration to publish online a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The idea was to let far-right bloggers "prove" that Saddam had WMD, but Hoekstra's plan led to the accidental release of secret nuclear research, including a basic guide to building an atom bomb.
* In October 2006, Hoestra "stripped the credentials of a Democratic committee aide he believed may have leaked a then-classified document to The New York Times. A month later, he quietly reinstated the aide's access."
* In July 2006, Hoekstra called a humiliating press conference to announce, "We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" -- despite failing to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
* In June 2006, Hoekstra and Rick Santorum wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed, alleging that some officials in the intelligence community are attempting to destroy the Bush administration -- and America itself.
Maybe House Republicans can find someone a little less reckless to serve as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee?
--Steve Benen
The Philadelphia Daily News' Stu Bykofsky, one of the city's most widely-read columnists, caused a bit of a stir with his latest column, which posited a provocative idea: another 9/11-style attack to "help" America. As Bykofsky sees it, "we have forgotten who the enemy is," and the murder of thousands of Americans would help us get back on track.
America's fabric is pulling apart like a cheap sweater. What would sew us back together? Another 9/11 attack.
The Golden Gate Bridge. Mount Rushmore. Chicago's Wrigley Field. The Philadelphia subway system. The U.S. is a target-rich environment for al Qaeda. [...]
Is there any doubt they are planning to hit us again? If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.
Everything about this column seems misguided -- the diagnosis of what ails America, the description of the symptoms, the proposed cure. The surprising part of this, however, is that a variety of far-right media outlets seemed to embrace Bykofsky's message. ThinkProgress noted that Drudge seemed to think highly of the piece, conservative radio host Mike Gallagher invited Bykofsky on to his show, and Fox News' John Gibson went so far as to endorse Bykofsky's thesis on the air: "I think it's going to take a lot of dead people to wake America up."
For a column that pines for mass murder, this isn't the reaction I expected.
--Steve Benen
Lute: It 'makes sense' to 'consider' draft
Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, confirmed by the Senate in June to serve as the president's war advisor (aka, the "war czar"), has kept a remarkably low profile. NSA Stephen Hadley told reporters a while back that Lute would be "up close to the president" to work "full time, 24/7" on implementing Bush's war policy, but that apparently includes practically disappearing from public view.
In fact, Lute has not been mentioned by Bush, Cheney, or any White House spokesperson, in any context, since he was confirmed. I was beginning to think we may want to put his face on milk-cartons.
Yesterday, Lute finally emerged -- and immediately sparked a controversy.
Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday.
"I think it makes sense to certainly consider it," Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."
"And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another," said Lute, who is sometimes referred to as the "Iraq war czar." It was his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June.
And with that, we may not be hearing from Lute again anytime soon.
--Steve Benen
Mitt Romney is expected to win tomorrow's Ames straw poll, but he really has to win big. That and other straw poll and political news in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Bill O'Reilly and John Edwards, Two Ships that Crossed in the Night
Fibbing goof Bill O'Reilly can't understand why John Edwards won't give any love to Fox News after they've given him such fair coverage on Fox. Take a look. It'll start your weekend on a good note ...
Also nice to see the Foxies crying a river about the hard shake they're getting from the Democrats.
--Josh Marshall
Beauchamp Update
If you've been following the Scott Thomas Beauchamp Affair, I strongly recommend reading the latest update from The New Republic. The short version is that the Army's investigation of the case appears to be confined to a) releasing no information about their investigation or details of its findings, b) leaking alleged details to the Weekly Standard, which no one will confirm on the record and c) keeping Beauchamp himself in communications lockdown where no one but family members in monitored conversations can communicate with him.
Perhaps Beauchamp made this stuff up. And that's not a throwaway line; I freely concede it may turn out to be the case. There's no getting around the fact that the legacy of the Glass Affair puts an extra hurdle of credibility in TNR's way.
But the behavior of the Army Public Affairs Office suggests that what they are pushing is not an investigation that would pass any muster in the light of day but a war against a particular article and publication.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but going back over recent years -- the WMD stories, al Qaeda link, the Iraq War and more -- when you've got the goods, you take it to a real press outlet. When you're blowing smoke, you take it to the Standard.
--Josh Marshall
Global War on Verbs
I think it's a measure of how brain dead the Republicans have become on the "war on terror" that their big puffing or policy statements on the issue now most often amount to bizarre and sometimes incomprehensible grammatical reformulations or, failing that, reorderings of sentence structure.
So for example, now you have Mitt Romney saying, "There's not a global war on terror. There's a global war being waged by the terrorists and if I am president, there will be a global war waged on the terrorists and we will win."
This comes after Rudy's insistence on rebranding the War on Terror as the "Terrorists' War on Us." (see the video)
Their perplexity and paralysis in the face of reality is making them look like one of those alien computers or robots at the end of one of the old Star Trek episodes where Capt. Kirk hits them with too much kick-ass logic and smoke starts to come out of their ears and then they explode.
Late Update: Alternative Headline: Emerging GOP consensus that War on Terror is being waged in the passive voice!
--Josh Marshall
Give to the RNC, Or Else
Turns out fear isn’t just an RNC campaign strategy. It’s also useful, apparently, to spook up contributions.
The political parties use a variety of tactics in fundraising pitches to try and grab attention. But here’s a letter from the RNC that seems particularly beyond the pale. It styles as a “Voter Registration Verification and Audit Form” and warns the voter about “irregularities” in his/her party affiliation.
Check it out. And thanks to TPM Reader Dennis Sidwell for sending it in after it succeeded in spooking his 83 year-old father.
--Paul Kiel
Rudy: I Was a 9/11 Recovery Worker Too
In Ohio yesterday Rudy said, inter alia ... "I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. ... I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them."
I think this is going to be a real problem for His Rudiness. And unlike many gaffes, which are just offhanded statements that tell us little about the person in question, I think this one points to an underlying contempt for the folks who ended up sacrificing their health or even their lives during the clean-up process.
