May 31, 2006

5/31: Role Reversal?

However much Dems may have been divided in past elections, unity is the sharpest contrast between left and right bloggers today. Following an AP story critical of Senate Min. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) lefty bloggers not only dismissed the charges, but quickly turned their gun on the AP. Lefties also roundly condemned a 5/30 SCOTUS opinion in the face of deafening righty silence. And where there is energy on the right, it is tearing the GOP apart as apparent '08 front-runner Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) takes righty criticism for his pull back from a CA 50 fundraiser.

BLOGGERS VS. MSM: Counter-Punch

Lefty reaction to revelations that Senate Min. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) accepted boxing tickets from the Nevada Athletic Commission is best summed up by this AMERICAblog headline: "Democratic Senator from Nevada attended Nevada event as guest of the state of Nevada along with Nevada constituents. Oh the humanity!" Also along those lines: Ezra Klein at TAPPED, "On Harry Reid and the case of the comp boxing tickets, this is about as fully a non-story as you can imagine." Kos, "At a time when "corruption" literally means the buying of congressmen and legislation with cash, boats, houses, and hookers, we're supposed to get upset because Reid (a former boxer and boxing commissioner in Nevada) got free tickets to a boxing match?"

The MSM quickly became the real story for lefty bloggers. Talking Points Memo thinks AP author John Solomon just like fishing: "If I didn't know better I might think that Solomon was developing something of an Ahab complex with that Great White Whale of the Senate, Harry Reid. Back in February, Solomon produced a lengthy expose on Team Abramoff's alleged efforts to sway Reid to support their Marianas sweatshop clients, without ever mentioning that Reid consistently voted against the Marianas sweatshop owners." AMERICAblog has an even longer Solomon dossier: "AP's John Solomon has a history of writing anti-Democrat hit pieces that don't really hold water: John Solomon's AP story about Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan leaves out key information. ...John Solomon's February AP story attacking Harry Reid was exposed as having unfairly slanted the story by not noting the not-insignificant fact that Harry Reid never took any action on behalf of the folks who AP claims bought him. ...After being shown to have written a sloppy story attacking Harry Reid (point 2 above), AP's John Solomon writes a third story again refusing to include key information favorable to Reid. ...From AMERICAblog last July, 2005 we learn of John Solomon's untrue reporting about Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson."

CNN also comes in for some lumps under the header "CNN Juices AP's Story on Reid" this time from TPMmuckraker: "Here's the second paragraph from the longer version of Solomon's story that ran off the wire: "Reid, D-Nev., took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 as he was pressing legislation to increase government oversight of the sport, including the creation of a federal boxing commission that Nevada's agency feared might usurp its authority." ...And here's the version of that paragraph as edited by CNN: "The Nevada senator took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 from the Nevada Athletic Commission as he pressed legislation to increase federal oversight of boxing, including the creation of a government commission." ...Do you see what's missing? The fact that Reid voted against the party he was allegedly influenced by apparently isn't worthy of mention."

Righty Kung Fu Quip has a handle on his brethren's feelings: "When you start throwing that "culture of corruption" crap around, you ought to be sure you're clean, Harry." California Conservative and A Blog For All also perceive Dem hypocrisy. Captain's Quarters notes that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was at the same fight, but paid for his ticket: "In a further blow to efforts to paint corruption as Republican, two GOP Senators also attended fights with Harry Reid. John McCain insisted on paying for his tickets at the retail value ($1400) while Reid's fellow Nevadan, John Ensign, recused himself from participating in Reid's pending legislation. ...I wrote last year that Democrats would regret their attempts to turn corruption into a partisan campaign issue. That problem relates to power, not party, and corruption affects enough of both parties to require a bipartisan effort to truly contain and end it."

IMMIGRATION: The Dowd Memo

Righty Powerline has a response to RNC senior adviser Matthew Dowd's memo arguing for GOP candidate support for a "comprehensive solution" first reported by On Call (go team!). Powerline attacks the poll and Dowd's conclusions: "First, and obviously, one should not support a bad immigration reform plan regardless of its popularity. ... Second, the poll results don't persuade me that Republican candidates for Congress are doomed unless they accede to the Senate's plan or something similar. Candidates should easily be able to distinguish between the euphemistic "comprehensive reform" posited in the poll questions and the reality of the Senate's Christmas tree bill. ...Third, the poll highlights why, even as a purely political matter, the administration's position is so disappointing to conservatives. Look again at the position that was found to be make 71 percent of voters more likely to support a candidate. It says nothing about a path to citizenship -- rather it encompasses only enforcement and a restrictive temporary worker program. That is the perfect center-right position. But that's not the president's position."

On the other hand righty Rich Lowry at The Corner likes what he's hearing from the Senate: "We're getting preliminary indications that there might be support for a phased-in approach from Senate Republican conferees, and not just Cornyn and Kyl. The idea would be first to have benchmarks for success in interior and border enforcement, and then move on to a much more limited amnesty and possibly a guest-workers program. If Republicans could forge a compromise around this approach, it would be a big deal. It would leave it to Democrats to explain why they oppose-as they probably would-tougher enforcement, and possibly turn the politics of the issue around. Alternatively, if enough Democrats supported it, Republicans could pass sensible legislation addressing an important national issue, which could only help them."

Righty PoliPundit also sees possible GOP political gain from the immigration battle in Nov.: "S. 2611 is not a Republican Bill and deserves to be rightly known as the "Democrat Immigration Reform Bill." That Bill is a Democrat albatros and Little Debbie (Stabenow) ran from it because she knew what it was politically. Republicans need to hang the "Democrat Immigration Reform Bill" around the necks of democrats in the fall. A majority of Republicans are working against against this plan and the public needs to know that so they are not punished by voters." And PoliPundit also points to races where immigration already played a deciding factor: "The issue of immigration has already proven decisive in at least two Republican primaries this year:1. In Nebraska, enormously popular Rep. Tom Osborne lost the Republican primary for governor, in large part because he supports in-state tuition at state colleges for the children of illegal invaders. 2. In California, in the race to replace disgraced Republican Congressman Randy Duke Cunningham, Brian Bilbray brushed aside an entire field of Republican challengers by focusing almost exclusively on illegal immigration. Bilbray is a former lobbyist for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a group of good guys if there ever was one.

Right Wing News has a post titled "22 Problems With The Senate's Illegal Immigration Bill" that includes: "3) The National Guard Gimmick...17) Favoring Ditch Diggers Over Scientists...19) The Illegal Alien Tax Amnesty"

Powerline describes Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) as "one of the most new-media savvy politicians in Washington" and highlights "a nice video that includes footage shot at the border by the Minutemen and a conversation between Congressman Kingston and the Minutemen's spokeswoman."

And in the most important immigration debate development of the day Michelle Malkin notes that the cheesesteak crowd is on her side: "If you know Philadelphia, you know Geno's. Best cheesesteaks in the world. Reader Willie S. sends word via the Philly Inquirer that Joey Vento, the grandson of Italian-born immigrants who owns Geno's, is taking a stand for assimilation and against illegal immigration. The Inquirer does its best to knock down Vento, but his blunt Philly style overrides the paper's wishy-washy open-borders slant."

OBAMA: Audacious Rumors

Observer Taegan Goddard reports from The Huffington Post: "If email from Political Wire readers is a reliable indicator, it's safe to say that inside the Beltway chatter about Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) political future has increased dramatically in recent weeks. Many Democratic powerbrokers now hope the freshman senator will enter the presidential race as his many fans have hoped. Adding fuel to the speculation: 'The Audacity of Hope,' Obama's second book, is due out this fall. His first book, an autobiography, was a New York Times bestseller."

Lefty DailyKos is an Obama fan, but thinks patience is called for: "Obama will have to give a definitive answer to his plans for 2008. Otherwise, he's going to get hounded to death. The rumors are really flying fast and furious. I would guess his smart play would be to stay out, run for Illinois governor in 2010, and then look at the White House in 2012 or 2016. I say he stays out unless Hillary decides not to run. If Hillary drops out (a very real possibility), we'll see a free-for-all on the Democratic side."

GORE: Why Does he Save His Best Lines For Overseas?

Bloggers on all sides picked up on a Guardianstory reporting ex-VP Al Gore's statement at An Inconvenient Truth screening describing the Bush administration as "a renegade band of rightwing extremists." Righties labeled Gore a traitor or (gasp!) a "Kos Diarist."

Lefties couldn't agree with Gore more and the story provided another opportunity for speculation. TalkLeft: "Al Gore told the Guardian the Bush administration is a band of right-wing extremists. He also repeated his now familiar refrain that he is a "recovering politician." Yet when the Guardian pressed him on a 2008 run, he gave non-definitive denials. My prediction remains that he won't run. Message to Al Gore: Jump in or give a final signal you are out. The time is now. Whomever the Democratic candidate will be in 2008 needs to muster all of our support at the earliest possible moment. We can't provide that that so long as we are waiting on you. A simple yay or nay will do it."

