Ritzy Rudy
Over at TNR's The Stump blog 
I see my pal Michael Crowley has dug up this June 2006 issue of "Hampton Style" magazine with Rudy and Judi on the cover. The article is on Judi "First Lady of the Hamptons".
Perhaps someone can help me though. All I can find is this lame low-res image of the cover. Now, I know TPM has a few readers in the Hamptons set. And someone must have an original of this issue. Like I said, I think it's June 2006. If you've got it, could you drop me a line? A scan would be great. But if you have it, just shoot me an email.
We'll do lunch. My people will talk to your people ...
--Josh Marshall
Hevesi?
A number of you have written in why the Judi car on the city dime isn't landing Rudy in the same kind of trouble that ended state comptroller Alan Hevesi's career. We addressed this a couple days ago. The law in question appears to apply only to state officeholders. More details here.
--Josh Marshall
Now's When It Gets Interesting
The new Des Moines Register poll has Mike Huckabee in the lead in Iowa by a 5 point margin.
Huckabee 29%
Romney 24%
Giuliani 13%
Thompson 9%
McCain 7%
Paul 7%
Tancredo 6%
On the Dem side, Obama's in front but by a slightly smaller margin ...
Obama 28%
Clinton 25%
Edwards 23%
Richardson 9%
Biden 6%
Remember too that there's a significant wildcard factor in the caucus system. It's not a straight one person one vote. People meet at their caucus locations and candidates with less than I believe 15% of caucus-goers at that caucus have to either switch to another candidate or into an uncommitted group. The key point is that who peoples' second choice may be can have a powerful effect on the outcome -- one not necessarily revealed just by looking at a conventional poll.
In this case, the top two Republicans and the top three Dems each appear well over 15% support. But remember, that's statewide. In individual caucuses you're going to have a lot variation. Especially on the Democratic side, the second choice could be key.
--Josh Marshall
The fine art of planted questions
If a Democrat asks a question at a debate for Republican presidential candidates, far-right activists reflexively (and incoherently) define this as a "planted" question.
But to really appreciate what a "plant" looks like, you'll have to turn to the Bush administration.
For example, once the Bush gang's initial rationale for the war in Iraq was exposed as a fraud, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice launched a public-relations campaign to shield herself from the fiasco (Rice frequently went on national television to tout the notion that we can't wait to be sure Iraq is a threat, because we "don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud").
According to the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler, Rice's strategy included ordering an aide to "plant a question" about her possible presidential ambitions.
She had a very deliberative public relations strategy when she became Secretary of State to help erase the images of how ineffective she had been as National Security Adviser. And I describe how one of her aides even planted a question with a friendly journalist to ask whether she would be interested in running for president -- to give her the aura of someone who might have presidential aspirations, make her seem more powerful than she was.
And that all helped negate American memories over her very direct role in the invasion of Iraq.
Now that's a planted question.
--Steve Benen
Bush to slash counter-terrorism funds
The White House has struggled for quite a while when it comes to disbursing federal funds to municipalities for counter-terrorism. In 2006, for example, the Bush administration, slashed money for Washington, D.C., and New York City using a bizarre grant process that no one could explain. At the same time, the administration released a risk scorecard for NYC that concluded that the home of the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, and Brooklyn Bridge has "zero" national monuments or icons.
Yesterday, however, the Bush gang decided the entire grant process is no longer worth the investment, and it would now slash counter-terrorism funds even more.
The Bush administration intends to slash counterterrorism funding for police, firefighters and rescue departments across the country by more than half next year, according to budget documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The Homeland Security Department has given $23 billion to states and local communities to fight terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the administration is not convinced that the money has been well spent and thinks the nation's highest-risk cities have largely satisfied their security needs.
The department wanted to provide $3.2 billion to help states and cities protect against terrorist attacks in 2009, but the White House said it would ask Congress for less than half -- $1.4 billion, according to a Nov. 26 document.
The plan calls outright elimination of programs for port security, transit security, and local emergency management operations in the next budget year. This is President Bush's last budget, and the new administration would have to live with the funding decisions between Jan. 20 and Sept. 30, 2009.
I'm trying to imagine the Republican response if a Democratic presidential candidate proposed a budget policy similar to Bush's plan. I have a strong hunch we'd hear words like "traitor" and "treason" thrown around quite a bit.
How bad is it? Even Joe Lieberman thinks Bush is off-track.
In a joint statement, Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairman and ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said they "urge the administration to reconsider this wrong-headed strategy."
Stay tuned.
--Steve Benen
Signing statements make a comeback
Throughout his first six years in office, Bush had a habit of signing congressional legislation into law, but using "signing statements" to explain which parts of the law he didn't feel like following.
Fortunately, the president curtailed the practice this year, sticking with the more traditional sign-or-veto approach embraced by his predecessors. That is, until recently. The Boston Globe's Charlie Savage, whose award-winning coverage of the issue has been a journalistic highlight of the last seven years, has the story.
President Bush this month issued his first signing statement since the Democratic takeover of Congress, reserving the right to bypass 11 provisions in a military appropriations bill under his executive powers.
In the statement, which the White House filed in the Federal Register on Nov. 13 but which initially attracted little attention, Bush challenged several requirements to provide information to Congress.
For example, one law Bush targeted requires him to give oversight committees notice before transferring US military equipment to United Nations peacekeepers.
Bush also challenged a new law that limits his ability to transfer funds lawmakers approved for one purpose to start a different program, as well as a law requiring him to keep in place an existing command structure for the Navy's Pacific fleet.
Bush thought enough of the bill to sign it into law, but not quite enough of it to obey all of the bill's provisions. He's picky that way.
--Steve Benen
Worst. Week. Ever.
It's inevitable that presidential candidates will experience a certain ebb and flow as the process unfolds, but can we all agree that Rudy Giuliani has seen the worst week of any candidate in recent memory?
On Monday, Bloomberg News reported that Giuliani, despite railing against congressional earmarks on the campaign stump, and pledging to "get rid of" lawmakers' pet projects if elected, actually "sought federal earmarks for 14 companies this year, 11 of which hired [Bracewell & Giuliani] after Giuliani joined in March 2005." Republican consultant Eddie Mahe responded, "It's a bit hypocritical."
On Tuesday, Giuliani attended a campaign fundraiser hosted by a "man convicted in a notorious corruption case." An embarrassed Giuliani "came and went from last night's fundraiser without comment, ducking down in his car as ABC News cameras attempted to photograph him arriving."
On Wednesday morning, a new batch of polls show Giuliani's support fading in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Shag Fund scandal broke.
On Thursday, while the Shag Fund scandal gathers steam, we learn that Giuliani's private security firm provided security consulting and advice in Qatar through contracts overseen by Sheik Abdullah Bin Khalid al-Thani, who is suspected of close ties to Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Osama bin Laden.
On Friday, the New York Times' Michael Cooper reported that Giuliani cites a series of statistics in his stump speech, most of which "are incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong."
On Saturday, the Washington Post's conservative editorial board noted that Giuliani's new TV ad is patently ridiculous, premised on tax policy assumptions that even the Bush White House rejects as foolish.
All the while, Giuliani and his aides try one defense after another for the Shag Fund scandal, none of which makes any sense.
Don't worry, Rudy, there's always next week.
--Steve Benen
Shag Fund consequences?
The scandal is still fairly new, so it may be a little early to see how the Shag Fund scandal will affect Rudy Giuliani's poll numbers, but Republicans are apparently aware of it. Campaigning in South Carolina yesterday, Giuliani was spared humiliating questions, but there was "grumbling" among voters.
None in the crowd asked him about the billing disclosures during the event, although some grumbled about it beforehand.
"I don't think that's proper," said Paul Schaefer, 79, who is trying to decide between Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain. In a close call, the security detail flap could make up his mind, he said.
Time will tell if Mr. Schaefer is representative of a larger GOP trend, but I'd just add that Giuliani's standing in the future's markets took a sharp and sudden drop on Wednesday afternoon. It's probably not a coincidence.