--Josh Marshall
Obama and Clinton explain "old school" opposition to gay marriage; Edwards says he isn't "uncomfortable" around gays; and Richardson stumbles over whether being gay is a "choice." That and other items in today's Election Central gay issues debate roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Giving Thanks
Conservative economist and AndrewSullivan.com guest blogger Bruce Bartlett giving thanks for the new Michael Gerson take-down piece in The Atlantic ...
Judging by Scully's account, no bigger phony than Gerson ever walked the corridors of the White House--and that's saying a lot. Apparently, Gerson spent just about every waking hour trying to figure out how to take credit for anything good that came out of the West Wing and had any number of gullible accomplices in the press corps that were happy to oblige him in his effort ... Another reason I'm grateful to Scully is that I could never understand why the Washington Post gave Gerson a column when he clearly has nothing interesting to say about anything. Apparently, it is payback for all the leaks Gerson was spilling to the Post all these years. Unfortunately, the Post erred by not also hiring the speechwriters who did all the work Gerson took credit for as well.
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Bill Sali (R-ID): God may destroy America over Hindu prayer in the senate. Muslim congressman probably won't help any either.
--Josh Marshall
Coconut Road
Here's a corruption case that raises an interesting constitutional question. Actually, the 'question' seems pretty open and shut to me. But it is apparently being treated as one of some ambiguity. So here goes.
In 2005, rapscallion Congressman Don Young (R) of Alaska snuck in a $10 million earmark for a highway interchange (the "Coconut Road" project) which stood to benefit real estate mini-mogul Daniel Aranoff. The earmark appeared just days after Aranoff raised 40 grand for Young at a fundraiser. Adding to the fun on this little escapade is that this was an earmark for a road building project in Florida, which -- unless my spatial reasoning is failing me -- must be about as far as you can get in the United States from Alaska, the state Young nominally represents.
Okay, so far, not a particularly surprising story, certainly for the Alaska congressional delegation. But here's where it gets more interesting.
The 'Coconut Road' earmark wasn't in the bill passed by the House and Senate. I don't mean it wasn't in the original bills before they went to conference (where the separate bills from the House and the Senate are reconciled into a single bill). It wasn't in the final, reconciled piece of legislation passed by both houses of Congress after conference.
But it is there now.
So here's what happened. Apparently Young added the text after Congress had already passed it but before the president signed it. As Laura McGann explains in this post, this must have occurred during the process called "bill enrollment" when revisions of grammar and technical but not substantive changes are permitted to be made.
The president did sign the bill. But the portion apparently added by Young, if I understand anything about our system of government, was never passed by Congress. So it means nothing.
Based on this -- to my mind -- neatly fatal insufficiency to the earmark, local officials in Southwest Florida are investigating whether they can ignore the earmark and use the money to widen Interstate 75, which is what the bill had prescribed before Young's extra-constitutional handiwork.
Now, here's my question. I know some squirrelly things happen in the legislative process. But this strikes me as in a whole other category. In the previous Congress there was a lot of controversy over the fact that the Republican leadership was basically rewriting bill's de novo in conference. And while that may make a mockery of the legislative process it doesn't have narrowly constitutional implications -- at least as I read it -- since the whole Congress does pass the final law, even if it was just something Tom DeLay wrote out on a gumball wrapper and they're only given five minutes to read it.
Anyway, to my question: how common is this? Laura got a quote on this from Keith Ashdown from Taxpayers for Common Sense who said, "I’ve seen little gimmicks and little tricks used to make sure somebody’s friend or contributor is taken care of but this is by far one of the more underhanded, surreptitious examples I’ve seen — ever."
Is something even similar to this a commonplace occurrence?
So, how common is this -- addressed to those of you on the Hill? Is there any question that this never-passed earmark lacks any force of law? And shouldn't there be some sanction -- by the Congress itself if not legally -- for his having done it?
--Josh Marshall
Academics-turned-political-donors gave most to Barack Obama! That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Band of Brothers
Sentimental snark from TPM Reader MD ...
Reading about Mitt's claim that his five sons are serving the nation by driving the Winnebago through Iowa, I was put in mind of the once-famous Sulllivan Brothers, five Iowa boys who were all in the navy during WWII, were all serving on the same ship, and were all killed at the same time. I hadn't thought of the Sullivan Brothers in years. After their deaths, the military put in a rule that blood relatives could not all serve in the same unit. So the Romney boys should not all be riding around in the same Winnebago.
--Josh Marshall
President Bush on Accountability
On Scooter Libby: "Lewis Libby was held accountable."
On Al Gonzales: "I haven't seen Congress say he's done anything wrong ... Why would I hold someone accountable who has done nothing wrong?"
--Josh Marshall
Obama and Pakistan
I'm always interested to try to tease apart and find the meta-debates operating beneath the surface of campaign debates. As I wrote a few years ago in what I called the bitch-slap theory of GOP electoral politics, the whole swift-boat saga was less about the specifics of Kerry's injuries forty years ago than whether he could defend himself from the charges today. Someone who can't defend himself is weak; and if a guy can't defend himself he can't defend you.
That's what that whole song-and-dance was about.
So what is this back and forth about Obama and Pakistan about?
What this has boiled down to -- and this became even more clear after Tuesday night's labor-hosted debate, when Biden and Dodd acted as Hillary's proxies -- is Hillary, in league with the party's foreign policy establishment, trying to make Obama, implicitly or explicitly, concede an error, that he misspoke.
Precisely what he misspoke about is largely beside the point. The key is that they get him to concede that in the complex and serious world of foreign policy big-think, where words have consequences, he made an error. Of course, it's almost good enough if most observers decide that Obama screwed up. But once he concedes it himself, if he does, he stipulates from now through the end of the Democratic primary campaign that his inexperience in foreign policy is a basic premise of the campaign upon which the battle between him and Hillary will be waged. He can learn, improve, make progress, whatever, but his inexperience compared to Hillary will continue to be the reference point throughout.