Ezra Klein at TAPPED adds: "To be clear, I don't think Gore will run -- I'd put the odds at 60:40 against. What makes divining his political intentions so frustrating is that Gore has, comparatively speaking, all the time in the world. It used to be that fundraising required a lot of rich buddies, a heap o' travel, and endless chicken dinners. Now, Gore could enter shortly before Iowa and, if the base was sufficiently dissatisfied, become financially competitive in a matter of hours. And he wouldn't have to lift a finger for infrastructure building until he sent out that press release. Meanwhile, Gore is playing the reluctant savior card just right. The more desperate liberals are for him to swoop into the election, the less interest he needs to show in doing so. With no alternate bigfoots on the horizon (save maybe Obama), there's no other game in town for dissatisfied liberals."

McCAIN: Maybe He Just Really Doesn't Like The San Diego Chicken?

Righty Captain's Quarters doesn't think Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) played his ex-Rep Brian Bilbray (R-CA) fundraiser cancellation as well as he could have: "If a candidate for the presidency had an ambivalent relationship with his party, would he (a) go out of his way to show loyalty to the party by appearing on behalf of its candidates for lower office even when the two disagree on one issue, or (b) stiff the candidate by backing out of a promised appearance over said disagreement? If you answered (a), you're one step ahead of John McCain."

Captain's Quarters offers an update casting doubt on the source of the cancellation: "A CQ source in San Diego's North Coast says that the district would not have reacted well to a McCain visit, and that perhaps Bilbray responded to pressure within the local GOP to distance himself from the Senator. Well, maybe, but it was the McCain people who canceled the appearance, and considering his reputation as a reformer, a McCain appearance in Duke Cunningham's district in the aftermath of his removal from office would have carried some weight with centrists in San Diego. If this came from Bilbray and the North Coast GOP, it was pretty short-sighted."

Lefty Matt Stoller at MyDD sees larger GOP problems at work: "I've written before about the surrogate problem that the Republicans currently have. They have no stars to show the public. This is not a small deal. A political campaign is basically a massive content suck desperately looking for any way to get into the media or draw crowds. And while Democrats can bring any number of popular figures - Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Wes Clark, Howard Dean, Mark Warner - to most areas with little controversy, the Republicans cannot. Bush is poison, Cheney is worse. Bringing them in for secret fundraisers is fine, but anything more and you anger voters who don't like either of them and generate bad press. The rest of the field ain't great either. Frist is weak and pathetic, Hastert is a joke, Coburn is crazy, Romney isn't well-known, etc."

Over at The CornerJonah Goldberg thinks immigration could be the issue that sinks McCain's '08 hopes: "Unlike campaign finance 'reform' -- which conservatives rightly despised -- immigration is not an abstraction. CFR mattered to conservative interest groups, but was generally meaningless to the average person beyond the principle of the thing. On immigration, McCain has taken the same sort of sanctimonius position on an issue the conservative base both understands and feels viscerally rather grasps abstractly."

SCOTUS: Alito's First Impact?

TalkLeft succinctly summarizes SCOTUS' 5/30 Garcetti v. Ceballos decision: "...the Court denied First Amendment protection to Los Angeles prosecutor Richard Ceballos, who "wrote a memo questioning whether a county sheriff's deputy had lied in a search warrant affidavit." Ceballos argued that he was "demoted and denied a promotion for trying to expose the lie." While this would seem to be a classic instance of whistleblowing -- the kind of speech by public officials that should be encouraged -- the Court held that Ceballos was discharging his official duties when he wrote the memo, and that he was not entitled to the same protections he would have had if he had been speaking out against the lie as a private citizen."

Many court watchers concluded Justice Alito's presence altered the outcome of the case.

• Lefty Marty Lederman at SCOTUSblog: "Alito's was the fifth vote in favor of reversal (although we don't know for certain whether the judgment or opinion would have been different with Justice O'Connor participating). ...As I predicted here, Justice Souter -- who likely was assigned to write the majority before Justice O'Connor's retirement -- wrote a dissent, joined by Justices Stevens and Ginsburg."
• Lefty Lawyers, Guns, and Money: "George Bush's drive to consolidate power and squelch dissent from dissenting professionals in the civil service got a boost today, as his appointment of Alito paid immediate dividends."
• Lefty The Carpetbagger Report: "For example, this 5-4 ruling would likely have gone the other way were it not for Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement. Recent Supreme Court rulings had been expanding constitutional protections for employees who speak out; this one interrupted that progress. What was the difference? In this case, Garcetti v. Ceballos, Samuel Alito, and not O'Connor, was the deciding vote."

More to the center Ann Althouse had some reservations: "Should we call Alito the "deciding vote"? It seems more appropriate to think of Kennedy as the deciding vote, that is, the man among the 5 most likely to have voted with the dissenting group. But Alito replaced O'Connor, and O'Connor might well have voted with the dissenters. In that sense, we may perceive him as the deciding vote."

Most of the commentary on the actual decision came from the left and was uniformly negative. Under a header "Ceballos - The Court Creates Bad Information Policy" Balkinization provides the best critique: "After Ceballos, employees who do know what they are talking about will retain First Amendment protection only if they make their complaints publicly without going through internal grievance procedures. Although the Court suggests that its decision will encourage the creation and use of such internal procedures, it will probably not have that effect. ...Hence employees will have incentives not to use such procedures but to speak only in public if they want First Amendment protections (note that if they speak both privately and publicly, they can be fired for their private speech). However, if they speak only publicly, they essentially forfeit their ability to stay in their jobs, first because they become pariahs, and second, because they have refused to use the employer's internal mechanisms for complaint (mechanisms which, if they used them, would eliminate their First Amendment rights)." Or put more succinctly by TalkLeft: "The decision is nonsense. Should Ceballos be entitled to less protection because he wrote a memo in the course of his official duties rather than calling a newspaper to disclose the lie?"

Very little written about the case on righty blogs especially those with a legal focus...but Strata-Sphere did have this to say: "That means the individual cannot take the law into their own hands, cannot circumvent the democratic process with personal or partisan views, and cannot risk our lives simply because they have a different opinion than the over arching government (which is elected to enact the people's will)."

PAULSON: No More Snow

Pres. Bush managed to make most lefty bloggers happy by picking Goldman Sachs chairman Henry Paulson as the next Treas. Sec. Lefty Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal asks: "Is this the beginning of the change for the Bush administration? Henry Paulson is not somebody who is going to passively watch economic policy made by political operatives in the White House. This could be very good news."

The left's Think Progress believes Paulson's involvement with the Nature Conservancy shows that he, "not only endorses the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse emissions, but argues that the United States' failure to enact Kyoto undermines the competitiveness of U.S. companies." Ezra Klein at TAPPED wonders what Paulson, "thinks of Bush's belief that "Kyoto would have wrecked our economy. I couldn't in good faith have signed Kyoto."

The right's Competitive Enterprise Institute has come out against Paulson's nomination: "The White House made an unfortunate mistake in nominating Henry M. Paulson, Jr. to be the next Secretary of the Treasury. ... The Goldman Sachs chairman's other role as chairman of the board of the Nature Conservancy, which is under investigation for financial misdealings that benefited some of its officers and donors, should automatically disqualify him for the top Treasury job." Most righties aren't terribly worried about the pick. At The CornerKathryn Jean Lopez quotes a reader: "After reading it (Washington Post article), I'm in love with the Nature Conservancy. How can you hate an environmental group that drills for natural gas and is in logging?"

Also at The CornerRich Lowry reports positive conservative reviews: "It is significant that the White House managed to get someone of stature, since the conventional wisdom had become that no one serious would take the job. Paulson is not a Bush insider like Don Evans and has a sterling reputation on Wall Street. ...He has a reputation as a very smart guy and has been a defender of the Bush tax cuts. He should pretty quickly give Bush added credibility on the economy."

Former Bush advisor Greg Mankiw's Blog outlines the job Paulson faces: "But while Mr. Snow helped steer the economy through a recessionary storm, he leaves for Mr. Paulson a more daunting task -- getting the long-term fiscal numbers to add up. The government budget is on an unsustainable path. ...Some supply-siders like to claim that the distortionary effect of taxes is so large that increasing tax rates reduces tax revenue. Like most economists, I don't find that conclusion credible for most tax hikes, and I doubt Mr. Paulson does either. ...If Hank Paulson wants to leave the nation's finances in better shape than he found them, his main job will be to focus attention on the problem." Lefty ex-Labor Sec. Robert Reich's Blog doesn't think Paulson has the power to implement any real solutions: "He has his work cut out for him. Wall Street may give two cheers to have one of their own at the helm at Treasury, but I don't really think the Street gives two hoots. ...Paulson's nomination doesn't alter the economic fundamentals. Bush continues to spend like there's no tomorrow, while cutting taxes (mostly on the rich)."