--Steve Benen
Rove against the world
Last week, in one of his more breathtaking lies, Karl Rove told a national television audience that it was Congress, not the Bush White House, that pushed for an Iraq war resolution in advance of the 2002 midterm elections. Rove said the administration was "opposed" to moving "too fast," and that the president and his aides wanted the debate "outside the confines of the election."
Since then, there's been one thing everyone, on both sides of the aisle, can agree on: Rove is lying. Then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said Rove either has "a very faulty memory, or he's not telling the truth," a sentiment echoed by then-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt's office.
Rove's former colleagues are just as blunt. Former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card not only said Rove is wrong, but added, "[S]ometimes his mouth gets ahead of his brain." Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer concluded, "I think Karl in this instance just has his facts wrong." Former Bush counselor Dan Bartlett added, "This is the first time I've ever heard Karl say that."
Confronted with this reality, Karl Rove did what we'd expect him to do: he repeated the lie as if reality had no meaning.
Rove repeated his assertion in an interview yesterday, pointing to comments made by Democrats in 2002 that they wanted a vote. "For Democrats to suggest they didn't want to vote on it before the election is disingenuous," he said.
Rove could have very easily explained that he misspoke during his interview last week, or misunderstood the question. But not this guy -- he lied, got caught, was thrown under the bus by his former colleagues, and then went back and repeated the lie all over again.
For what it's worth, the Washington Post did a report on this, but was reluctant to use the "f" word ("false), or the "l" word ("lie"). Greg Sargent explains.
--Steve Benen
Shag By Proxy
Apparently the two police detectives and undercover police vehicle put at Judi Nathan's disposal for travel around the city when she was still Rudy's mistress were routinely forced to ferry Nathan's friends and family around the city as well.
--Josh Marshall
Do Take That Call!
Okay, point of publisher's privilege. Please indulge me.
One of our favorite stories of 2007 was Sen. Lisa Murkowski's (R-AK) sweetheart, half-price vacation house deal from Alaska sportsfishing mogul Bob Penney. It was some great shoe-leather investigative reporting by TPMmuckraker.com alum Laura McGann.
Well, this week Murkowski sat down with the editorial board of the Alaska Daily News and among other things they asked her what she'd learned from the land deal experience.
Her answer?
Shouldn't have blown off that call from TPMmuckraker.com. As the ADN editors described it ...
She gave a lame answer about what lessons she learned from the controversy over her now-canceled purchase of a Kenai River waterfront lot from Bob Penney, a wealthy sportfish activist and campaign contributor who is also a family friend. She suggested her biggest mistake was blowing off the first media inquiry about it, because it came from an unfamiliar web organization with "muckraker" in the title.
If you click this link they actually have audio of her answer, which is a good deal funnier than the description.
For what it's worth, Murkowski pretty clearly turns out to be the honest and ethical member of the Alaska congressional delegation. But it's not too high a bar since the other two members of the delegation, Sen. Stevens (R) and Rep. Young (R), are both under criminal investigation for various corruption.
For a fun trip down memory lane ...
--Josh Marshall
Shag Fund -- It's on Us!
Yesterday, every reporter who wanted a copy, was allowed to go down to City Hall and pick up copies of the city financial records that were the basis of the original Shag Fund report in the Politico.com. That's how we found out about the weird $400,000 prepayment to American Express, which appears to have been yet another method of taking city money and running it through enough buckets that it could be used for pretty much anything Rudy and his crew wanted to use it for. Some stuff legit, other stuff pretty questionable. The Daily News asked top Giuliani advisor Anthony Carbonetti about the prepayment and were told that, "it's fiscally responsible to anticipate predictable expenses and prepay them."
In other words, I guess fiscal responsibility can mean a lot of things.
In any case, this was a pretty thick stack of paper. Our muck crew actually spent pretty much the whole trying to make sense of it. (We actually broke in a new intern yesterday working exclusive on the Shag Fund accounting project, who did a great job.) We focused on the accounting methods while the city dailies focused more on what was actually paid for. So, from looking at their articles this morning, we can get yet a fuller picture.
The Shag Fund not only paid for the 11 tryst visits to Hamptons.
-- It paid for hotel and other expenses for mayoral aides -- in addition to the security detail -- who also went with the mayor to the Hamptons on the tryst weekends.
-- Nathan's NYPD-chauffeured trips (without Rudy) to visit her parents in Pennsylvania, 130 miles outside the city.
-- NYPD detectives and city-owned undercover Dodge to drive Nathan around the city.
-- NYPD detectives and city-owned undercover Dodge to drive Nathan's friends and family around the city even when she wasn't in the car.
-- NYPD security detail for Nathan, personally approved by Bernard Kerik.
-- NYPD cops to walk Nathan's dog.
--Josh Marshall
Might Help Get Shag Fund Off the Front Page?
Turns out Rudy's security firm has done extensive work for a Qatari government official suspected of harboring the guy who planned 9/11.
--Josh Marshall
That Your Final Answer?
Hmmm. Ray Kelly, who was Police Commissioner right before and right after the Rudy era, says he never heard about any of the reimbursement delays that Team Rudy has been using to explain the squirrelly accounting procedures.
--Josh Marshall
Breaking: Hostages Held At Clinton Campaign Office
Reports out of New Hampshire indicate an armed man has taken hostages at a Clinton campaign office in Rochester.
Clinton herself was not present.
Man reportedly has bomb strapped to himself, according to a hostage who was released with her baby.
Sen. Clinton has canceled her scheduled appearance at the DNC meeting in Virginia.
Late Update: Reports remain conflicting about how many hostages have been released thus far but it appears to be that a total of three, plus a baby, have been released.
More soon.
--David Kurtz
Journalism, What a Concept
As you can see we're wall to wall, double-ply Shag today. But don't miss this piece by Glenn Greenwald comparing the Times excellent analysis of Rudy's phony stats with the Post's Muslim Obama hack job.
--Josh Marshall
Rudy Not Taking Questions
Spinning Shag Fund ain't working, so the Rudy camp is going into press lockdown mode:
Giuliani, who is normally friendly to reporters, bristled past them, and campaign staffers were unusually physical in keeping the press away. Several campaign aides told campaign reporters to return to the press area, and some of his security detail manhandled reporters.
--David Kurtz
Simple Accounting Matter?
If the funds diversions at the center of the Shag Fund story was just an innocent accounting issue, why did Team Rudy start stonewalling city investigators on it as far back as 2001 when Rudy was still mayor?
--Josh Marshall
Muck-O-Rama Contest Update! Judges Revealed!
A week ago we brought you word of our end of the year Muck-O-Rama contest. Now you've given us your category suggestions and we're ready to announce those and move on to the next stage of the contest where you, the vast TPM readership, can submit nominations for excellence in muck, scandal and corruption and compete for your own prizes (quality TPM swag) for best nominations.
We'll be announcing the categories and rules later today.
But for now we wanted to let you know about the great panel of distinguished judges we've assembled who will sit in judgment on the year in muck that was 2007.
In choosing them, we were careful not only to pick potential muck jurists with the requisite wit, discernment and analytic heft to properly judge the muck. But we also wanted to assemble a panel with a diverse range of expertise suited to that range of muck (legal, literary, psycho-sexual, political, purely ridiculous) that came down the pike in 2007.
So without further ado, our panel is ...
Susie Bright, author, sexologist, analyst of erotic endeavors
John Dean, former Nixon White House Counsel, author, critic, columnist, muckster-turned-muckraker
Hendrik Hertzberg, essayist, political reporter, general TPM hero
Matthew Yglesias, blogger, representative of the rising generation, advocate of the typo-challenged
Dahlia Lithwick, law and legal affairs writer
We will be bringing you more exciting updates shortly. So get your nomination pens ready.
--Josh Marshall
The Irony of Shag
There's an irony emerging in the Shag Fund story. As is often the case, it's an irony Rudy isn't in a position to make much use of. But I think it's important to flesh it out.