But I think he's done a pretty good job so far refusing to get put in that box. And the truth is that I think Obama's actual words are so clearly unobjectionable that this is all Kabuki theater of a particularly strained and disingenuous sort. All Obama said was that if we have actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of high-value al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, and Pakistan won't act, we will act.
Clearly, no Republican can quibble with this. They're on the record for invading countries because they might become dangers to us at some point in the future. They're hardly in a position to disagree with Obama if he says we'll hunt down people who committed mass casualty terror attacks within our borders. And I'm not sure Democrats are in much of a position to do so either.
The unspoken truth here, I suspect, is that Obama has struck on the central folly of our post-9/11 counter-terrorism defense policy -- strike hard where they aren't and go easy where they are. I think everyone can see this. But Obama got there first. So they need to attack him for saying it.
--Josh Marshall
Yearly Kos: In Conclusion
In today's episode of TPMtv we bring you the final chapter in our coverage of Yearly Kos 2007, the last Yearly Kos that will ever be held (beginning next year the convention will go by the name Netroots Nation). We thought it appropriate to conclude with our interview of the Kos himself, Markos Moulitsas, but we'd like to thank everyone who was kind enough to give us a minute and chat with two random dudes wandering around with a video camera. And thanks to Josh for allowing my colleague Andrew and me to partake in such an adventure. Goodnight Chicago, you've been wonderful!
--Ben Craw
Today's Must Read
A number of Guantanamo Bay prisoners fear being sent back to their home countries out of a fear of... torture.
--Paul Kiel
Big Athletic Idiot
Okay, sort of thin gruel for Romney-bashing. Today he's forgetting how many counties there are in the state he was allegedly governor of.
--Josh Marshall
A new poll finds John McCain at all of three percent in Iowa. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Sigh. Andrew Golis' TPMtv interview with Time mag's Jay Carney, shot at Yearly Kos, seems to be developing into a genuine controversy, though I'm not even sure what they're arguing about.
--Josh Marshall
Bonfire
Apparently there's a spontaneous grassroots movement to draft Alan Keyes into the GOP primary race -- oddly enough, the movement has emerged on Keyes' own website.
--Josh Marshall
The Dream Candidate
I don't want to rush anyone. But are we ready to say that Fred Thompson's proto-incipient campaign for president might not be quite ready to sweep the current crop of goofballs from the field?
Or, isn't there a serious possibility now that this guy may never actually get into the race? If for no other reason than to salvage some of the aura of dignity upon which the lucrative acting career is based?
Today Thompson tapped his third campaign manager. Which means he's now operating at a ratio of 3 managers to 0 campaigns. And I guess that means a ratio of like infinity or something like that. But let's not get distracted by that.
In any case, I need to ask you a favor. Can you send me links to quotes of glitz columnists and yakkers gushing about Fred's gravitas, Reaganosity and generally inevitable waltz to the Republican nomination?
--Josh Marshall
Huckabee to GOP: Let's Stop Being the Party of Plutocrats
Late Update: If you missed Tuesday night's AFL-CIO debate, here is a clip of the question posed by retired union steel worker Steve Skvara, the man referred to by Huckabee and Matthews in the above clip:
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: Barack Obama Break Out Session at Yearly Kos
We've brought you footage of Hillary Clinton's and John Edwards's Q&A Breakout Sessions at Yearly Kos. In today's specially-tripod-enabled episode of TPMtv, we give you highlights of Barack Obama's session ...
--Ben Craw
Romney Clan Battles for Straw Poll Ridge
Okay, so now we've listened to this audio that the Romney campaign released to rebut the AP story which quoted him saying that his sons had chosen to work for his presidential campaign as opposed to fighting in Iraq as a way to serve their country.
I'd say that listening to it in the context of his rather lengthy gee-golly explanation takes a bit of the edge off the remark. But not that much. Basically instead of shooting right from the hip with his sons' campaign work as a form of national service, this point comes at the end of a much lengthier silly response.
But, hey, you decide.
Late Update: I think TPM's Eric Kleefeld, currently subbing over at Andrew Sullivan's site, gets closest to the mark on this one, adopting what amounts to a mens rea analysis of Romney's buffoonery. Eric doesn't believe that Romney "is so insensitive that he would intentionally compare the service of our troops to people working for his campaign." But Romney's ad lib pablum is so mindless, inane and self-serving that such an unfortunate incident was bound to occur sooner or later.
--Josh Marshall
In the Nation's Service
Asked why none of his sons are serving in Iraq, Mitt Romney says they're serving in another way: by working for his campaign for president.
Leaves me snarkless. You'll have to provide your own.
Late Update: The Romney campaign says the remarks were taken out of context by the Associated Press, and has now provided audio and transcript. Take a look. -- gs
--Josh Marshall
Where's Ben?
Ben Stevens update alert. We thought Ben Stevens, disgraced son of semi-disgraced Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) had signed on with a fishing boat to make a buck in his post influence-peddling career. Now it seems he's working as a crewman aboard a Shell oil exploratory vessel.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
In the wake of the FISA bill, Democrats ask: Was intelligence chief Mike McConnell bamboozled by the Bush administration? Or is he a bamboozler himself?
--Spencer Ackerman
Hillary Clinton is given a second chance to dodge the lobbyist money question - and she runs with it. That and other Tuesday night debate news in the Election Central Debate Roundup.
--Ben Craw
Uglier and Uglier
Earlier this month we brought you the on-going story of Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a US Army private who published a series of 'Baghdad Diaries' in the New Republic under the name Scott Thomas.
Thomas told a dark story US soldiers 
in Iraq acting in various dishonorable and sadistic ways.
This brought forth a storm of charges from the right-wing blogs and the Weekly Standard claiming that the diaries were fabrications. Then TNR did its own reinvestigation of the diaries and found that with the exception of one error, the stories checked out.
Post media critic Howard Kurtz has been writing about these criticisms in his column. And tomorrow he reports that now the US Army has determined that Beauchamp's claims were "found to be false."