Think Progress and The Carpetbagger Report highlight a Bush "lie" on Snow's departure. The Carpetbagger Report: "As Think Progress noted, Bush was asked on May 25 if Treasury Secretary John Snow intends to leave his job. The president was unequivocal: "No, he has not talked to me about resignation. I think he's doing a fine job." That, we now know, was completely untrue. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow acknowledged today that John Snow and Bush talked on May 20, Snow stepped aside, and Henry Paulson agreed on May 21 to take the job. What the president said a few days later was obviously false. It's a no-brainer."

GOP: In Search of A Wedge

Righty Blanton at RedState is looking for "issues that poll in a lopsided way but that cross-pressure D's with their core constituencies, like labor, the trial bar, enviros, alternative lifestyle groups." Blanton offers four of his own: "1. Gov't issued photo identification to vote; 2. End double taxation of dividends; 3. Tax reform; 4. Allow individuals to buy healthcare across state lines" and asks his readers to offer more. They did. Including: Term Limits; Rescind No Child Left Behind; Rescind McCain/Feingold; End Domestic Subsidies; Balanced Budget Amendment; and more....

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: MySpace: Not Just For Pedophiles

Chris Bowers at MyDD looks at the potential of social networking sites in politics: "I feel pretty confident this will take off, even if Essembly or MySpace do not turn out to be the ideal platforms. With the rise of the netroots, it has been revealed that the demand for DIY political organizing is clearly very high. The political blogosphere, for all its free-wheeling nature, it ultimately not a very effective location for organizing actions and events. While Democracy for America and MoveOn.org have shown some promising ways to find like-minded members of their organization near where you live, those networking actions are still, generally speaking, limited to the events officially sanctioned by the parent organization. Eventually, platforms will be created for mass public use where anyone can begin organizing an political event they want. They will be able to find like-minded people in their local area, or build mini-national email lists and discussions around their actions. Howard Dean's campaign had something like this in late 2003, but to my knowledge nothing like that exists now. Combining an old "Dean Space" type model for general progressive action along with a social networking platform would result in a devastatingly powerful online action engine for the progressive movement. The political power of the netroots has already been revealed in countless ways. Creating an engine to release that energy--an engine that is not owned by News Corp--is key to our future success."

LEST WE FORGET: Every Day Can Be Fitzmas!

Iowahawk has some scripts worked out for a "Reality-Based" 1-900 number: "ANNOUNCER: For just $5.95 and $1.95 per minute, you'll be connected with one of our information insiders who is aching to fulfill your every fantasy of governmental overthrow!...MARY: Hi, I'm Mary. Dial extension CBS and let me show you my private collection of shocking Texas Air National Guard documents. Stay on the line and I'll show you how I can do things with Microsoft Word that Bill Gates never dreamed of!...JASON: Hi I'm Jason. Do you like domination? Well I want to tell you all about how I am going to make Karl Rove do the perp walk. I really want to get my truth out just for you! Call me at extension WWW and every day will be Fitzmas!"

Posted by at 12:24 PM

May 30, 2006

5/30: Deja Vu All Over Again

The Blogometer did not exist for Round One of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) vs. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but the blogger spill over on the issue is definitely part of the reason it was created. Righty bloggers are again driving the issue while lefty bloggers, normally not ones to shy away from a debate, seem contempt to label all Kerry detractors as liars and leave actual refutation of righty blogger attacks up to the MSM ... which lefty bloggers then criticize for not debunking righty blogger attacks quickly enough. For both sides, however, it's clear that any Kerry candidacy must address this past before looking to the future.

KERRY: Well At Least They Can Agree On One Thing ...

The re-emergence of Kerry's Vietnam record finally generated some consensus in the blogosphere ... if he's going to run in '08 he is going to have to put this issue to bed. Righty Captain's Quarters: "It would be inaccurate, to put it mildly, to say that the Swift boat veterans cost Kerry the presidency. What defeated Kerry was his insistence on focusing his campaign on his valor in Viet Nam and the repetition of stories like Christmas in Cambodia that failed the smell test. ... The only possible reason for raising this issue would be to clear the decks for another presidential run in 2008, but like 2004, it shows that Kerry's only strategy for elections is to live in a refashioned past." Lefty The Democratic Daily: "If John Kerry is going to have a chance to win in 2008 it will be necessary for him eliminate the controversy created by the Swift Boat Liars. Even though the facts were clear that O'Neil and other were both lying and working with GOP operatives, the media concentrated on the horse race aspect with questions as to how the charges affected the campaign, and gave far too little attention to the overwhelming amount of evidence supporting Kerry."

Moving to the actual story, consensus falls apart. Vietnam Vet Bruce Kesler at Democracy Project calls the New York Times a "willing mouthpiece for Kerry" and refutes the Times reporting on Kerry's 1971 "The Dick Cavett Show" appearance. Brainster's Blog looks at the "Christmas in Cambodia" angle while The Unalienable Right parses the Times words to poke fun at their conclusion: "We have very little interest in rehashing Hanoi John Kerry's failed presidential bid, but one paragraph in this fawning NY Times story stuck out in particular: "The Swift boat group insisted that no boats had gone to Cambodia. But Mr. Kerry's researcher, using Vietnam-era military maps and spot reports from the naval archives showing coordinates for his boat, traced his path from Ha Tien toward Cambodia on a mission that records say was to insert Navy Seals." ...You see, some records indicating that his boat went toward Cambodia at some point prove he was in Cambodia at Christmas-time in 1968. One time, we drove from Los Angeles north towards Sacramento. This proves we were in Oregon in 1968." Confederate Yankee pitches in with a map to try and show Kerry's story is impossible.

Not all righty bloggers wanted to relive the debate, but that didn't mean they had sympathy for Kerry. Robert Hahn at RedState: "Apparently neither John Kerry nor the New York Times can get over the idea that they were beaten in their race for the White House. ...Perhaps it is balm for his wounded ego. But he'll have to pardon the rest of us if we don't care anymore. Real presidents do not get second chances to deal with unanticipated events." Blue Crab Boulevard: "I wasn't blogging when that little tempest broke, so I might as well throw in my two cents now since Kerry wants to reopen things. ...Four months or so in Swift Boats do not a "war hero" make."

Outside of labeling righty blogger liars, lefty bloggers left actual refutation of their claims up to the Times. The most common lefty reaction was to attack the media for not debunking the Swift Boat/righty blogger claims fast enough. Greg Sargent at TAPPED: "Look, here's the thing. To the extent that the Swift Boat Liars were effective -- and that's in dispute -- it wasn't just because of their spending on ads. It was because the media amplified those charges for days and days, if not weeks, without examining them critically. When the press did get around to debunking the charges whatever damage there was had already been done. The media tried to shift blame for this to Kerry by arguing that he'd failed to respond aggressively. But here's the point: The press shouldn't have had to wait for Kerry to start hitting back before it started to report critically on what the Swift Boat Liars were saying."

GORE: Playing Hard To Get

National Review editor Rich Lowry at The Corner checked with his Al Gore sources and found the following: "He is one of those people who wants to be president, but doesn't really want to run for it. So he wants the party to come to him. ... Apparently he is telling the people closest to him what he is saying in public, that he isn't interested in running. ... Gore-watchers often repeat the old saw that America loves a non-candidate, noting that Gore's best day politically will be the day before he gets in. Gore surely is aware of this too. ... But no one doubt this: he is very much enjoying his new-found acclaim, and that he plays his cards very close to his chest."

On the left, Media Matters has a lengthy response to Greg Easterbrook's Slatereview of An Inconvenient Truth: "Easterbrook criticized Gore's claims that the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could lead to substantial increases in sea levels, that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing, and that Bush administration officials have attempted to tamper with official reports on the threat posed by climate change. But in each case, Easterbrook's attempt to undermine these claims failed." Adding blogosphere insult to injury The Poor Man Institute piles on Easterbrook but refuses to even link to his piece. Also not bothering even to link to Easterbrook, The News Blog attacks Slate for even posting the item.

CLINTON: HRC Is A Right-Wing Corporate Stooge?

Cenk Uygur and David Sirota continued lefty hangout The Huffington Post's anti-HRC drumbeat through the weekend. Uygur tells HRC, "Senator Clinton, I knew Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Bill Clinton." Uygur explains: "Bill Clinton brought the Democratic Party to the center. Accordingly, he left office with enormous popularity...66% approval rating, more than double President Bush's current numbers. He made a lot of people like me think that the Democrats were far more reasonable than we had suspected. He got us to open our minds to the Democratic Party. ... So, why shouldn't I be happy to see Senator Hillary Clinton running to the center again? Because the center has moved! ... The party of President Clinton understood where the real center of this country lay. The party of Senator Clinton is so scared of seeming soft on defense (or whatever Fox News Channel and Rush Limbaugh are accusing them of this week), that they have forgotten where the center lies. They have also forgotten their oath of office and why voters put them there in the first place."