Rudy's defense in all this has been that there's nothing wrong here because this Enron accounting he was using in the mayor's office wasn't specifically to conceal the Shag Fund. And we're getting the sense that he's right. At least in part.
It seems more likely in his final years and months as mayor Rudy was living larger and larger on the NYC dime. And a look at the book-keeping details that are emerging suggests a very conscious effort to use these squirrelly accounting techniques to hide Rudy's high-living ways from public scrutiny. Some of it was Shag Fund spending, but not all, probably not even most.
The problem is that even though the accounting techniques were part of a general effort to hide Rudy's living the high-life on the city's dime, it's now shined a bright light on the Shag Fund. And the Shag Fund was evidently spread more widely than the stuff accounted for with the squirrelly book-keeping.
Who paid for the city car and driver given to Judi while she was still Rudy's mistress?
Who paid for her security detail?
Why did she have one?
Does the city have to pay for travel and expenses for Rudy's wife and his mistress? Can't the budgeting be monogamous even if Rudy's not?
The point is that the effort to hide Rudy's mounting travel and high life expenses really does appear to have been a general practice, one not restricted to hiding the Shag Fund -- a point that Rudy's flacks are now trying to make, but one, as you can imagine, that isn't possible to make in a really straightforward way.
--Josh Marshall
Help Me Before I Bamboozle Again!
The New York Times comes through big time with an epic fact-check of Rudy's chronic bamboozling.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
So far, the "no explanation" explanation seems to be the best spin the Giuliani camp has for the Shag Fund.
--David Kurtz
Wall to Wall Shag
It's a key part of how we work every day. But sometimes I like to point it out explicitly and ask for your help. We're going to reporting all day today on the Shag Fund. But we really rely on you to let us know when new reports surface with key new details, in newspapers and websites large and small. We need your eyes to help us find the latest details. So when you see a new story break today, shoot us an email. Let us know.
--Josh Marshall
For New York's Finest
Earlier this evening we noted that the new line from the Giuliani camp is that the Shag Fund's convoluted financing was put in place to help the cops on Rudy's security detail. Giuliani spinmeister Joe Lohta told the AP that "was necessary because the police officers did not make a lot of money and their department took up to two months to repay them for their travel expenses. So Giuliani's office got a credit card and paid it off with funds from the various agencies."
Lohta gave a little more detail to Newsday. Lohta told the paper "the practice started when officers on his security detail complained that the police department was slow to reimburse them for rental cars and lodging."
Not to state the obvious again, but this doesn't tell us anything about why the expenses were squirreled away in the budgets of obscure city offices. It's non-responsive. But is it even true? I've basically got two-to-three reporters on this story. And I'm a pretty rough boss so I've got them working a bunch of other stuff too. But someone needs to find out who the cops were and just ask them: is that true? Is that how it happened?
So why were they squirreled away? The Times quotes Lhota as saying, "I’ve continued to try to find out." But he's not just some flack brought in to figure out the story. For part of Rudy's term he was the city budget director. It's a big city and there's a lot more to do than manage the Shag Fund. But he's still trying to find out?
--Josh Marshall
Honorable Mention for Shag Snark
Michael Granof, University of Texas government accounting expert: "On the face of it, I can't see any reason why the mayor's travel expenses should be allocated to the Loft Board, unless he is traveling to examine lofts in other cities."
--Josh Marshall
Shagonomics
Ed Koch's Budget Director Alaire Townsend on Shag Fund budgeting ...
"Money might get moved around within the mayor's office, but I don't know why an expense of the NYPD would get recorded that way unless you just didn't want people to find it."
--Josh Marshall
Message Advice for Rudy
I'm still trying to make sure I fully understand the New York Times article referenced below. But I think it's clear that Rudy's best defense at this point is that he didn't just use these accounting shenanigans to conceal the Shag Fund but also to conceal trips by his wife and purely political trips to Upstate New York.
But I guess that doesn't role off the tongue that easily.
--Josh Marshall
Light Amidst the Shag
The Times has an interesting piece on the Shag Fund.
One key point is that it wasn't just shagging expenses that got shifted to all these obscure NYC offices. From what I can tell, there was actually some legitimate travel: some political trips to upstate when Rudy was thinking he was going to run for senate and security for the second wife Donna Hanover when she traveled out of town.
I fear, though, that we are only rubbing the surface of the true Shag Fund in this incipient probe. Clearly there's the travel money -- billed to whatever NYC office -- used for trips and security for Rudy out at the Hamptons shags. But we also know now that while Rudy was conducting an extramarital affair with Judi he gave her her own NYPD car and driver to be squired around the city with. Where'd the money for that come from? He later assigned her her own security detail, though this did apparently come after he fired Donna Hanover as First Lady of NYC so he apparently yanked some of them from her and gave them to Judi. Where'd the money for that come from?
According to City Comptroller Bill Thompson, auditors from the Comptroller's office first started raising questions about Rudy's travel costs during his predecessor's tenure. Rudy folks basically told them to go jump in a lake. Then after Bloomberg came in they asked again. Bloomberg's office reviewed the matter, decided the payments were for legitimate security functions and then referred it on to the city Department of Investigation. From there ...
“We were told it that it was for security purposes, that it was used for legitimate security reasons,” Mr. Thompson said. “And once you get that assurance, particularly from not the same mayor’s office, but from a different mayor’s office, that they had taken a look, then we had no reason to believe that it wasn’t.”“Our biggest concern,” he continued, “was making sure there was no misappropriation.” Mr. Thompson said he had not heard anything further about the matter from the Department of Investigation, but said normal procedures would call for the agency to contact him only if it found something improper.
A spokeswoman for the agency declined to comment about the matter and would not say whether it had produced a closing memorandum, a standard practice in any investigation, saying it was “gathering the files related to the investigation.”
Yes, misappropriation of funds. Like setting your mistress up with a city car and police chauffeur? This, of course, wasn't part of the investigation. Or was there even one?
--Josh Marshall
Now That's a Character Witness!
Bernie Kerik vouches for Rudy on the Shag Fund (from the Times) ...
Bernard B. Kerik, who was Mr. Giuliani’s police commissioner when some of the charges were billed, said in an interview yesterday that the security detail’s travel expenses would normally come out of the Police Department’s budget.“There would be no need for anyone to conceal his detail’s travel expenses,” said Mr. Kerik, who was indicted earlier this month on unrelated federal tax fraud and corruption charges. “And I think It’s ridiculous for anyone to suggest that the mayor or his staff attempted to do so.”
Well that settles that, right?
When Bernie's vouching for Rudy and not vice versa you know someone's slippin' fast.
--Josh Marshall
Dream Candidate
Pretty impressive. On pollster.com's poll of pollsters, you've got Fred Thompson pulling down a tidy 2.8% in New Hampshire. Guy's on fire.
--Josh Marshall
The Right Question
Just out from Ben Smith at The Politico:
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his senior aides Thursday blamed anonymous bookkeepers for his administration's practice of billing the travel expenses for his personal security detail to obscure city agencies.But a top aide was unable to say why Giuliani’s administration and his successor's rebuffed questions from the city's top fiscal watchdog in 2001 and 2002. City Comptroller William Thompson said Thursday his auditors were “stonewalled” by the Giuliani administration when they inquired about the unusual billing procedures, which he called "disturbing."
Instead, Giuliani and his aides focused their attention on the issue of whether the unlikely divisions of the mayor's office had been reimbursed — not why the expenses were billed to out-of-the-way agencies such as the New York City Loft Board in the first place.
That is the key question: Why did the expenses of Rudy's security get billed out to obscure agencies within the mayor's office in the first place?
There's no question that public funds were used to pay for Rudy's security detail while he was out on Long Island rendezvousing with Judith Nathan. One way or the other, it was either paid by the mayor's office or by the NYPD. No one disputes that, not even Rudy. No one cares which pocket the public funds came out of. What everyone cares about--and what The Politico's reporting so far seems to suggest--is that the expenses were scattered among various agencies so as to obscure Rudy's illicit activities and the expenses associated with them.