Kurtz got a few more statements from an unnamed "military official" who would not go on the record "because the probe is confidential." And he was told that the investigation into the truth of Beauchamp's article will not be released. The unnamed official further explained that the Army will not prosecute Beauchamp but rather deal with the matter administratively "by having his cellphone and laptop confiscated."
For reasons I'm not entirely clear on, the statement announcing the investigation and its verdict appears not to have been a public release but rather a statement released uniquely to the Weekly Standard. That's how the Kurtz article reads and some quick reporting on my part suggests this is in fact the case.
And it gets better.
The Weekly Standard, which has been leading the charge against Beauchamp, says another unnamed military official told the magazine that not only had the Army found Beauchamp's written accounts to be false but that Beauchamp himself has now signed a recantation of all his claims. So case closed; he fessed up. Yet when TNR contacted the Army public affairs a Maj. Steve Lamb told them: "I have no knowledge of that."
So what's up here?
Beauchamp makes his charges. The US Army allegedly investigates and finds the highly embarrassing charges to be false. But no information will be released about which of his charges were false, how they were false or how they were determined to be false.
They then punish Beauchamp by preventing him from having any communication with the civilian world. And if that's not enough, an unnamed military source tells the Standard that Beauchamp has undergone a successful self-criticism session and has recanted everything. But an Army spokesman tells TNR that he's not aware of any confession or recantation.
We can at least be thankful that the matter is being handled with such transparency.
Maybe Beauchamp was always a teller of tales. He wouldn't be the first nor even the first to have wormed his way into the pages of The New Republic. But it's hard not to have some suspicion that the Army has put itself in charge of investigating charges which, if true, would be deeply embarrassing to the Army; that it has provided itself a full exoneration through an investigation, the details of which it will not divulge; and it has chosen to use as its exclusive conduit for disseminating information about the case, The Weekly Standard, a publication which can at best be described as a charged partisan in the public controversy about the case.
This hardly inspires much confidence.
--Josh Marshall
The Contractors
I think we all know as a general matter that there are a lot of 'contractors' in Iraq and that quite a few of them have gotten killed. But I'm not sure I've ever seen actual numbers.
Here are some numbers.
According to this article in the Times, the US military estimates there are 125,000 in country. In other words, there are almost as many there as US military personnel, who I think now number around 160,000, post surge.
And 1001 of them had been killed as of the end of June.
--Josh Marshall
Fred Thompson relaunches his Web site, and is even testing the waters for an eventual "issues" section. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Ben Craw
Buck Rogers Will Still Be Fighting the War on Terror
I've noted several times recently how public support for the "Global War on Terror" appears to be inversely proportional to the outlandishness of its proponents claims on its behalf. A case in point came in Sunday 
morning's Republican debate in Iowa. I think it's actually part of John McCain's stump speech now. But it was the first time I'd really focused in on the substantive claim amidst the claptrap.
McCain said that the fight against militant Islam is the calling or fight of our generation, or something to that effect -- and of course that's a quite subjective statement so he can say whatever he wants.
Then he says, though, that this is a fight that will be with us for the rest of this century. To quote the man, "I also firmly believe that the challenge of the 21st century is the struggle against radical Islamic extremism. It is a transcendent issue. It is hydra-headed. It will be with us for the rest of the century."
Now, think about that. That's ninety-three years. My old graduate school advisor Gordon Wood used to say that humans have a very hard time seeing more than fifty years into the future. Of course, even a year into the future is difficult. But more than a few decades and we haven't the slightest idea what the world is going to look like -- what the technologies will be, the great moral issues, the threats, etc. It's something we can actually study empirically as we look at what people during, say, the Civil War thought the 1910s would be like or the Revolutionary War era folks thought the 1820s would look like.
Consider too that fascism, which was no walk in the park, was around for roughly a quarter century (I'm a 'small fascism' man: the copycats in South America in the latter 20th century don't count and I don't think even Franco's regime in Spain does out past the 1950s). And communism, which also had a pretty good run, was around for about three-quarters of a century.
But John McCain states it as a matter of fact that the war against militant Islam will still be the defining national security threat for this country in 2099 and for years after.
I know we customarily give a rather wide berth to rhetorical excess in the theater of politics. But what on earth is McCain talking about? Not long ago it was enough to sate the historical vanity of the War on Terror mongers to dub it a 'long war' or 'generational struggle', which it may well be. But apparently even that is now insufficient. Only an entire century will do. It is almost as if as the concept in the real-world present looks more and more ill-judged and foolhardy its credentials must be buffed up by giving it more and more ridiculous lifespans ranging off into the unknowable future.
"You may think it's stupid," you might say, "But this baby's lasting a hundred years at least!"
Perhaps it is the chronological equivalent of the way that President Bush salves the universal verdict of his strategic foolhardiness by imagining a future in which historians are as out of it as he is.
It makes sense that it is their final redoubt as the future is the only territory where empirical evidence or -- more plainly put -- reality can't be brought up to contradict you.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: John Edwards Breaks Out at Yearly Kos
Yesterday we brought you footage of Hillary Clinton's Q&A "Breakout Session" at Yearly Kos. In today's episode of TPMtv, we give you highlights of John Edwards's session ...
And stay tuned tomorrow morning for highlights of the Barack Obama session.
--Ben Craw
TPM Wants You
Don't forget, applications for TPM's Fall Internship are due this Friday!
Also, if you're a design, code or video expert who thinks a TPM internship isn't for you, think again. In addition to writing, research and media monitoring, we want a few interns who can help with TPMtv, do design work and generally support all of our various technological efforts.
So email us!
--Andrew Golis
Iowa Senator Tom Harkin wades into Clinton-Obama no-nukes argument -- and agrees with Obama. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read
Will the Democratic reform bill change Washington? It's unclear. But it sure is a huge bummer for lobbyists, lawmakers, and staffers.
--Paul Kiel
Brownback Gets Tubular
I don't agree with the issue Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) is advocating in this campaign web video (he's pushing his consistent pro-life position in contrast to Mitt Romney's 'light on the road to the White House' conversion to the cause). But this strikes me as one of the better, maybe the best use of distributed or viral video by a campaign yet.