Sirota responds to a Financial Times item describing a Dem. anti-HRC movement: "I'm not so sure there is a concerted effort to oppose Sen. Clinton as much as there is a new movement brewing to support candidates who are serious about standing up for ordinary citizens and fighting the hostile takeover of our government by Big Money interests. ...There are a lot of Democratic operatives in Washington who bemoan the obsessive attacks on Clinton by the right -- attacks motivated by a sick form of hatred of her personally that I just don't understand. That said, if Clinton becomes a target of populist and progressive Democrats, it will not be because of such disgusting personal hatred, but instead because of serious policy concerns about how she would behave as President. Lately, she has seemed all too happy to embrace ultra-right-wing zealots and parrot Bush talking points on the Iraq War -- all while refusing to use her national platform to challenge the Big Money interests that run Washington."

IMMIGRATION: 73% Of Americans Can't Be Wrong

Tom Bevan at right-leaning RCP Blog thinks the USA Today buried the lead for their 5/30 immigration poll showing the nation divided into roughly four equal sub-groups including "the welcoming" who are "the only group that thinks dealing with illegal immigrants already here should take priority over border security." Bevan emphasizes this line and adds: "Uh, doesn't that mean roughly 73% of Americans believe border security is a priority? And doesn't that put the lie to the claim that there is some dramatic variance among the public's point of view on the issue? USA Today didn't just bury the lede on this story, it looks like they missed it altogether."

Also at Real Clear Politics, John McIntyre believes the GOP is a walking a tight line on immigration: "This is a critical juncture for the GOP on illegal immigration and how to fashion a comprehensive solution to the broader immigration debate. Republicans are in a position to turn the illegal immigration issue into a significant asset heading into the 2006 elections, but the difficulty will be finessing the issue in a way that does not poison GOP relations with the growing Hispanic community for 2008 and beyond. ...There is a quiet rage building among average middle class folks on the illegal immigration issue, and if the Republican leadership doesn't take control of the problem very soon they will allow the more extremist wings of the anti-immigration debate to become the face of the Republican party on immigration. That would be a disaster for GOP hopes to grow their new found majority in the years to come."

Also on the right, Kate O'Beirne and Rich LowryThe Corner were quick to mock the Washington Post's 5/28 immigration story. Under a header "Hate It When that Happens" O'Beirne writes: "The article explained that GOP members in tough races are "overwhelmingly" opposed to the path to citizenship...because of "an election-year dynamic" that has them actually listening to what their voters want." On a similar tone Lowry asks "What will those crazy, yahoo republicans do next?" and then comments: "...vulnerable congressional Republicans are listening to their constituents back home and overwhelmingly deciding on that basis to oppose the "path to citizenship." Just another sign of how out of hand this immigration debate has gotten. According to the Post, "the opposition spreads across the geographical and ideological boundaries that often divide House Republicans." So it will no longer do to pretend that opposition to amnesty/path-to-citizenship is the position of only a crazed fringe of the right-wing. Instead, it represents the mainstream of GOP opinion, and if Senate Republicans aren't willing to bend to it, there will be no immigration bill at all this year."

LIEBERMAN: Symptom Of A Larger Problem?

Partnered gay man Pachacutec of firedoglake is not happy with the Human Rights Campaign endorsement of "anti-marriage, anti-privacy" Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT). Pachacutec explains his distaste for Lieberman and HRC: "He's helped install James Dobson endorsed judges to the Supreme Court like Sam Alito and he's done everything possible to undermine a progressive agenda in America. But the policy of the Human Slights Campaign is so wedded to its fancy black tie fundraisers and corporate connections that it's more than willing to sell out the people it shakes down to finance its operations." Pachacutec goes on to interview Lieberman an HRC deputy director Mike Mings before concluding: "This self-defeating, idiotic, scorecard-driven myopia, dictated by the HRC Board, is not unique to the HRC, but common among national, progressive, single issue advocacy groups. The same thinking animates groups like the Sierra Club, where the need to solicit funds leads to a "bipartisan" stance that creates a strategic game plan that in turn undercuts the very agenda these national groups ostensibly represent. I included the whole interview with Mings in order to be fair, and also to illustrate the mindset that endorses a candidate who actually is cynically worse for the HRC's financial supporters than is his opponent."

Pam's House Blend agrees: "But the larger question is what can be done to make organizations allegedly working on our behalf more responsive -- to be able to support politicians who are willing to stick their necks out for our rights at a time when that is what is most needed? Supporting pseudo allies, or worse, actual foes in the overall battle for civil equality makes no sense for those LGBT citizens whose lives are profoundly affected by "friends" like Lieberman. The only way, in the end, is to bypass those organizations and give directly to those candidates who do stand for equality.."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Clash Of Civilizations

Chris Bowers at MyDD looks at this map showing a red-blue divide between Catholic and Lutheran blue-counties on one hand, and Baptist, Christian, Mormon and Methodist red-counties on the other:

"...as we approach election season, I reproduce this map because the progressive netroots is composed of political obsessives. Most of us spend an inordinate amount of time focused on current events, legislative policy, abstract matters of ideology, infrastructure, media narratives, electoral activism, and general strategy. Sometimes, I feel that because we are so obsessed with politics online that we often lose touch with what truly motivates voters. 80% of the country has no idea who Ann coulter is. Hell, 60% of the country has no idea who Harry Reid is."

"Over the past year and a half, I have slowly developed an argument that the electorate is, in general, non-ideological, not interested in policy, and generally unmoved by the day-to-day minutia of political events that, within the blogosphere, are treated as cataclysmic events. Sure, most people hold general political beliefs, but in general national voting habits are motivated by something else--something more basic. As we look for ways to motivate voters in November, we need to remember the powerful role that identity plays in political decision-making. As progressives, we shrug off concepts such as the "battle of civilizations," but if you look closely at demographic data, maybe it is a battle of civilizations taking place after all. We may very well be living in an era of identity politics. Who knows, maybe every era of American politics is an era of identity politics."

"Motivating voters and pulling off a landslide election will require a gut-level change of attitude about the two parties among millions of Americans. For all of the great policies everyone will suggest Democrats to run on this fall, ultimately winning will be based just as much on how Americans view their identity in relation to the image of the two coalitions as anything else. We need to avoid falling into the wonk trap of assuming that people are motivated by policy details. It is the identity, stupid. We need to explore ways to motivate voters for progressive causes with that in mind."

LEST WE FORGET: Show Me The Monkey!

If you love Chris Matthews cover your ears ... if you hate him turn up the volume...courtesy of FishBowl DC here is a clip of Matthews' monkey impersonation from the 5/21 Chris Matthews Show.

Posted by at 01:06 PM

May 26, 2006

5/26: Get Away Day

5/25's Sen. vote set the stage for what should be a dissent-filled summer for the GOP over immigration. At least Pres. Bush was able to calm some righty blogger anger over Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-IL) attack on the FBI raid. We'll see if the same can be said for lefty blogger anger directed at the Cong. Black Caucus.

IMMIGRATION: Bill Kristol Got Something Wrong?!?!

The Blogometer doesn't know about the GOP base, but Powerline does accurately sum up righty blogger sentiment here: "The Bush administration and Republican Senators have badly misjudged both the attitudes of most Republicans (and, of course, most Americans) toward illegal immigration, and the intensity of those views." Guest blogger Bob Cunningham goes on to elaborate: "Here's what they're missing, and it is the principal reason, in my opinion, WHY the anti-ILLEGAL forces are so upset -- and so powerful. It has to do with the bad faith, calculated deceit, Orwellian propaganda, dishonest sophistry, misdirection, arrogance, presumption, indifference to, and, indeed, contempt for the beliefs of huge numbers of ordinary Americans -- including LEGAL immigrants and Hispanic natives! - on the part of political/media elites. ...The ultimate retort of the immigration celebrationists - let us call it the "immigrants are good people" argument - is totally beside the point. It is an assertion that no one would disagree with, but it is also an argument that has NO internal LIMITING PRINCIPLE. There is, on its own terms, no non-arbitrary basis for excluding ANY ONE of the 6 billion non-Americans. Other than criminal disqualification, most of them, are, indeed "good people"....so what?"

Under the header "The Most Important Debate Of The Year" Michelle Malkin accuses Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) of playing the race card: "An extraordinary exchange just took place on the Senate floor. ...The questions are these: Who do we let into this country and how many? On one side of the debate: Democrat Sen. Jeff Bingaman of N.M. and Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama. On the other side, the blubbering open-borders duo of GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Sen. Teddy Kennedy of Massachusetts. ...When Bingaman pointed out the need for prudence in opening the floodgates to unlimited numbers of low-skilled workers, both McCain and Kennedy pulled the race card. McCain's immediate response was to sputter that the "Chamber of Commerce, unions, and Hispanic groups" oppose the caps! McCain called it un-American to be selective about whom we let into this country. Yeah, he did."