That's the question. But Rudy's campaign won't answer it and Rudy himself is not getting asked it by the likes of Anderson Cooper or Katie Couric. So he skates for another day.
--David Kurtz
That's $%#@&% Up
Okay, I apologize for this non-Shag Fund post. But this is pretty extraordinary. I'm on Facebook. And I haven't noticed this. Maybe because I don't buy enough stuff online. But according to this article in the Times, they've got it set up now where your "friends" are notified about what you buy online -- presumably by some modern equivalent of cookies. So you get pinged "Josh bought 'Jack's Big Music Show DVD" from Blahblah.com!
And you can't disable the function apparently. [ed.note: Usually I get tips and corrections from readers. In this case it came from my wife. Apparently you can opt out. But not in general. You have to opt out on every single purchase. A box comes up when you buy something and asks "Would you like to tell your friends on Facebook about your purchase of this Large Vibrating Egg (TM)?' So I think my disgruntlement still applies.]
Doing what I do I live my life with a certain amount of transparency. But I think I might actually close my account just based on the intrusiveness of it. Am I just an old fuddy-duddy?
And as long as we're on the topic, if you're a parent of a young child like I am, what's your favorite tv show for them. I was pretty partial to my childhood favorite Sesame Street. But I think I've now got to give the prize to Jack's Big Music Show.
Any kindred spirits out there?
Late Update: Seems Facebook has now given in.
--Josh Marshall
NYC Comptroller: Nice Try, Rudy
ABC's got a further run-down on the latest on the Shag Fund.
One nice detail. They had a conversation with NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson, the first guy to stumble across Rudy's book keeping shenanigans. In response to Rudy's claims that the whole thing was business as usual -- "handled openly, honestly" -- Thompson told ABC: "That's not the way that we operate these days, and it would not be the preferred way of doing business. In the end, it's a very convoluted way of getting things done. If anyone hoped that no one would notice, they were being foolish."
--Josh Marshall
BREAKING: Rudy's New Shag Fund Explanation!
Seems he was doing it for the men in blue. From the AP ...
On Thursday, Joe Lohta, who was deputy mayor and budget director under Giuliani, said the billing practice was necessary because the police officers did not make a lot of money and their department took up to two months to repay them for their travel expenses. So Giuliani's office got a credit card and paid it off with funds from the various agencies. At the end of each fiscal year, the New York Police Department repaid the divisions.
We're a little unclear on this, though. The first hints of this story came when the city comptroller found that Rudy's administration had hidden money for "non-local travel" in the budget's of various obscure city agencies. It's not clear from the letter from the comptroller that these monies were ever reimbursed. Indeed, the whole point of the letter seems premised on the assumption that they weren't.
That said, the whole issue of subsequent reimbursement is basically a red-herring since the issue is why these they put them in these out of the way accounts in the first place. Presumably a subsequent reimbursement to the NYPD would have some effect of hiding the nature of the original expenditure.
And this explanation also seems bogus for another reason -- one which, as we'll see, should give us some further sense of how a Giuliani White House might operate. The City Comptroller started finding these irregularities in 2002 after Rudy left office. When the comptroller's office asked Rudy's people for an explanation, they refused to discuss it citing "security" reasons.
Now, I think we've all gotten used to the fact that the current crew at the White House uses various security-based excuses to refuse to answer questions about all sorts of things. But he's actually the president. And while I think they've terribly abused this dodge to create a climate of extreme secrecy and non-trasnsparency, at the end of the day there actually are legitimate security issues tied to the president -- both to the protection of his person and a decent amount of what he does on the job.
But the mayor? Please. At the end of the day, the Mayor of New York City is a mayor. Not James Bond or the Secretary of Defense. The idea that there are security reasons why he can't explain to the city budget watch dog how he allocated money for his security detail is a joke.
And it is an instructive joke in this case. Because if this is all it's about, helping out the guy's on the security detail, why'd they refuse to say so back in 2002?
Face it: these clowns are blowing smoke like a three-alarm fire. They'll do anything not to get this looked at.
Late Update: From this late report from Jake Tapper at ABC News, it now appears that Mayor Bloomberg's office is saying that it "believes" (and there seems to be a heavy on that word "believes" in the statement) the fees were eventually reimbursed. As I said above, though, it's basically a distraction. The issue was why they were paying these bills out of these obscure accounts in the first place. Reimbursement or not, it still has the effect of hiding what Rudy was doing.
--Josh Marshall
Guilty Like Hevesi?
A number of blogs, including TalkLeft and McJoan at DailyKos have noted that what Rudy Giuliani did -- giving then-mistress Judi Nathan a city car and driver -- looks a lot like, actually worse, than what ended former NY State Comptroller Alan Hevesi's career and forced him to plead guilty to misappropriating state funds. Hevesi had a taxpayer car and driver at the disposal of his sick wife.
Well, there's no doubt Rudy would be tried and convicted in the court of history, posterity, generally shameless behavior and various other metaphorical jurisdictions.
Indeed, having state employees chauffeur your sick wife seems considerably more justifiable than having a car and driver detailed for your mistress.
But we've been looking into this and from what we can see Rudy probably skates.
Again, this is preliminary and we're in touch with experts on New York law. But the law that snagged Hevesi applies to state officials, not all public officials in the state of New York. So even though Rudy did something considerably more egregious we're pretty sure the law simply doesn't apply to him as a city elected official (probably a case where the diminutive nature of his office is something he's thankful for).
We're looking to see if there's a parallel law that applies in New York City. But so far we haven't found it.
Don't worry, we'll keep looking ...
--Josh Marshall
The Internet is Great!
George Allen, former U.S. senator and noted "new media" expert:
--David Kurtz
Hard-Hitting Journalism! (The Shag That Didn't Bark)
Earlier today we heard that Rudy was going to appear on Jim Cramer's show to address the Shag Fund questions. From ABC ...
Giuliani is expected to appear on CNBC at 6 p.m. today to answer questions about the accounting procedures.
Interview has just ended. Not a single question about the Shag Fund. Issue of the day apparently is tariff policy.
--Josh Marshall
Washington Post reporter responds to all the criticism of his front-page piece on Obama Muslim "rumors."
--David Kurtz
Whack-job GOP congressman (Hoekstra) was Joe Klein's source for error-filled column.
Heckuva job ...
Late Update: Remember, Hoekstra was the guy claiming that there were elements in the CIA in league with al Qaeda.
--Josh Marshall
Va-Vooooom
We knew that Rudy eventually had Judi Nathan assigned her own NYC police security detail. Now it seems that while their affair was still a secret and while Rudy was still married, he set his mistress up with her own personal driver and NYC-taxpayer funded car to get around town.
Hints at a question a few readers have posed -- do we really know all those hidden away bills were for Rudy and not Judi?
--Josh Marshall
Dana Perino tap dances through the naval standoff with China . . . Musharraf . . . Iraq War funding . . . and executive privilege claims in the USAs probe, all in today's White House press briefing:
--David Kurtz
Rudy: Dems Made Me Shag
Rudy says Dems may be behind the Shag Fund story.
Along those lines, Rudy's just gone on the air with a new ad flagging his fiscal responsibility and work to make "government more accountable."
$3,000 in security costs per shag? Sounds like a big spender ...
--Josh Marshall
Map o' Shag
As I noted earlier, Rudy isn't denying that he had the city pay for his trips out to the Hamptons to weekend with his then-mistress Judi Nathan, along with picking up the tab for his security detail. That point actually isn't even news. It was reported at the time in the NY Post and more recently in Vanity Fair.
The key is whether he hid the costs he was billing the city, putting them off as costs for people with disabilities (not sure if Rudy wants to go there in this case) or indigent defense.
But why didn't they just have their trysts in the city.
Well, you must not have been paying close enough attention. Before 9/11, the city of New York set up an emergency command center in the World Trade Center complex, actually in building 7. After 9/11 this was a matter of some controversy since it obviously wasn't usable on the day of the attacks. (Building 7 eventually collapsed late in the day on 9/11.) And while no one could have predicted 9/11 precisely, there was a certain gap in logic in building the command center in what had already proven to be a top terrorist target.