The backstory here is that at the Sunday Republican debate Sam Brownback got asked about robocalls his campaign has been using in Iowa against Romney. The calls attacked Romney as a Johnny-come-lately to the pro-life cause. Romney said the accusations were false. But when debate moderator George Stephanopoulos pressed Romney on just what was false, it became pretty clear that the charges must all be true since Romney just blathered on without specifically challenging any of the claims. Nor should this be surprising since Romney was pro-choice right up until the point where he was pretty sure he wanted to run for president in 2008 and then he became pro-life.
In any case, here's Brownback following up.
One thing I like about this video is that it's one of candidates continuing the dialog outside of the often distorting and constraining time limitations of a debate. It also comes across as pretty genuine and unscripted (a subjective appraisal, but take a look). He speaks right to the camera. And it's a case where a candidate has what I think is demonstratively truth on his side, and he's using the technology to make his point and point viewers to third party analyses.
There's always a temptation to imagine that new technologies transform the terms of communication more profoundly than they do. But this is a case where Brownback is doing something that wouldn't be possible unless the candidate controlled the medium of distribution.
Brownback's chances of winning the nomination are next to nil I think. Maybe (nil+2) or (nil+3). But if one of the top-tier candidates, on either side, could do this I think it could be a very powerful force for their campaign.
Of course, in most cases, to appear genuine and unscripted requires in some degree actually being genuine and unscripted. And that may greatly reduce the number of candidates for whom this is an option.
--Josh Marshall
Call Me Ishmael (Stevens)
These are tough times for the Stevens clan. The Boss, Alaska Sen.Ted Stevens (R), is now at the center of major public 
corruption investigation. And his son, former Alaska state Senate President Ben Stevens looks to be in even more dire legal jeopardy, after one of the VECO bribers admitted to bribing Stevens as part of his plea agreement.
In any case, back in fatter days, Ben lived large on multi-hundred thousand a year consulting fees for unspecified services provided to major corporations in the state while he was also serving as senate president. But now he's fallen on such hard times that he's been forced to take up work on a fishing vessel to make ends meet.
At present, Ben Stevens is at sea.
What's not clear is whether Sen. Ted Stevens (R) might also be forced to put to sea if his legal woes get any worse.
--Josh Marshall
Tommy Thompson: Big Idiot?
In my post yesterday about the Republican debate in Iowa, I said I thought that Tommy Thompson was supposed to be a "sharp guy." And that because of that purported sharpness I was surprised that his answer to one of the questions about Iraq was one of the stupidest and more ignorant things I've heard on the subject in some time.
Well, a lot of TPM Readers in Wisconsin beg to differ. Like TPM Reader RK, for instance ...
My drink nearly came out my nose when I read your remark about Tommy Thompson (he's supposed to be a "sharp guy"). Those of us who have lived with him for decades here in Wisconsin know his reputation for being a mental midget, a clown, an inarticulate moron. I don't know where you're getting your impression, but -- as much as I love and respect you -- I can't share it.
We got several other emails in a similar vein. And I got the sense this wasn't your garden variety not liking a guy because you don't like his politics but a more considered appraisal that the man is in fact a doofus and a buffoonish moron.
So where did I get this idea? I think the root of my misapprehension is the sense I had back in the 1990s that as Governor of Wisconsin Thompson was something of an innovator in the world of conservative social policy -- with things like school vouchers, welfare reform and health insurance provision. I think I also had the impression that Thompson was someone who was interested in this stuff at the level of substance and because of that I jumped to the conclusion -- a flawed leap in light of what I'm hearing now -- that Thompson was a sharp guy when in fact he may be a real boob.
Late Update: Another TPM Reader dissents ...
As a news volunteer at Madison's community radio station, WORT, I interviewed Tommy Thompson when he was minority leader of the Wisconsin Assembly. I found him articulate, funny and charming, even though I knew even then (circa 1985) that Thompson was an early version of Newt Gingrich. I don't think Thompson is stupid, but I think that, like Mike Gravel, he humors himself by speaking unedited. He thinks this makes him authentic. As governor of Wisconsin, he came across as a clumsy, folksy gadfly, which was part of his political schtick. Something he probably copied from Proxmire, but which Proxmire did with much more actual authenticity.Thompson's brother, who ran for governor last time as a libertarian, is an even more extreme gadfly. Pretty funny, but not taken seriously.
My brother who still lives near Lacrosse hates Thompson with a passion, quoting him shouting, "WisCONsin, where eagles soar and Harleys roar!!!"
As for all the Republican innovative policy clap trap -- that was rolled out by the Heritage, Bradley and Olin foundations. Thompson was smart enough to get out of the way.
Still, I wouldn't mind sitting around the Memorial Union's Rathskeller and sharing a pitcher or two with Thompson, not that I'd ever consider voting for him. Given how he came across in the interview, Thompson would probably be down for that.
Even Later Update: TPM's Eric Kleefeld, guest-hosting at Andrew Sullivan's site, takes us deeper into the Thompson: Doofus or Policy Wonk? debate.
--Josh Marshall
Some For My Homies
I've only just now caught up on watching all of the 26 videos we produced at YearlyKos over the weekend, so I suspect you might be a bit behind, too. In case you don't have time to watch them all, some favorites of mine you might have missed:
The distinguished Juan Cole calls the DailyKos community his "homies":
Max Blumenthal, of videoblogging fame, explains the Freud-on-steroids method to his wonderful madness:
Time's Jay Carney woos the netroots and attacks the pseudononymous all at once:
And finally, debate moderator Matt Bai gives his postgame take on the debate and explains how he achieved netroots cred:
We had a grand time. Thanks to everyone who chatted with us and to TPMtv leader Ben Craw for his tireless editing.
--Andrew Golis
Obama and Edwards hit Clinton over YearlyKos lobbyists flap. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Noise or Change?
From USA Today ...