Righty PoliPundit identifies "heroes who deserve your support in tough re-election battles in 2006" including: Allen (R-WA), Burns (R-MT), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Santorum (R-PA), Talent (R-MO). PoliPundit also ids "Traitors and agents of Mexico...One senator on the traitors list who would make a good example for conservatives to defeat in 2006 is Mike DeWine (R-OH). Please do not contribute to, volunteer for, vote for, or otherwise support DeWine in any way."

Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner checks up on some Weekly Standard managing editor William Kristol predictions: "Senate Republicans voted 32-23 against the bill. I was interested in the breakdown among them as a test of William Kristol's argument that every Republican in a competitive state was with the president and McCain. Looking just at this year's tight races, the pro-bill side included DeWine and Chafee. The anti-bill side included Burns, Santorum, and Talent. (I don't consider Kyl or Allen vulnerable, but they were also anti-). This particular political argument seems to have been comprehensively disproved (which is not of course to say that Kristol's other arguments have).

Captain's Quarters doesn't see the bill surviving conference committee: "Complicated? It's ridiculous, and I doubt it will survive the conference committee. This bill reminds me of the BCRA, which not so coincidentally had one sponsor in common with this bill. Rather than just set up a streamlined normalization regime, the authors placed politics above common sense and created a bureaucracy that will cost American voters a fortune, and one that will probably go mostly unenforced as a result." Rich Lowry at The Corner agrees: "Chris Shays, Tom Davis, and Sue Kelly...are they all drooling, yahoo right-wingers? Of course not. But in the caricature of supporters of the Senate bill they must be, because they all are opposed to, or extremely skeptical, of "the path to citizenship," according to these Washington Times and Washington Post articles. All of them represent liberal to moderate congressional districts, and Shays and Davis are famously thoughtful (if often irritating to conservatives). If Bush doesn't have them, it looks really bad for him-perhaps impossible-in the House."

Expose the Left has audio of Rush Limbaugh's grilling of WH press sec. Tony Snow and summarizes: "Rush spent more than 25 of this 45 minutes with Snow grilling him on the White House's stance on the problem. Snow did not do a good job in defending what the White House would like to do, giving illegal immigrants amnesty after several benchmarks have been met. Snow also defended the so-called national ID card that would be used to track and identify illegals that have been granted temporary citizenship on their way to amnesty."

Lefty Jonathan Singer at MyDD sees opportunity in ex-Pres. Jimmy Carter's recent endorsement of Bush's plan: "I can already see the ad right now. Perhaps it was paid for by the Constitution Party, perhaps it was sponsored by the Minutemen, perhaps we never find out who put up the money for the spot. Cue stock footage of Jimmy Carter and George Bush shaking hands. (It would be better if they were hugging, but I'm assuming such footage doesn't exist). Snarky sounding announcer throws some of the tired conservative rhetoric at Jimmy Carter before slamming George W. Bush for aligning with Carter on immigration. The ad runs on Fox News and during the 700 Club -- prime viewing time for the nativist base of the GOP -- and more conservative voters end up staying at home on election day than in any other election in recent memory (even more so than in 2000 voters found out just days before the election about George W. Bush's DUIs)"

JEFFERSON: Ebony and Ivory

The Cong. Black Caucus-House Min. Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) fracas brought the CBC under lefty blogger fire. AMERICAblog: "Apparently the CBC thinks Pelosi is a racist because the criminal she wants out of her party happens to be black (no word on whether the CBC is therefore misogynist and racist since the Democrat they're picking on is a woman and white). In any case, it's rather interesting that I wrote last night about how the talk in town was that the CBC was corrupt as hell. And now this happens. Things that make you go hmmmm..." The News Blog agrees: "Look, I didn't like it when bloggers jumped all over McKinney on the word of the capitol police, who seem to have different standards for black congresswomen and drunk Irish Congressmen. But this is way different. ...If the CBC thinks people outside of the Hill gives a shit about Jefferson, they're insane. Black America has been plagued with corrupt leaders and they belong under the jail. When people lack resources and means, the last thing they need is someone sticking their hand out for payoffs. Taylor Marsh: "That said, what the CBC is doing today is revolting. The Congressional Black Caucus is gunning for Leader Nancy Pelosi, all because she called Jefferson out and asked him rightly to resign Ways and Means. Not only is Pelosi right on this one, but courageously so. That the CBC is circling the wagons around Jefferson is all about protecting political turf and has nothing to do with doing the right thing, which is ousting this man from the powerful Ways and Means committee. As for the Congressional Black Caucus, it's not a black and white issue. It's an issue of right and wrong."

The CBC was not without lefty defenders. The Carpetbagger Report: "On a certain level, the CBC is right to be concerned about a double standard. When Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) came under fire, Pelosi did not ask him to resign. For that matter, it's hard to argue with the notion that Democratic leaders should, at a minimum, allow for a presumption of innocence when dealing with other Democrats." Democrats.com: "kos stands with Pelosi. So does Stoller. I stand with the Black Caucus. Why? ...I stand with the Black Caucus because its Members include some of the most progressive Members of Congress, period. Here is the breakdown of the House Progressive Caucus, which includes 27/43 of black members."

Kos points out that "a Dem majority would give CBC members up to five committee chairmainships including Ways and Means" and argues that "clean and honest government...transcends any racial, ethnic, religious, and yes, even partisan boundaries." Then he takes the opportunity to settle old scores: "Update: Jefferson, by the way, is a card-carrying member of the DLC. You know, the organization founded to take on the "entrenched interests" in DC." (Ed. note: 347 comments vast majority want Jefferson out, but still highly supportive of CBC...just not on this issue(not a lot of love for Pelosi either)"

DLC defender NewDonkey couldn't let that one go: "But I do have a small bone to pick with Kos...Kos' link was to an article in Human Events, of all things, that quoted Bruce Reed as favoring CAFTA, as did Jefferson. So what? As I've explained over and over, the DLC ain't got no membership cards. And what the hell does supporting CAFTA (which if I recall correctly, Kos himself said was defensible on the merits) have to do with taking bribes to peddle influence in Nigeria? The DLC has repeatedly and redundantly supported ethics rules and legislation tougher than anything that either party in Congress has seriously considered, along with public financing of congressional elections and an assault on corporate subsidies. Dislike the DLC all you want; it's a free country. But Bill Jefferson's apparent kleptomania has nothing to do with us, anymore than it has anything to do with the Democratic Party as a whole."

HASTERT: Is This Suit Over Before It Started?

Dales at RedState provides the perfect overview for the GOP side of the William Jefferson (D-LA) scandal: "It takes unbelievable creativity and motivation to turn a scandal involving bribes of a Democratic Congressman, with such sensational and media-friendly tidbits such as the money being hidden disguised as lasagna in the icebox, into a scandal about GOP leadership in the House trying to put itself above the law." Instapundit looks at Pres. Bush's sealing of the seized documents and wonders if there aren't darker forces involved: "Could Al Qaeda have slipped mind-altering drugs into the DC water supply? What's gotten into these people? Or has some sort of deal been cut? Whatever it is, I don't think I like it."

Few are defending Hastert, but not everyone on the right hates Bush's foray into the issue. Captain's Quarters: "George Bush tossed a lifesaver to Denny Hastert and the rest of the imperial Congress today by temporarily sealing the evidence seized from the legislative offices of Rep. William Jefferson, the target of an FBI corruption investigation. Sealing the records gives both branches more time to work out their differences, Bush said, but made clear that prosecutors would eventually gain access to the material." Righty lawyer Orin Kerr is also cool with the move: "This has no legal effect, but is probably a pretty good idea to signal that folks should cool off for a bit."

Righty Pascoe's Blog wonders if Team Hastert hasn't already sunk their libel suit against ABC: "I'm not a lawyer. But I can't help but wonder how Hastert deputy chief of staff Mike Stokke's acknowledgement to Chicago Sun-Times reporter Lynn Sweet last night that he believed "ABC News got this from somewhere. I don't think they made this up" will play, legally? Wouldn't a public acknowledgement by a senior Hastert aide that he believes ABC News didn't make up the story undercut the legal argument offered by Hastert's lawyers?"

BUSH: No Minds Changed Here

Lefties were predictably unimpressed with Pres. Bush and PM Tony Blair's 5/25 presser. Mcjoan at DailyKos didn't see any actual contrition: "Love those non-apology apologies, as well as the refusal to admit culpability, much less responsibility for Mission Accomplished, for "bring 'em on," for torture and rendition. Hey, it's all just a big ol' misinterpretation." Steve Cobble at The Huffington Post managed to work in pretty much every other lefty take in this graph: "Tony Blair, aka "Bush's Poodle", came to Washington today to meet with his Iraq War co-conspirator. The wonderful Col. Ann Wright & Code Pink are going to be there outside the White House to greet him. Too bad, guys. You blew it with your lies, your macho rigidity, your taste for glory over morality. Your historical legacies are not going to be pleasant ones, and unlike LBJ, you won't even be seen as tormented by the traps you set for yourselves." Also with takes: The Left Coaster, The Democratic Daily, Oliver Willis, and Crooks and Liars has video.