However that might be, earlier this year it emerged that Rudy actually spent a lot of time in his personal quarters in the command center pre-9/11 because that's where he took Judi for their snogfests while their relationship was still a secret.
In fact, it gets better. While it's difficult to prove, there was a decent amount of circumstantial evidence -- and some city officials believed -- that Rudy's reason for wanting the center in building 7 was so that he could walk there easily from city hall for his trysts with Judy.
So just how do we judge the price NYC paid for the Judi affair?
--Josh Marshall
Itemize
TPM Reader VW passes on this link to the earlier Vanity Fair article on the Rudy/Judi affairs that estimated the trysts cost the city about $3000 a pop. But it seems like that was just for the security detail, not the transportation, frills or special prizes.
--Josh Marshall
Perino: White House "doesn't seek" permanent bases in Iraq. But if they insist, what are we going to say?
--Josh Marshall
Okay, Can't Say Newsday Buried It
Special thanks to TPM Reader PS flagging it.
--Josh Marshall
How-To
Here at TPM we're drilling into the Shag Fund story, as homage to Rudy, you might say. But a lot of what we do here is a collaborative effort. So I wanted to map out some of where we think the road map is for further reporting.
If you look at Rudy's response in the video clip immediately below, he basically concedes he was visiting his then-mistress Nathan. He says that if the money for his trysts were secreted away in funds for the disabled or indigent defense, that was something the police did, not him.
Well, let's ask the police. Two ways to approach this. You can ask the NYPD today -- is it true that the NYPD did this on its own initiative? Did that violate any rules? Why did they do it? Had the police detectives who decided to charge Rudy's tryst visits to the fund for the disabled discussed with Rudy the need for discretion and secrecy?
You can also ask the folks there at the time. Same questions for them.
I find it hard to believe the police would come up with and pull these accounting shenanigans all on their own. But that's Rudy's story.
And what about this claim from a Rudy aide ...
Later, an aide said that for accounting purposes, the expenses appear to have been temporarily allocated to city offices and paid for out of the mayor's budget but that the police department ultimately picked up the tab and reimbursed the mayor's office at the end of each year.
Is that true? It should be possible to clear that up pretty easily. Was it all reimbursed? Or did the workaround-with-reimbursement have the effect concealing what the money was used for while still making the various disability and indigent defense funds whole?
Just a matter of asking the questions.
--Josh Marshall
No Love for Shag
So far seems the NY Daily News is the only paper to give any major attention to the Shag Fund story, despite the evidence holes in Rudy's denial. And for what it's worth, the author of the piece, Ben Smith, used to be at the NYDN.
(ed.note: The Times also reports on the story, though deep, deep in the A section.)
(Of course, one must take into account that since Drudge did not approve it as a major story -- it was flagged as "Rudy Hit With Expense Report" -- they likely don't feel able to cover it aggressively.)
Here's Rudy's denial if you haven't seen it ...
Late Update: CBS actually hits the story too. And significantly they're one of the flew outlets that explicitly hits the non-responsive nature of the Camp Rudy's response ...
Giuliani's campaign had this response, calling the story a non-issue."This is common practice," the campaign said in a statement. "The NYPD is responsible for providing security for the mayor of New York around the clock."
"It’s clearly the responsibility of the NYPD to provide the mayor’s security around the clock and that’s what they did,” Giuliani spokesperson Maria Comella told CBS News.
But the question isn't about his security detail. It's about how the expenses were billed.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: When Republicans Attack!
Missed last night's GOP YouTube debate? We've got all the ugly highlights -- just be sure you're wearing a bib and a bulletproof vest ...
We've got more debate highlights over at TPM Election Central.
--Ben Craw
Today's Must Read
Trent Lott's nephew and brother-in-law, hot-shot trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs, are indicted for allegedly trying to bribe a state judge in a multimillion dollar dispute over attorney fees.
--David Kurtz
Project of the Day
Tell us where your favorite news site, newspaper, etc. has the Rudy Shag Fund story today. All I'm hearing is crickets so far. You see it anywhere? Let us know.
--Josh Marshall
Can't We Say He's Kinda Muslim?
I flagged it in a sarcastic way below. But this piece in the Post about 'rumors' of Obama being Muslim really is craven and gross. The author concedes at various points that Obama isn't a Muslim, actually that he 'denies' it. But the whole structure of the thing is written as though he were -- how much public opinion resistance he'd face as a Muslim, what it's like for Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison (D) as a Muslim. Interviews with fellow Muslims. Or, I guess they're not really 'fellow' since Obama's not a Muslim. But close enough, right? Maybe he kind of is, since there are so many 'rumors'? Sort of Muslim by right-wing osmosis?
The piece actually breaks new ground in the use of the word 'rumor'. In public writing, 'rumor' generally refers to a wholly or partly unsubstantiated report. To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that Obama is a Muslim any more than I am. So I would think the Internet sludge that has him attending Madrassas in Indonesia and being a covert Muslim today who plans to turn the US into a Muslim theocracy with mandatory gay marriage are not really 'rumors' but rather scurrilous lies which the Post has chosen to peddle (wink,wink) second hand.
--Josh Marshall
Smoke/Fire
Washington Post: With so many rumors about Obama being Muslim, some of it's just got to be true.
--Josh Marshall
Art of the Deal
From a longtime and very shrewd Republican TPM Reader ...
I have no idea what kind of governor Mike Huckabee has been. But I'll bet he was an awfully good minister.Fred Thompson seemed barely to have a pulse. John McCain stepped right up to the border of saying something negative about George Bush (responding to the question about the Vice President's role) after going out of his way to repeat nearly verbatim the President's rhetoric about Islamic terrorists following us home if we withdraw from Iraq. Ron Paul just seems to try and wing it every time he shows up for these things, and did it again tonight.
I made myself watch Mitt Romney, just to try to figure out what he is thinking as he goes through this process. I don't really know, but here's a guess: to Romney, getting elected President is a lot like putting together a business deal. The details of getting the deal done matter, because the deal doesn't happen without them, but the main thing is getting the deal done. I think Romney has personal beliefs, but not political principles; he wouldn't do anything in this campaign that would hurt his family or someone he cared about, but he'll change positions the way most people change socks. Whatever it takes to get the deal done.
Giuliani talks like a prosecutor if you listen to him long enough to get past his prepared material; McCain's is the career naval officer's reflex to support the wartime commander in chief embattled by critics. Romney is different because he's more calculating, but his business career was all about putting deals together, and he was in business for a long time. I could be off-base here. I just don't think people reinvent themselves past a certain age.
I think he's totally got Mitt's number.
--Josh Marshall
Raking the Shag
So it seems we've got the first response from Rudy on the Shag Fund controversy. From the AP ...
Rudy Giuliani dismissed a report Wednesday that he expensed the cost of his security detail to obscure city offices for trips to a Long Island resort as the then-mayor began an extramarital affair with current wife Judith Nathan."First of all, it's not true," he said during a GOP debate hours after the story broke. "I had 24-hour security for the eight years that I was mayor. They followed me everyplace I went. It was because there were, you know, threats, threats that I don't generally talk about. Some have become public recently; most of them haven't.
"And they took care of me, and they put in their records, and they handled them in the way they handled them," Giuliani said. "I had nothing to do with the handling of their records, and they were handled, as far as I know, perfectly appropriately."
So he sort of denies it. But he actually just said he left it to the police and he figures they did it right. "They handled them in the way they handled them" -- what you might call Rudy's trademark aggressive truism.
Read closely, Rudy isn't denying anything. He's just saying he's not responsible.
He says the security detail went with me everywhere, i.e., they had to come when I went to visit Judy too. And I can't be responsible for where they billed the expense to. So Rudy's argument is that in the city he runs, actually in the office of the mayor, someone else was hiding these charges to shield the affair. But not him and he didn't know about it.