USA TODAY's Susan Page reports that President Bush is making some headway in arguing that the increase in U.S. troops in Iraq is showing military progress.In the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, taken Friday through Sunday, the proportion of those who said the additional troops are "making the situation better" rose to 31% from 22% a month ago. Those who said it was "not making much difference" dropped to 41% from 51%.
About the same number said it was making things worse: 24% now, 25% a month ago.
--Josh Marshall
Clinton on Lobbyists
Over the weekend we brought you scenes from the Yearly Kos presidential candidates forum. But we've had a lot of call for the specific snippet where Hillary Clinton defends taking contributions from lobbyists ...
--Josh Marshall
Money, Money, Money
If you're trying to keep up on the political money race or just who some friend or neighbor or enemy is giving money to, check out Huffingtonpost's new Fundrace engine.
--Josh Marshall
Campaign Email or Horror Flick Promo?
Just out from the Romney Campaign ...
One family, 99 counties … and a Winnebago. As the Ames Straw Poll rapidly approaches, join the Romneys as they trek across Iowa in the famous Mitt Mobile.
--Josh Marshall
GOP St. Legislator: Fear of Black Man Made Me Pay for Blowjob!
You remember a little while back we brought you the story of Florida McCain campaign co-chair, Rep. Bob Allen (R). Right 
on the heels of Giuliani Southern Regional Chairman David Vitter's exposure as a serial user of prostitutes, Allen got caught in a Titusville park restroom offering to pay an undercover police officer to allow him to perform oral sex on him.
Now it turns out that Allen revealed the true reason for the alleged park-john-offer in a tape recorded statement he made just after his arrest.
"This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park," said Allen, according to this article in the Orlando Sentinel. Allen went on to say he was afraid of becoming a "statistic."
I guess this raises the question of whether if you thought you were about to get mugged by a group of stocky black guys, your first plan of escape would be to try to give one of them a blowjob. But I guess maybe you had to be there.
In any case, we now have this further account of the negotiation from the police report ...
In a written statement released Thursday, Titusville Officer Danny Kavanaugh recalled entering the restroom twice and said he was drying his hands in a stall when Allen peered over the stall door.After peering over the stall a second time, Allen pushed open the door and joined Kavanaugh inside, the officer wrote. Allen muttered " 'hi,' " and then said, " 'this is kind of a public place, isn't it,' " the report said.
The officer said he asked Allen about going somewhere else and that the legislator suggested going "across the bridge, it's quieter over there."
"Well look, man, I'm trying to make some money; you think you can hook me up with 20 bucks?" Kavanaugh asked Allen.
The officer said Allen responded, "Sure, I can do that, but this place is too public."
Then Kavanaugh said he told Allen, "I wanna know what I gotta do for 20 bucks before we leave.' " He said Allen replied: "I don't know what you're into."
According to Kavanaugh's statement, the officer said, "do you want just [oral sex]?" and Allen replied, "I was thinking you would want one."
The officer said he then asked Allen, "but you'll still give me the 20 bucks for that . . . and that the legislator said, "yeah, I wouldn't argue with that."
As Allen turned and motioned for the officer to follow him to his car, Kavanaugh identified himself as a police officer by raising his shirt and exposing his badge.
--Josh Marshall
Bear Any Burden, Bum Out Any Dictator
Another priceless moment in the GOP Iowa debate was the exchange about Sen. Obama's pledge to take military action within Pakistan if necessary to kill Osama bin Laden and other high-value al Qaeda leaders. As in other cases I noted below, it was another case of the candidates forced to tie themselves in pretzels because they're saddled with President Bush's legacy of a mix of rhetorical belligerence, strategic misadventure and unwillingness to actually strike at al Qaeda when given a chance.
Rudy Giuliani felt compelled to recant an earlier statement supporting Obama's point. And the consensus from him and the rest of the candidates appeared to be that of course the US would take such an opportunity to strike (even though President Bush hadn't) but that it was the height of naiveté to announce that we would do so. And that in any case, you shouldn't say such a thing because of the importance of maintaining ties with our friends and allies -- even ones who have our prime terrorist foes operating from on their soil.
Here you have again the perfect image of the inverted world of Bush loyalism. Any price to fight non-al Qaeda in Iraq. But don't go overboard against real al Qaeda in Pakistan. And especially don't get them upset by talking about it in public.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: Hillary Clinton Breaks Out at Yearly Kos
Along with Saturday's big Presidential Leadership Forum at Yearly Kos in Chicago, each of the Democratic 2008 candidates held individual crowd Q&A sessions, or "breakout sessions." We'll be bringing you highlights of Barack Obama's and John Edwards' breakout sessions later in the week, but in today's episode of TPMtv we bring you the highlights from Senator Hillary Clinton's session ...
--Ben Craw
Congressman Steve Kagen sits down at TPMCafe's Table for One to explain why he doesn't have health care, and how every citizen can.
--Andrew Golis
GOP in Idle
Yesterday evening I watched a recording of Sunday's Republican debate in Iowa, which ran on ABC's This Week show. All the current candidates were there, with the exception of Fred Thompson, who of course isn't even in the race.
I learned a few things.
The first is that beside being a monumental phoney and most canned politician in history, Mitt Romney can be quite articulate and appears to be fairly knowledgeable on domestic policy questions like health care and taxation. You learn something new every day.
The second is that Rudy Giuliani seems to know next to nothing about virtually every national policy issue -- ironically, given his campaign presentation, though not so odd if you consider his actual career in office, he knows more about domestic policy than foreign policy.
The third is just how weak this field really is -- something I knew but hadn't seen yet quite so up close. I can't imagine that a sentient Republican could have watched that 90 minutes and not been at least quietly aghast. McCain, who is the only person on the stage with real national stature, comes off as a crushed man, almost pained. But the issue isn't so much that most of them don't seem up to the challenge of being president. It is more that the political climate and the state of the Republican party in general makes their answers to most questions either off-balance, awkward or completely incoherent.