Most righty attention was vacuumed up by immigration. Those that did comment focused on Respect PM George Galloway's assertion that an assassination of Tony Blair by a suicide bomber would be justified. Captain's Quarters, Right Wing Nut House, Done with Mirrors, Sister Toldjah, Blue Crab Boulevard, The American Thinker, and Decision'08 all picked up on the story.

Righties that did comment on the presser were impressed. Andrew Sullivan: "They were different men last night - for the first time dropping all pretense that their occupation of Iraq has gone in any way according to non-existent plan. And in a strange way, that helps them." Macsmind: "But the President hit a home run as far as I'm concerned. Should get a boost in the polls."

ELECTION'06: A Wisci Look

On the left marthature at DailyKos takes a detailed look at WI-08. A brief excerpt: "The National GOP has so much interest in this race they sent RNC chair Ken Mehlman to the District this past Friday night, where he duly praised far-right Republican state House Speaker John Gard as "a great candidate." The Democrats have 3 candidates in the race, and the primary is not til September 12. Below are some funding facts and analyses. ...Who will win? Fight to the mat, this one, lawyers, money, voting machines, accusations, smears, you name it. The longer the Democrats hold out before getting behind one candidate the worse it's going to be for them. Look for an update after June 30th for fundraising.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: No Wonder We Don't Have A Flat Tax Yet

Intellectual property law professor Lawrence Lessig notes all too familiar developments in the Golden State: "In 2005, the state of California conducted an experiment. Hoping to make paying taxes easier, it launched a pilot program for people who were likely to file "simple returns." The state already had the payroll information some taxpayers needed to file their returns, so it filled out 50,000 of those forms for them. Praise for the program was generally over-the-top. ...Soon after ReadyReturn was launched, lobbyists from the tax-preparation industry began to pressure California lawmakers to abandon the innovation. Their opposition was not surprising: If figuring out your taxes were easy, why would anyone bother to hire H&R Block? If the government sends you a completed form, why buy TurboTax? ...But what is surprising is that their "arguments" are having an effect. ...In February, the California Republican caucus released a report highlighting its "concerns" about the program - for example, that an effort to make taxes more efficient "violates the proper role of government." Soon thereafter, a Republican state senator introduced a bill to stop the ReadyReturn program. ...Free markets aren't pro-business - they don't favor incumbent companies if upstarts do the job better. Competition is good wherever it comes from - even the government - so long as it lowers social costs and increases wealth. And efficiency is good regardless of who it might hurt; it is especially good if it hurts those who feed off inefficiency. Thus, lawyers are good, but a world that needed fewer of them would be much better. Doctors are great, but that's no argument against better health. And TurboTax is fantastic, but it shouldn't prevent the government from making paying taxes easier."

LEST WE FORGET: Al Gore Wins Another National Election!!!

The ecoEnquirer reports: " Al Gore, Jr. and Rachel Carson battled it out last night in the final American Climate Idol competition, with strong vocal performances on classic songs such as "Eve of Destruction" and "Free Bird". ... Both contestants have proven to be crowd pleasers, pouring their hearts and souls into their personal renditions of a variety of songs featuring environmental themes. ... But in the end, Al Gore emerged the victor. With over 66 million votes cast, more than any presidential candidate in an American election, Mr. Gore expressed great satisfaction with the win. "You know, most people don't realize I actually invented the hybrid car."

Posted by ereed at 12:08 PM

May 25, 2006

5/25: What Not To Do

Our top two stories today may just highlight some right and wrong uses of the blogosphere. Brian Ross' 5/24 Blotter report on Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) spread like wildfire through the lefty blogosphere and generated push back from the right. Eventually enough doubt was raised about the initial story that The Blotter issued an update which satisfied few. One wonders if Ross would have been as quick to launch the story on the air.

At the other end of the spectrum, ex-AG Ed Meese amplified the reach of his New York Times immigration op-ed with a 5/24 am righty blogger conference call. Not everyone on the call agreed with Meese's position, but the event assured a much broader audience for Meese's case. Opinion writers with clear legislative agendas ought to copy this tactic.

BLOGGERS VS. MSM: Blottered

Brian Ross at ABC News' The Blotter ignited a blogswarm 5/24 with a post under the header, "Officials: Hastert "In the Mix" of Congressional Bribery Investigation." The opening paragraph now reads (righty bloggers have accused The Blotter of changing their original post): "Federal officials say the Congressional bribery investigation now includes Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, based on information from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government."

Hotline's On Call reported that the DOJ quickly denied the charges as did Hastert's office.

The Blotter then offered an update: "Despite a flat denial from the Department of Justice, federal law enforcement sources tonight said ABC News accurately reported that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is "in the mix" in the FBI investigation of corruption in Congress. ...You guys wrote the story very carefully but they are not reading it very carefully," a senior official said. ...One focus involves a letter Hastert wrote in 2003 urging the Secretary of the Interior to block an Indian casino that would have competed with tribes represented by Abramoff. ...ABC's law enforcement sources said the Justice Department denial was meant only to deny that Hastert was a formal "target" or "subject" of the investigation. ..."Whether they like it or not, members of Congress, including Hastert, are under investigation," one federal official said tonight."

Righty bloggers weren't buying the new "in the mix" distinction at all. Confederate Yankee: "In the original article, Ross was quite careful to only say that Hastert was "in the mix," a vague, rather nebulous statement that most readers would interpret to mean that Hastert was most likely the target of a criminal investigation. Indeed, the Reality-Based Community (an oxymoron if there ever was one) seems to be exactly under that impression in their update, and the ambiguous wording is also apparently interpreted in a similar fashion at Booman Tribune, The Carpetbagger Report, and Washington Monthly, all leading liberal political blogs. But these blogs were hardly alone. Mainstream news sources such as Bloomberg were also taken in by Ross's too-perfect parsing." Wizbang: "The "in the mix" statement directly contradicts the Department of Justice statement. For Speaker Hastert to be "in the mix" of an investigation means that he has to be part of the investigation, which the DOJ flatly denied. Brian Ross appears to be standing by a story that doesn't have legs."

Riehl World View argued that if Hastert was only in the mix then the story wasn't news at all: "The Ross / ABC headline grabbing story is a non-story, perhaps fed to him by someone who wanted to take a shot at Hastert. And not even a web search was done to flesh the story out, or discover that Ross was being had. There is no news here whatsoever, other than what could have been known or assumed from reading the Chicago Tribune four months ago. In fact, there is less information - and pertinent facts omitted serve to make it appear worse than it might be."

From there, the righty accusations only got worse. The Truth Laid Bear: " Hugh Hewitt points out something I missed: that it would appear that ABC News has changed the text of the story currently on their web site since its original publication! ...So here's the first paragraphs as they appear right now (8:41pm PDT):

Federal officials say the Congressional bribery investigation now includes Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, based on information from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government. Part of the investigation involves a letter Hastert wrote three years ago, urging the Secretary of the Interior to block a casino on an Indian reservation that would have competed with other tribes.

But Hugh indicates that "Hastert's office" provided a different version. Which reminded me that I received the story, in email, from a Republican Senator's office at 3:49pm. Here's the first paragraphs of that version:

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI, which is seeking to determine his role in an ongoing public corruption probe into members of Congress, ABC News has learned from high level government sources.
Federal officials say the information implicating Hastert was developed from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.

The Truth Laid Bear concludes: "Pretty important difference! I went looking for a cached version of the original ABC News story, with no luck. But I got the next best thing, check out this screen capture of Memeorandum from just a few moments ago...It does indeed match the version I received, and does indeed contain the strong phrasing "is under investigation by the FBI." Blue Crab Boulevard also believes The Blotter changed their story and writes: "Face it ABC, you got rolled and you are trying desperately to not have to admit it."

Powerline thinks the larger problem is MSM use of anonymous sources: "Perhaps it could still turn out to be true. But, once again, the moral is, I think, that it is foolish to assume that stories based on anonymous leaks are well-founded. More likely, they are smears and slanders put out by people with a political agenda, and printed by reporters with the same political agenda." NRO's Media Blog also focuses on the leakers: "Somebody's lying. The question is, if it's the sources for those ABC News stories, will ABC reporter Brian Ross do the honorable thing and disclose their identities. Without such action, there is no incentive against leaking wild, damaging but ultimately baseless rumors from high positions in the government. There is no accountability. When leakers are not punished for disseminating false information, each leak detracts from the public's knowledge - an unacceptable situation if the justification for such leaks is the public's right to know."