A few points on this. Rudy seems to be leaving a pretty big door open to suggest that if these funds weren't handled in a normal way it was the cops who did it not him. I've been told though that Bernie Kerik took a hands on supervisory role running Rudy's security detail all through his administration. When he was over at Corrections and when he was Police Commissioner. Bernie and Rudy are sort of bird's of a feather on this sort of thing. So I'd say you want to give Bernie Kerik a pretty close look on this whole thing.
If not Kerik, what about the NYPD? He's saying whatever happened was their doing. Can we talk to them and see what they say?
The AP article also says ...
Later, an aide said that for accounting purposes, the expenses appear to have been temporarily allocated to city offices and paid for out of the mayor's budget but that the police department ultimately picked up the tab and reimbursed the mayor's office at the end of each year.
Is that really true? Can we get an answer on that?
--Josh Marshall
Going Native
To get a sense of the debate, I'm over reading The Corner.
...
All my negative feelings about Giuliani aside, I thought he seemed weak tonight -- neither effectively standing on principle with his positions that are not in sync with GOP primary voters or effectively pandering to them. And in a lot of his answers he just seemed awkward and unfocused. That said, Ramesh Ponnuru has what I think may be a decent point, that Guiliani had a good night because Huckabee had a good night. But I still have a hard time seeing how Rudy didn't really damage himself on the gun and abortion questions.
--Josh Marshall
Shag Fund
On the Rudy shagonomics story, the details are even richer than the headline. Not only did Rudy pick obscure public agencies to bill for his trips out to hang in the Hamptons with Judy Nathan, he seemed to pick them to guarantee the maximum impression of tastelessness and chutzpah should he ever be found out.
Admittedly he only charged $10,000 to the people with disabilities fund. Chump change for the shag fund. But the office charged with getting counsel for indigent defendants got stuck with $400,000.
Rudy and Judy aren't like us little people. But even that high in the stratosphere, half a million dollars covers a lot of shagging.
I'd heard a lot that Rudy'd done a lot to screw poor folks caught up in the criminal justice system but this puts the matter in a whole new light.
--Josh Marshall
Republican Guard
Andrew Sullivan flagged something in the debate that really jumped out at me too. In explaining why he doesn't support gays in the military he basically said that if the military were a cross-section of America, gays in the military might work. But the military is really a Christian conservative institution, and they won't put up with gays.
Late Update: From a few emails from readers, I think I wasn't clear enough in this post. I'm not agreeing with Hunter's characterization of the military. I was struck by the audacity of his rationale for barring gays from service.
TPM Reader JE comments ...
Are the Republican hopefuls really that naive? I'm an active duty officer currently in Korea. If they believe that the military is a Christian-right, conservative institution they need to spend a few nights in the "ville" around a military base here...they would be "shocked!" by what they saw. After 17+ years in the military, most of it overseas, nothing amazes me anymore. It would make most people's heads spin what goes on, on a daily basis, at bars and clubs here.
--Josh Marshall
Post-Debate Blogging: Romney and Gays
One thing that actually sort of surprised me was that Mitt Romney kept ducking the question of whether or not he still 'looked forward' to the day when gays could serve openly in the military. I find it odd because Romney's shown he's willing to flip-flop on virtually every issue and kow-tow to every Republican dogma. I'm not just saying that as a dig. He's actually one of the few pols you heard frequently saying, "I was wrong about this, wrong about that." But he just wouldn't say it on this one question. It really stuck out from the standard Romney MO.
--Josh Marshall
Debate Blogging: The RudeMan
9:24 PM ... I've seen four or five Rudy answers now. Is it just me or does he seem rattled?
9:28 PM ... Interesting. Inappropriate for a presidential candidate to say whether waterboarding is torture?
9:29 PM ... All you can say about McCain, he does have these moments: whacking Romney about the ridiculousness of not admitting that waterboarding is torture. (ed.note: Really, if you want to be for torture, just say it.)
9:43 PM ... Sigh. A real aviation hero like Chuck Yeager supports Duncan Hunter.
9:46 PM ... Rudy 2.0: 9/11 plus the Haiti boat treaty.
9:54 PM ... Have to say, again just judging in political terms, Huckabee's the only real pro up there on the stage. (ed.note: That said, that was a pretty cheap crack about Hillary. Pretty tasteless.)
--Josh Marshall
More Debate Blogging ...
9:21 PM ... Mike Huckabee is super conservative, believes in biblical literalism, doesn't believe in evolution. But, man, that answer to the Bible question was good. Just judging in pure political terms, he knocked that one out of the park.
Made Rudy and Mitt look like idiots that wanted to be anywhere else but on that stage.
--Josh Marshall
Ewww. Not Good.
Hmmmm. Tuned in late here to the Youtube debate. I was thinking Rudy's big problem tonight was the govt-funded shagoramas with then-mistress Judith Nathan. But I think that this answer about gun control might be a bigger problem. Don't know how you explain away, in a GOP debate, why you said you would support written tests to purchase guns. But even at that I think that was one of the most incoherent answers I think I've ever heard. He's lucky it was a Youtube debate. If there were a moderator that would have gotten ugly. Actually, that's only Russert and Blitzer in Dem debates. But still ...
--Josh Marshall
TPMCafe's Table for One: Alan Krueger
Alan Krueger, a professor of Economics and Public Policy at Princeton and an adviser to the National Counter-terrorism Center, is blogging this week at TPM Cafe's Table for One about his new book, What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism.
Krueger starts with a post on, go figure, What Makes a Terrorist, follows that with a post on Defining Terrorism, and continues with a post on Searching for the Causes of Terrorism.
--David Kurtz
Govt-Funded Shagging?
In political conversations we frequently talk about government-funded abortions, birth control and miscellaneous other stuff. But what about the actual boffing itself?
I'm not sure it's directly relevant to the larger debate about fiscal discipline. But is Rudy going to get asked for some explanation or tabulation of many New York City tax dollars he used to go do the wild thing with his mistress?
Were extra expenses incurred to travel without tipping off the then-wife Donna Hanover?
--Josh Marshall
Conscience of a Conservative
When Rudy was Mayor he billed city agencies for trips to booty calls out in the Hamptons.
--Josh Marshall
Livin' Large
You probably know DOJ voting section chief John Tanner for doing his level best to crack down on minority voting and telling an audience that voter ID laws aren't a problem since blacks and hispanics don't live that long anyway.
Now it seems he's gotten in a bit of hot water for using his job to take a bunch of snazzy vacations on the taxpayer dime.
--Josh Marshall
Wild Bill's claim that he opposed the Iraq War "from the beginning" goes to the crux of the debate between the Clinton and Obama camps over the run-up to the invasion.
--David Kurtz
As the White House tries its hand at Middle Eastern peace negotiations, Dana Perino attempts to explain the President's role in the talks:
--David Kurtz
Arsenal of Bamboozlement
We asked an Iraqi government spokesman about the permanent troop presence negotiations. He seems to have learned the bobbing and weaving lessons pretty well.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: Is That Your Final Answer?
Having trouble keeping up with Romney's latest story on whether he'd appoint a Muslim to serve in his administration? We try to unravel the fast-breaking bamboozlement in today's episode of TPMtv ...
--Josh Marshall
Kos is right about this. It may turn out that Hillary's falling behind her GOP rivals. But Zogby's web polls, as opposed to his phone polls, are junk -- unproven methodology backed up by poor results. They shouldn't be discussed in the same breath as legit, randomized phone surveys. So there's just no evidence for it at the moment. And it's not special-pleading by the Hillaryites for saying so.
--Josh Marshall
No Way Zalmay?
With Mitt and Muslims, it's a pretty extraordinary statement that a presidential candidate would, on principle, rule out members of an entire religion for high office in his administration. And it's not an entirely theoretical question. Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-American and Muslim, has been a senior member of President Bush's foreign policy team from the start. He has been successively, US Ambassador to Afghanistan (2003-05), US Ambassador to Iraq (2005-07) and now US Ambassador to the United Nations (2007-).