The discussion of Iraq was the case in point. Only two guys on the stage had anything remotely coherent to say on the subject -- McCain and Paul. Brownback was better than the rest, but not by that much. There was actually a relatively lengthy statement on the topic by Tommy Thompson (who's actually supposed to be a sharp guy) that had to be one of the most nonsensical and factually-challenged things I've heard on the subject to date -- the highlight was how Iraq has already been divided into 18 separate states so partition into three states is unworkable.
I'm not saying they're stupid. But watching these forums, you can see that George Bush has left the ideological and policy furniture of the GOP in such a shambles that these guys can't even find a place to stand or pivot on to an issue of choice.
Then there was the exchange on the nation's infrastructure and how to get money to repair bridges before they fall into various lakes, rivers and bays. Giuliani, trying to prove his national conservative credentials, claimed that the best way to raise money to repair the nation's bridges was to cut taxes. This is, I dare say, a caricature of supply-side economics, which admittedly was always something of a caricature in itself.
Romney's moments of articulateness came in moments when he was pulling the dialog back from digressions into utter fantasy.
Mine is of course an interested view of Republican party politics. But I think I have some basic read on its relative vitality at different points in time. And this struck me as about as ragged and threadbare as I've seen. Watching Sunday morning's Republican debate was like watching a car struggling to get out of idle, with each of the contenders carting out one of more cliches but unable to do much with them. Only McCain and Paul are willing to say anything about Iraq. When Giuliani gets asked about Iraq he carts out these complete non-sequiturs about how the Democrats refuse to use the phrase 'Islamic terrorism'.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
A kind of must read of must reads -- The New Yorker's look inside the CIA's "black sites."
--Paul Kiel
Report: Top Virginia Republicans think GOP Senator John Warner will retire, leaving his seat ripe for a pickup by another man named Warner -- a Democrat named Mark. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Best Line from the Feeble GOP Iowa Debate
It's sort of obvious now that he said it. But I had not quite thought of it that way. The same people now continually raising the stakes on the price of redeployment from Iraq with increasingly lurid tales of genocide, ethnic cleansing and regional implosion are pretty much exactly the same people who gamed us into this mess in the first place with another bunch of fairy tales.
Check out Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) from the GOP Iowa debate ...
I know there's something of a bipartisan Ron Paul cult springing up online. And I'm not joining. But I can see why it's there. It's not just a matter of whether you think he's right on the issues. He's pretty much the only guy on the stage who is making coherent points. I watched the debate this evening. And I was actually a bit shocked at just how weak and scattered the GOP field is -- a topic I'll discuss in more depth tomorrow morning.
--Josh Marshall
Dept. of Unintended Consequences
When congressional earmarks flourished under the GOP majority, Dems set out to change how the system operated. The straightforward key to reform: transparency. If a lawmaker wants an earmark, he or she has to attach their name to the proposed project, disclose which entity will get the money, and declare that they have no financial stake in the expenditure.
The idea behind the open process was to shame lawmakers into responsible behavior -- if everyone knows who wants what, there's less chance of abuse. At least, that was the idea.
Eight months after Democrats vowed to shine light on the dark art of "earmarking" money for pet projects, many lawmakers say the new visibility has only intensified the competition for projects by letting each member see exactly how many everyone else is receiving.
So far this year, House lawmakers have put together spending bills that include almost 6,500 earmarks for almost $11 billion in local projects, only half of which the Bush administration supported. [...]
Far from causing embarrassment, the new transparency has raised the value of earmarks as a measure of members' clout. Indeed, lawmakers have often competed to have their names attached to individual earmarks and rushed to put out press releases claiming credit for the money they bring home.
This is not to say there's been no progress. In 2005, the Republican-led spending process produced 16,000 earmarks, so there has been a 60% decrease from the GOP excesses.
But as it turns out, lawmakers like to brag about delivering for the constituents, and disclosure isn't exactly a deterrent. As Yglesias put it, "After all, what member of congress wants it to be public knowledge that he's in the bottom 20 quintile in terms of brining home the bacon?"
--Steve Benen
In every state except Maine and Nebraska, electoral votes are winner-take-all. It makes California, with 55 electoral votes, the nation's top prize -- it has more than one fifth of the votes needed to win the election.
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter notes that a Republican-led effort in the Golden State seeks to change the system, and make it easier for the GOP candidate to take a chunk of California's 55 votes.
Instead of laboring in vain to turn California Red, a clever lawyer for the state Republican Party thought of a gimmicky shortcut. Thomas Hiltachk, who specializes in ballot referenda that try to fool people in the titles and fine print, is sponsoring a ballot initiative for the June 3, 2008, California primary (which now falls four months after the state's presidential primary).
The Presidential Election Reform Act would award the state's electoral votes based on who wins each congressional district. Had this idea been in effect in 2004, Bush would have won 22 electoral votes from California, about the same number awarded the winners of states like Illinois or Pennsylvania. In practical terms, adopting the initiative would mean that the Democratic candidate would likely have to win both Ohio and Florida in 2008 (instead of one or the other) to be elected.
Hiltachk, who is lying low for now, is a former campaign lawyer for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor's office says Schwarzenegger has no position on the initiative and "had absolutely nothing to do with its development." But whichever way Schwarzenegger goes, several GOP presidential candidates and their financial backers have already offered to help boost the plan. Just interested in good government? They've shown a curious lack of interest in backing the same idea in Red States.
Is the measure likely to pass? Californian Kevin Drum believes it's unlikely, but adds that Dems will probably have to spend quite a bit to ensure its defeat (which is probably the point of the initiative).
--Steve Benen
TPMtv Interviews Senator Chris Dodd
Following Saturday's Presidential Leadership Forum at YearlyKos, each of the '08 candidates branched off to separate rooms for individual Q&A sessions with the crowd. We'll have footage of many of these sessions for you later in the week, but for now we present to you our interview with Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), who was kind enough to give us some time following his session:
--Ben Craw
Getting shrill
I suppose it was bound to raise eyebrows when, in the midst of the YearlyKos convention, John Edwards said, "We're about to enter the seventh year of this phony war...and we're losing."