Righties were quick to put ABC News in some unwelcome company. QandO: "So has ABC joined Truthout.org in getting a little ahead of the news cycle?" Commenter James Williams at The Blotter: "I think we need to start a poll to see how long before Brian Ross is forced to retract this story and join Dan Rather in "retirement" land."

The vast majority of lefty bloggers gleefully linked to the original Blotter post, including: Swing State Project, Democrats.com, AMERICAblog, Oliver Willis, Talking Points Memo, David Sirota, Booman Tribune, The Political Animal, TPMmuckraker, MyDD, and truthdig.

Some lefties did have questions. TalkLeft wasn't buying the "in the mix" distinction either: "For ABC's law enforcement sources to now say all members of Congress are "under investigation" and Hastert "isn't a formal subject" makes no sense." The Carpetbagger Report wondered why such a big story was relegated to the blogosphere: "One thing that's bugging me, though, is that ABC News reported this on their blog, but as of now, there's no mention of it on ABC News' regular news website. If the network had a blockbuster news scoop, that no other outlet seems to have, why not put it on ABCNews.com? It seems odd."

Other lefties played conspiracy theory. The Reality Based Community: "But note that this news (sourced to "senior U.S. law enforcement officials") hit the media the day after Hastert dared to criticize the Bureau. And note also that ABC supinely transcribed the leak, without alerting its viewers/readers to the obvious motivation of the FBI to dirty up one of its critics. I said the Bureau played rough. I never denied they were good at it."

HASTERT: Separation Anxiety

After deadline 5/24 more lefties defended Hastert's separation of powers claims. Matthew Yglesias at TAPPED: "Dennis Hastert and the other congressional leaders are right on the merits here. There's a reason why security for Congress (and the Supreme Court) is provided neither by the Secret Service, nor by the FBI, nor by the DC Police Department, but rather by a special Capitol Police Department (or Supreme Court PD for the SCOTUS). This is also why the Constitution stipulates that members "shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place." There's a real separation of powers principle at stake here; the executive branch is not supposed to be charged with policing the behavior of the members of other branches of government. I'll shed no tears for Jefferson, but this is not unlike if the Bush administration were to use an illegal secret wiretap to catch an actual terrorist."

Fellow lefty The Reality Based Community agreed: "...there's a real separation-of-powers issue here. ...Do we really want every Congressman who criticizes the Bureau or fails to vote it more money or wider powers to have to worry about potential revenge? ...The Constitution places the authority and responsibility for disciplining Congressional misconduct squarely upon the Congress. The problem, of course, is that the Congress has been signally lax in carrying out that responsibility. If the Congress won't do its job, then the Bureau will be happy to take over."

Still, no blogger with actual legal training and the ability to site case law was buying the separation of powers argument. Libertarian Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy: "I confess I'm pretty puzzled by Speaker Hastert's theory here. I understand that the power to arrest, search, and prosecute Congressmen could be abused by the Executive. But I take it that Speaker Hastert isn't arguing that Congressmen can't be prosecuted, or even can't be prosecuted for bribery. (Actually, Justices Douglas, White, and Brennan seemed to take the latter view in United States v. Brewster (1972), at least as to the selling of legislative acts; but they lost, and I hadn't heard of anyone trying to revive this position.) Is it that Jefferson could be prosecuted, but his office couldn't be searched? If so, what exactly is the constitutional basis for the distinction? For now, my tentative view is the same as Orin's -- there's no constitutional problem here -- but perhaps I'm missing something."

IMMIGRATION: Don't Meese This Call

Ex-AG Ed Meese followed up his 5/24 New York Timesop-ed with a righty blogger conference call that included:

• Captain's Quarters: "Gen. Meese has some interesting insight into the immigration mess, given his proximity to the Simpson-Mazzoli debacle. I have tremendous respect for his perspective, and if he says that he's getting a sense of deja vu, it behooves us to listen. I still would trade some limited normalization program for effective border security, but unless the conference committee makes some significant changes to the Senate approach, I fear we will get neither."
• Decision'08: "It's no secret to regular readers that I feel the current emphasis on immigration is a bit overblown...Meese stressed that the 'incentive' for current illegals to leave is simply the removal of the cloud of forced deportation and associated legal consequences and the right to return, legally, behind all the other people already in line. I question how much of an incentive that is, but it's certainly fair.
• Freeman Hunt: "The aim of this [the Meese plan] plan is to produce a combination of incentives and disincentives to discourage illegal immigration and encourage legal processing. By contrast, the three tier plan currently under debate in the Senate, provides for three levels of status for illegal immigrants based on work history and residency."
• Hugh Hewitt: "Meese: "I think that's always a problem as we found following 1986. In the '90s, there was very little concern for upholding the law."...Can we pause for a moment and admire the greatness of that quote from Meese on the '90s before I move on to say that he added that better technology and increased border control forces will help enforce the laws in a way we couldn't post-1986 amnesty."
• Michelle Malkin: "Meese advocates increased interior enforcement, strengthened employer sanctions...possible private sector outsourcing for a bona fide temporary worker program after immigration enforcement takes place...more local-state-fed police cooperation...amnesty vs. mass deportation is a false choice..."
• QandO: "I asked Mr Meese wouldn't it be more reasonable to streamline the legal immigration process and markedly increase our immigration quotas to sufficiently absorb the demand for peaceful migration into the US? If we accomplish this, then the question of amnesty will solve itself rather quickly, as applications for entry were processed in short order. Amnesty is mainly a problem right now because the quota is so small, while the line and the time it takes to be approved is so long. ...Mr Meese's answer was disappointing, although I think my poor phrasing and lack of follow-up was more to blame than was he. He said that he agreed that we needed to streamline our immigration process, but that we needed to do it concurrently with increased border control and internal enforcement."
• Right Wing News: "Long story short: The Senate bill is an amnesty that treats enforcement like a joke and it would be no more effective at stopping illegal immigration than the 1986 bill."
• Wizbang: "Mr. Meese acknowledged that after the amnesty law of 1986 was implemented, which called for a large increase in border security, the US government was not motivated to actually enforce its own laws. However, with the technology we have today, Mr. Meese believes that border security should be easier. Only after the border has been secured will the temporary worker program be implemented, and as a pilot program first."

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has a "TOP 10 FLAWS WITH AMNESTY AND GUEST WORKER OF COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL" that is being widely linked to on the right. Daily Pundit, RCP Blog, and The Corner all link positively while fellow right Big Lizards is more skeptical: "Assuming this is true, of course; I haven't read the bill, and due to past behavior, I'm not necessarily willing to trust Grassley to stick to the truth in a debate.

Immigration remains a far bigger topic on the right, but lefties are discussing strategy on the issue. New Donkey: "By refusing to sign on to a smooth-groove path for the compromise absent some assurances about the end-game, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid ultimately secured an agreement to cut Democrats, and members of the responsible bipartisan majority of the Judiciary Committee, into the conference committee. That's why there are enough Senate Democrats willing to keep the compromise alive. But in the end, it won't really matter if George W. Bush isn't willing to use a veto threat and every other formal power he possesses, to make the compromise law, against the will of House Republicans. And if he won't take definitive sides on immigration reform, then the whole exercise will be nothing more than another graphic illustration of the powerlessness to do good of the all-powerful Republican ascendancy in Washington."

Matthew Yglesias at Talking Points Memo doesn't want a bill from this congress: "The odds are overwhelming that six months from now there will be more Democrats in both the House and the Senate than there are today. That means that for the price of a small delay in time of passage, Democrats should be able to get a more progressive bill through in the next congress if nothing passes this year. ...Maybe the next congress would only let us get a slightly better bill or maybe it will let us get a much better bill. ...Under the circumstances, Democrats seem to have a lot of leverage and every reason to take a hard line in negotiations."

GORE: They're Just Jealous

ESPN columnist Gregg Easterbrook suggest Slate readers should see An Inconvenient Truth but still has some criticisms: "

"Broadly, An Inconvenient Truth denounces consumerism, yet asks of its audience no specific sacrifice. "What I look for is signs we are really changing our way of life, and I don't see it," Gore intones with his signature sigh. As he says this, we see him at an airport checking in to board a jet, where he whips out his laptop. If "really changing our way of life" is imperative, what's Gore doing getting on a jetliner? Jets number among the most resource-intensive objects in the world. ...This raises the troubling fault of An Inconvenient Truth: its carelessness about moral argument. Gore says accumulation of greenhouse gases "is a moral issue, it is deeply unethical." Wouldn't deprivation also be unethical? Some fossil fuel use is maddening waste; most has raised living standards. The era of fossil energy must now give way to an era of clean energy. But the last century's headlong consumption of oil, coal, and gas has raised living standards throughout the world; driven malnourishment to an all-time low, according to the latest U.N. estimates; doubled global life expectancy; pushed most rates of disease into decline; and made possible Gore's airline seat and MacBook, which he doesn't seem to find unethical. ...Gore wants to have it that the greener-than-thou crowd is saintly, while the producers of cars, power, food, fiber, roads, and roofs are appalling. That is, he posits a simplified good versus a simplified evil. Just like a movie!"