He's often discussed as a potential Secretary of State should a Republican win the presidency in 2008.
So again, this isn't as hypothetical a question as you might think.
For all that, though, I think Romney's bigger problem is that he seems to be lying. Yesterday he denied unequivocally that he said he wouldn't appoint a Muslim to his cabinet in his conversation with Mansour Ijaz. Ijaz is sticking by his story. And now three Republicans are on the record saying that Romney said the same thing back in September. And there's now an additional, contemporaneous account adding further weight to their claims.
Romney didn't specifically reference that earlier conversation, but presumably he's not just saying that he didn't say this to Ijaz but that he didn't say it ever.
We'll check to see whether he addresses this again today.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
You can't make this stuff up. Scott Bloch, the guy investigating politicization in the Bush Administration, is himself under investigation, and called Geeks on Call to come and erase his computer hard drive. Now he's under investigation for that, too.
--David Kurtz
Is That Your Final Answer?
More evidence that Mitt Romney did say no Muslims in his cabinet.
--Josh Marshall
'Roid Contracting?
From the AP ...
A lawsuit against government contractor Blackwater Worldwide accuses its bodyguards of ignoring a direct order and abandoning their post shortly before taking part in a shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqi civilians.Filed this week in U.S. District Court in Washington, the complaint also accuses North Carolina-based Blackwater of failing to give drug tests to its guards in Baghdad — even though an estimated one in four of them was using steroids or other "judgment altering substances."
--Josh Marshall
Romney in a Pickle?
Hmmm. According to Greg Sargent's new exclusive at Election Central, this isn't the first time that Mitt Romney's given the thumbs down to putting a Muslim in a Romney cabinet. I'm not sure having a no-Muslims in the cabinet policy is going to hurt Romney a lot in the GOP primaries. What's equally interesting though is his new or rather his original explanation.
As you know, yesterday a Muslim businessman named Mansoor Ijaz wrote a column in the Christian Science Monitor in which he claimed that Romney had told him that he wouldn't appoint a Muslim to his cabinet because there aren't enough Muslims in the US to merit a cabinet post -- sort of a cartoonish caricature of interest group liberalism.
Well, Greg followed up with Ijaz today. Despite Romney's denials, Ijaz stuck by his story. And he further said that he'd come to ask Romney the question because of what he'd heard from two Nevada Republicans. According to Ijaz, a former state finance director of the Nevada GOP, Irma Aguirre, and the acting state finance chair, George Harris, had been at another fundraiser when Harris asked Romney whether he'd appoint a Muslim to his cabinet. Romney said he didn't think he would. But this time too few Muslims wasn't his rationale. Aguirre remembers Romney saying, "They're radical. There's no talking to them. There's no negotiating with them."
In other words, on the first pass, it was they're all crazy radicals and terrorists. It was this answer that prompted Ijaz to ask his question when he gave the quotas answer.
Greg contacted Aguirre and Harris, both of whom confirmed what Ijaz told him about the question that got things rolling.
So it would seem that Romney managed to give two distinct statements, both of which are pretty offensive and he then fibbed about having said either.
Read Greg's whole report here.
We're still waiting for comment from the Romney campaign.
--Josh Marshall
Things Are Looking Up; Let's Leave
Some interesting but in many ways not that surprising results in the new Pew Survey on Iraq. Across the board there's been a substantial change for the positive in how Americans see the military situation in the country. But on the key question of should we stay or go, the numbers have barely budged. See the details here.
--Josh Marshall
Obama Against Permanent Bases in Iraq
This morning, in response to questions from TPM Election Central, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign issued a somewhat hedged statement opposing permanent U.S. bases in Iraq.
The campaign has now followed that up with a new statement offering much more definitive opposition to a permanent U.S. military presence.
We're still tracking down positions from other candidates. More soon.
Late Update: Sen. Hillary Clinton has sent a letter to the White House outlining her opposition to permanent U.S. bases in Iraq and saying they would "damage U.S. interests." As we reported yesterday, Sen. Chris Dodd is also opposed. We'll have a statement from former Sen. John Edwards' campaign shortly.
Later Update: And John Edwards weighs in against a "Korea-style" occupation of Iraq.
--David Kurtz
Really? Huckabee?
Okay, I've been thinking about Huckabee mainly for how he could upset the apple cart for the major candidates. But we're closing in on the point where he's no longer a surging second-tier player. Pulling into second behind Rudy in Florida? That's a ten point jump in a month. That's for real.
And Fred down to fifth in Florida? Think we're at turn out the lights time.
--Josh Marshall
Steve Clemons: Everyone in the reality-based world agrees that Hamas has to be a party to peace talks.
--David Kurtz
Rudy's BFF
On the ground in New Hampshire, from the Concord Monitor:
In front of the inn, two well-dressed men wore masks and held up signs meant to embarrass Giuliani for his close connection to Bernie Kerik, former New York City police commissioner. . . .A man wearing a Giuliani mask has shown up to several Giuliani events in the state holding a sign that reads, "Free Bernie." Today, he held a "Best Friends Forever" sign and stood next to a man in an improvised mask that resembled Kerik's face.
--David Kurtz
They've Waited So Long
Finally Republicans have a Dem in legal trouble who comes with a comic story to boot.
Unfortunately he lost in the primary.
Still, it's pretty funny.
--Josh Marshall
Constitution Shmonstitution
So it seems the Iraqi constitution says the Iraqi parliamentary would need to approve the new 'US troops in Iraq forever' deal by a two-thirds margin. And since the idea of a permanent US occupation is really unpopular in Iraq, that seems really unlikely.
On the other hand, apparently we're going to try to do it extra-constitutionally over here too. So do we really think we'll be more punctilious over there than we are here?
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: Thanks for the Memories!
Trent Lott may not have been good for America. But he was pretty good for TPM. So in honor of his announced resignation from Congress, in today's episode of TPMtv, we take a walk down memory lane to remember some of Trent's best moments (definitely don't miss the special Larry Craig/John Ashcrot duet moment) ...
--Josh Marshall
Epiphany
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I was looking at some polling charts at pollster.com. And I had what I can only call a computational epiphany. Those of us who are watching the races at least somewhat closely know that the basic tension in the Republican race is that Rudy Giuliani has been consistently in the lead nationally but Mitt Romney appears poised to do well in the early contests that usually determine the nominee.
But when I looked at this trend line charts put together by Professor Charles Franklin for Pollster.com I suddenly thought it was much more likely than I did that Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee.
I'm reproducing these charts from Pollster.com. But I've had to shrink them down a bit to get them to fit within the space I have here in the blog column. So if you want a clearer view click on the graph and the link will take you to the appropriate page at Pollster.com.
So what do we have here? Let's cut to the chase. In each graph, Mitt Romney is the brown line and Rudy Giuliani is the purple line.
The pattern jumps right out at you. In each of the three states, Romney has been gaining support consistently and fairly rapidly since the beginning of 2007. In two of the three states, Giuliani has been trending downward with a similar pace and consistency. The exception is New Hampshire where Rudy has trended down a bit but basically held his own. There too Rudy's numbers may be dipping as the two most recent polls, which I don't believe are included in the New Hampshire chart, have Rudy down to 16%
Another thing jumps out at me in the Iowa poll. We've given a lot of editorial attention to Huckabee's surge in Iowa and the consequences it could have for Romney. I still believe that. But the graph makes pretty clear that the issue is Huckabee's surge, not any drop off in Romney's support. He's still rising, albeit at a slower pace. And that may simply be due to the fact that in a large field it gets harder to keep up the rate of increase in support as you near 30% of the total.
You can't ignore the national numbers. I grant that, though I think there are some decent arguments that they're based on name recognition and on those who are not most actively engaged in observing the candidates. But the consistency of Romney's strength in these three states is striking. And we're getting close enough to the voting and caucusing now that absent any big new facts to shake things up that these trends will continue.
I'll follow up tomorrow with some more thoughts, contrary theories of what the numbers mean and so on. But I can't look at these numbers without thinking that Romney's in a much stronger position than people think.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv Extra!