What's more, Fox News is bound to play up remarks from Barack Obama, who noted that a black male in Detroit is more likely to go to prison than graduate from high school -- and the GOP doesn't care. "How can we tolerate systems more likely to send young Americans to prison than college?" Obama asked. "Republicans have this maniacally dumb idea of Red versus Blue. They say, Detroit is a blue place, so we're not going to go there."
Chris Dodd, meanwhile, will no doubt get hammered by the right for arguing that instead of the current counter-terrorism strategy, we should focus on energy independence. "We have to have a national energy strategy, which basically says to the Saudis, 'We're not going to rely on you.'"
And Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, took the opportunity to blast the Republican Party's basic approach to government. "Republican political doctrine has been a failure," she said. "Look at New Orleans. How can you say that was a success? Look at Baghdad... I don't think you can look around and say that was a great success."
Wait, did I say Democrats at YearlyKos? Actually, all of these comments came from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, during a speech at the Young America's Foundation National Conservative Student Conference in DC.
My mistake.
--Steve Benen
TPMtv Interviews the AP's Ron Fournier
Last night I linked to what I called a "heavily editorializing" piece on Yearly Kos by Ron Fournier, political editor of the Associated Press. Here's our interview of him for TPMtv. A lot of reporters you see a lot on television. But whether by accident or design (don't know if they have a policy on it) you seldom see AP reporters on the chat shows, even though they have a powerful influence on the news ...
--Josh Marshall
There were two debates this weekend among the Dem and GOP Presidential candidates. We have highlights from both in today's Election Central Sunday Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
This morning's Republican presidential candidate debate in Iowa was a relatively low-key affair, but this was one of the more unusual exchanges of the event. Following a question about ending the war in Iraq:
"Just come home," dissented Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the lone advocate of a quick troop withdrawal on a presidential campaign debate stage. He said there had never been a good reason to go to war in the first place.
"Has he forgotten about 9/11?" interjected former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Romney didn't make clear why the attacks of Sept. 11 justify the war in Iraq, but he seemed oddly pleased with himself for making the comment.
It helps make clear why poll results like these are not at all surprising.
...Iowa GOP voters are expressing limited enthusiasm for the field of current and potential aspirants, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Their views appear to be a microcosm of GOP sentiment across the country and point to a wide open battle for the nomination.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has emerged as the early leader in the campaign for Iowa. But his support is both soft and shallow, suggesting that the Republican race in the state, as nationally, remains extremely fluid.
Just 19 percent of likely GOP caucus attendees said they were "very satisfied" with the field of candidates -- far below satisfaction levels among Iowa Democrats -- and poll respondents were badly fractured when asked to rate the candidates on political and personal attributes.
Republican voters have plenty of candidates, with various ideologies and temperaments, to choose from, but at least in Iowa, the vast majority looks at the GOP field and says, "Is this it?"
It helps explain why "none of the above" does so well among the GOP faithful.
--Steve Benen
From Defense Secretary Robert Gates' interview on "Meet the Press" this morning:
Russert: You mentioned that we misunderestimated [sic] some of the divisions between the factions in the [Iraqi] government, the Shiites and the Sunnis. Mr. Secretary, for Americans watching today, many are saying to themselves, "The administration was wrong about weapons of mass destruction, wrong about the size of the force necessary to occupy Iraq, wrong about the costs of the war, wrong about Shiite and Sunni division. Why should we have any confidence in what they say about the future of Iraq?"
Gates: Well, what I think we should have confidence in is the evaluation that Ambassador Crocker and Gen. Petraeus are going to make in early September. These men have been on the ground for quite some time now; they are best of our professionals; they will look at this.
First, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Bush administration.
Second, this notion of putting the onus on Petraeus is misguided. As Wesley Clark explained at YearlyKos on Friday, Petraeus is executing the president's Iraq policy, not the other way around. "Mr. President we're not questioning the generals, we're questioning you," Clark said. "Stop hiding behind Dave Petraeus and come out and defend your strategy. It's your strategy. You defend it."
And third, "misunderestimated"? Has the president really had this kind of impact on our discourse?
--Steve Benen
Caroline Fredrickson, the Washington legislative director for the ACLU, said the other day that Democrats "have a Pavlovian reaction: Whenever the president says the word 'terrorism,' they roll over and play dead."
It's obviously not all Dems. In giving the president sweeping new surveillance powers, 16 Dems broke ranks in the Senate and 41 in the House. The New York Times explained their motivation.
[W]ith the Senate already in recess, Democrats confronted the choice of allowing the administration's bill to reach the floor and be approved mainly by Republicans or letting it die.
If it had stalled, that would have left Democratic lawmakers, long anxious about appearing weak on national security issues, facing an August spent fending off charges from Republicans that they had left Americans exposed to threats.
I'm curious, these Dems realize that Republicans are going to call them "weak on terror" anyway, right?
--Steve Benen
TPMtv Bags its first '08er
TPMtv is very pleased and very proud to present its first official interview of a 2008 presidential candidate. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Senator Mike Gravel:
Stay tuned for our interview with another '08 candidate later in the day.
--Ben Craw
Jeers and Cheers
More Presidential Leadership Forum for you - Governor Bill Richardson drew some of the more pronounced boos (and hisses) of the afternoon for uttering the 3 words "balanced budget amendment." Check it out:
And Senator Chris Dodd drew some of the loudest cheers for a deft Murdoch-O'Reilly double slam:
--Ben Craw
Steve Clemons on Bush's 'High Fear World'
Here's a quick interview with my dear, dear friend Steve Clemons just after he was on a panel at Yearly Kos with Peter Beinart. Like a lot of our interviews it's a fun snapshot of the convention, but listen to Steve's point about the big issue facing the world today in the wake of Bush's calamitous presidency. This is an extremely good point. The dangers facing us in the world today are about a lot more than just Iraq ...
--Josh Marshall