So does Mitt Romney follow racial or religious quotas in doling out political jobs? Apparently it depends on whether you're black or muslim ...
--Josh Marshall
Joe Lieberman goes on Fox to demand that Dems start acknowledging progress in Iraq.
--David Kurtz
Good for the Jews
When I was thinking about Will Saletan's essay on the supposed innate mental inferiority of Africans, I thought about this comment from behavorial geneticist Eric Turkheimer over at Cato's blog ...
If I may address my fellow Jews for a moment, consider this. How would you feel about a line of research into the question of whether Jews have a genetic tendency to be more concerned with money than other groups? Nothing anti-semitic, mind you, just a rational investigation of the scientific evidence. It wouldn’t be difficult to measure interest in money and materialism, and it wouldn’t surprise me if as an empirical matter Jews scored a little higher on the resulting test than other groups. As a behavioral geneticist I can assure you without reservation that the trait would be heritable, and, if anyone bothered to take the time to find out, specific genes would have small associations with it. Of course, this research program has already been carried out, at least to the extent the relevant technology was available in 1939. While we are at it we could open a whole scientific institute for the scientific study of racial stereotypes, and finally pull together the evidence on sneaky Japanese, drunken Irish, unintelligent Poles, overemotional women and lazy Italians.
Yes, just so. Actually, as Will noted in his piece in Slate, Jews have substantially higher IQ scores on average than the baseline white population in the United States, by something like a dozen points. Do we think they're genetically superior in intelligence to the mere flotsam of un-Jewified caucasians sloshing around the country?
Well, I guess I spoke my unspoken hypothetical a bit too soon. It turns out that Will does seem to think Jews may be the product of intellectual superior genetic stock, as he argues in this Slate piece from earlier this month. His discussion is based in part on a panel he attended at AEI, with panelists including Charles Murray, on the topic.
I don't have any strong argument for proving that higher average IQs for American Jews (which predominantly means European or 'Ashkenazi' Jews) is rooted in culture and child-rearing as opposed to genetic programming. But reading Will's piece it doesn't seem that he has much of any argument for the converse either. I guess a little broader familiarity with history provides a sense that it's not uncommon for ethnic groups or nationalities with a marginal or partly alienated relationship to the dominant culture to excel in rates disproportionate to their numbers. Look at the Scots in British culture in the 18th century.
In any case, put me down as unconvinced. It's quite true that there are no topics we should leave unexamined when evidence of new realities are clearly before us. But it's equally true that there are some topics that are odd to speculate about if there's no evidence for them at all, like the genetic intellectual superiority of the Jewish 'race'. As Yglesias says, there's something distinctly prurient about the fascination.
And as long as it's just free inquiry we're interested in, can we move ahead with that study into the Jewish propensity to dominate host nations and guile them into hopeless wars for their own enrichment? Or at least suss out the implications if the theory turns out to be true?
--Josh Marshall
Contraro Ad Absurdum
A lot of you probably already heard about or saw Will Saletan's nauseating foray into 'black genetic inferiority' pseudo-science a week or so back. On the key issue, I think Matt Yglesias, Henry Farrell and Brad DeLong have said about all that need be said and about as well as it can be said.
But there's another aspect to this embarrassing episode that's been rattling around my head.
Saletan writes ...
If this suggestion [i.e., the genetic mental inferiority of Africans] makes you angry—if you find the idea of genetic racial advantages outrageous, socially corrosive, and unthinkable—you're not the first to feel that way. Many Christians are going through a similar struggle over evolution. Their faith in human dignity rests on a literal belief in Genesis. To them, evolution isn't just another fact; it's a threat to their whole value system. As William Jennings Bryan put it during the Scopes trial, evolution meant elevating "supposedly superior intellects," "eliminating the weak," "paralyzing the hope of reform," jeopardizing "the doctrine of brotherhood," and undermining "the sympathetic activities of a civilized society."The same values—equality, hope, and brotherhood—are under scientific threat today. But this time, the threat is racial genetics, and the people struggling with it are liberals.
Evolution forced Christians to bend or break. They could insist on the Bible's literal truth and deny the facts, as Bryan did. Or they could seek a subtler account of creation and human dignity. Today, the dilemma is yours. You can try to reconcile evidence of racial differences with a more sophisticated understanding of equality and opportunity. Or you can fight the evidence and hope it doesn't break your faith.
This is quite a statement. The theory of evolution is the cornerstone of modern life sciences. Its central claims have been abundantly confirmed in fields ranging from genetics to paleontology, geology, cosmology and archeology, among others. To Will, to deny the reality of evolutionary theory is on a par with resistance to claims that blacks are innately intellectually inferior to whites -- claims based on studies that range from the rankest pseudo-science peddled by open racists to work on the margins of mainstream science that have never been accepted by most experts in the relevant fields.
But the two are pretty much the same, since right-wing inability to come to terms with modernity and modern science must be equalled by something on the other side of the aisle.
It's an equation of almost unparalleled absurdity. I'm not sure I've ever seen a more nonsensical example of that TNR-originating disease of facile contrarianism for its own sake.
(ed.note: In fairness to TNR, I would say the current crew running the place suffers from the disease far less than past editorial teams. So there's some unfairness in labeling it thus. But like many syndromes and maladies the disease can't help but carry the name of the location of the original outbreak.)
--Josh Marshall
'Conspiracy' Theory No More
It's official. The White House has agreed with al-Maliki on a blueprint plan for keeping US troops in Iraq permanently.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: The Sweet Smell of Success?
Onward and upward in Iraq? So says John McCain. And Lindsey Graham says the "surge" is probably the most successful counterinsurgency program in the history of the world. But what about political reconciliation? And when do we leave exactly? Catch up on the latest spin in today's Sunday Show Roundup episode of TPMtv ...
--Ben Craw
FoxNews.com headline of the day:
"Bush to Act as Key Negotiator at Mideast Peace Talks in Annapolis"
--David Kurtz
Do Dems really have a shot at picking up Trent Lott's Senate seat in Mississippi?
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
The White House has gone from moving the goalposts in Iraq to just quietly taking them down altogether.
--David Kurtz
Hmmm
As near as the crack TPM staff can figure, no one seems to know why Trent Lott is resigning abruptly in the second year of his current term in office, when he actually seemed possibly on his way back to being Minority Leader in the senate. Roll Call says the decision was "precipitated by a desire to spend more time with his family and a general fatigue of Congress." If so, that's a pretty rapid onset desire to spend time with the fam.
Any ideas?
MSNBC says this ...
While the exactly reason Lott is stepping down before he finishes his term is unknown, the general speculation is that a quick departure immunizes Lott against tougher restrictions in a new lobbying law that takes effect at the end of the year. That law would require Senators to wait two-years before entering the lucrative world of lobbying Congress.
--Josh Marshall
Trent Lott to Resign
Not much fun being in the minority? Trent Lott's stepping down is another signal that the GOP has next to no chance of recapturing the Senate in 2008.
--David Kurtz
Books Back to Cooking
Those numbers of Iraqis flocking back to Baghdad because of the improved security situation? Seems those numbers are being pumped and massaged like everything else. Not that people aren't returning to Iraq because the levels of violence have dropped substantially -- just a lot fewer than the Iraqi and American governments have been saying, and the American news media have been reporting.
--Josh Marshall
So That's Where They're From
One day this year, while I was walking down 6th avenue, I noticed that the manholes said Made In India on them. I remember thinking that you really must have gotten to the point where transport costs are close to negligible when the cost of shipping an incredibly heavy manhole cover from India to New York City doesn't put a dent in the cheaper costs of production. Now a stringer photographer for the Times went to location ('factory' seems a questionable word choice) where they're made.
--Josh Marshall
Join the Club
Fred Thompson says Fox is biased against him.
Of course, Thompson's campaign has been a joke, probably the highest ratio of train wreck to expectations in recent political memory. But with Fox's open alignment with the Giuliani campaign, he actually has a point.
--Josh Marshall