The Political Animal reviews the review: "Gregg Easterbrook complains that (1) it's boring; (2) it's annoying; (3) it's contrived; (4) it's unimaginative; (5) it's alarmist; (6) it's too detailed; (7) it promotes conspiracy theories; (8) it's hypocritical; and (9) it's morally careless. ...And that's from a guy who says he's "glad" Gore made the movie. ...You'd almost think he just can't stand the thought that Gore was right before he was."

Ezra Klein at TAPPED relates a tale from Gore's Columbia's School of Journalism days: "Josh Bearman, who took the course, remembers that "He knew more than everyone in the room. So the class basically turned against him because he was smarter than they were, and they didn't like that. We witnessed exactly what had happened on the campaign plane in the year prior." And make no mistake -- we'll see it again. It's one thing for global warming to top the agenda. For Gore to put it there, however, implicitly indicts all those who mocked or sought to stymie his crusade in the past. His success is their failure, and they'll do their damndest to stop it."

The Corner is all over Gore's Cannes trip. Jonah Goldberg does some digging to follow up on Arianna Huffington'sGore-French-existentialists-summers quote and Iain Murray links to a Competitive Enterprise Institute video on Gore's "Big Fat Carbon Footprint"

McCAIN: Josh Lyman Lives!!!

Jason Horowitz' New York Observer profile of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) did McCain no favors in blogoland. No More Mister Nice Blog notes that in the piece McCain "criticized elements in his own party as "nativist" before lambasting the punditry of Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage for helping to "fuel the problem," according to two of the sources." Nice Blog comments: "Wow, that's three mistakes in one: He insulted Saint Rush and his fellow Tribunes of the People, he insulted the seal-the-borders wingnuts themselves, and he did it in commie-lib New York, playing to a crowd of bankers, socialites, and (we're told later in the article) "some Democratic names." Not a smooth move." Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner agrees: "A Republican who doesn't know there's a difference between Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage will encounter problems with conservative primary voters."

Also at The Corner Mark Krikorian wasn't impressed with McCain's plans for world peace: "McCain said ""One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, "Stop the b******t." Does this remind anyone of Perot? I've long thought that McCain is a saner version of Perot, and sees himself in the same way as a Napoleonic "man on a horse." Apart from the substance of his views, the degree to which this kind of personality attracts public support is an indicator of the health of republican self-government. I'm not optimistic."

Lefty bloggers also had fun at McCain's expense for his mideast peace plan. Ezra Klein at TAPPED quotes the same Shiites and Sunnis sit down line and quips: "Woo! That's bracing stuff! And then, after the hasty consultations with translators to make sure he actually said that, the participants would stare at him quizzically, wondering what the straight-talk solution to oil sharing, political representation, entrenched hatreds, and varying conceptions of secularism will be. So what is it? McCain demands that they "stop the bull***t." What are his next ten words?" Shakespeares Sister fills in at least the next five words: "I have the best informants in all of the blogosphere, and one of them has gotten me a copy of McCain's entire plan. If you thought "Phase One: Stop the Bull***t" was outstanding, wait until you get a load of "Phase Two: No, Seriously...I Mean It." Fellow lefty Preemptive Karma chimes in: "Classic, wonderful McCain. Who cares if it's a statement from la-la land. How can you not love it? What I loved most from this speech was McCain's jumping all over Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, and Michael Savage for helping to "fuel the problem" of ghettoizing immigrants. He actually called Republicans "nativists."

Ryan Lizza at The Plank followed up on MSM reports that McCain returned campaign cash to the notorious Wyly brothers with a statement from McCain adviser John Weaver: "After the checks were received from Sam and Charles Wyly, it was discovered through the normal vetting process here at Straight Talk America that a federal inquiry is ongoing into the two gentlemen. Once that was discovered, we have a policy internally not to accept contributions from people in that situation, so the checks were returned. And at our request they did not attend the fundraiser in Dallas."

Not officially affiliated with the former-NY mayor Giuliani Blog writes: "Two things here. 1) When did the McCain folks know they had a problem? Because news of the Wyly investigation is not exactly, um, news. It was featured in a DNC press release and in a Dallas Morning News article as far back as early June 2005. 2) The Wylys didn't just write a check. They were on the host committee. Okay, so McCain accepts the money and has to return it. Happens all the time. But the Wylys were actually co-hosts of the event, which means that Straight Talk America actively worked with them to corral checks for the event. So, McCain invites these two former enemies to raise money for him, after their dicey legal status is public knowledge. ...The white knight of campaign finance reform, the man who would compromise the First Amendment itself at the altar of ethical purity, is getting to be an awfully cheap date. This kind of hypocrisy can kill authenticity. And without conservative base mojo, "authenticity" is all McCain's got."

BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: My Darling Clemonstine

Today the Blogometer talks to lefty Steve Clemons, who writes The Washington Note.

What is your full name?

Steven Clemons

What is your age?

43

Where did you grow up?

Kansas, Massachusetts, California, England, Alaska, Oklahoma, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Hampshire, Texas and Japan. I was an Air Force brat.

Where do you live now?

Washington, DC

What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?

Builder of think tanks, policy entrepreneur, director of foreign policy and international economic policy programs at the New America Foundation, blogger/writer/pundit...never worked for a campaign or mainstream media...though solicited by both

When did you start blogging and why?

Three reasons...First was feeling like I needed to do some intellectual and policy RD outside of the New America Foundation where I was then serving as Executive Vice President. Secondly, I had a lot of good material coming to me constantly, and I'd pass on to my pal, Josh Marshall...who was the primary force in my setting up my own blog. In fact, I got my blog running two years after Josh began kicking and nudging me to do it. Three, I like how the blog is a pliable medium...part serioius commentary, part reporting, part advocacy, and part vanity.

What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?

My favorite posts were also the ones that became the most all-consuming. While I have single posts that I found personally stimulating, the whole four month block of work I did on the politics of John Bolton's nomination to the United Nations was among what I consider my favorite blogging. I also liked a post I did exposing the Republican National Committee's mailing of homophobic, high-fear literature that asserted that Democrats would 'ban the Bible' and turn certain states into bastions of homosexuality. These mailers were being sent to church parish rosters and were an indication of the social values focus that Karl Rove had orchestrated in the RNC's political campaign. I also liked one that focused on Japan's Crown Princess Masako Owada and the politics inside Japan's imperial household establishment. I got a ton of fan mail from Japanese women for that piece.

Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?

Varies -- but usually a couple of hours a day. Try to get major thinking and posting done in early morning and then add items during the day. Sometimes, write longer thought pieces in the middle of the night.

Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?

Joshua Micah Marshall...who is a fantastic blogger and also got me into all this.

Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?

David Ignatius, Washington Post

What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?

Two: This Week with George Stephanopoulos and C-Span's "Washington Journal"

What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?

New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Economist, LA Times, CNN, Fox News

What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?

Talking Points Memo, Powerline, RedState, MyDD, TPM Cafe, Juan Cole's Informed Comment, Huffpost, ArmsControlWonk, Andrew Sullivan, CalPundit/Kevin Drum

How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?

rarely -- once or twice a week

How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?

there will be struggle over rules and norms. The old media will try to either assimilate or annihilate the new media, but in the long run, new media will evolve as the dominant platform. Vicious battles will be fought over rules, norms, and ethics in the new media...and there will be some substantial consolidation in the new media that creates market power and where size will matter...just like in the old media today. At this point, the old media still dominates the news and politics business with new media biting at its heels, but this is changing as the quality of reporting and commentary change in blogs -- and as audiences build.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Brain Drain

Nathan Newman at TPM Cafe notes that the upcoming Sen. bill would allow an unlimited number of nurses to immigrate to the U.S. and comments on the effect these policies have on developing countries: "The conventional wisdom is that unskilled immigration is bad and skilled immigration is better. But skilled immigration often damages the developing world and encourages the US government to underinvest in upgrading the skills of native-born workers. Right now, many of the unskilled workers in the US -- who are feeling pressure from unskilled immigration -- could be fulfilling the need for higher-paid skilled work in the US. But there are no educational slots available in US schools. ...Here's is the nasty dynamic-- the US refuses to invest in training and education of our own population, then instead leeches off the tiny investments in education done by developing countries. In the ideal, the US would be continually upgrading the skills of its own native workers, in which case unskilled immigration would be all that was needed and native workers would see little threat from immigration."

LEST WE FORGET: The War On Breakfast

ScrappleFace reports on a Sen. vote many of you may have missed but is still absolutely essential to our country's security:

(2006-05-19) - Just hours after approving two amendments that would make English the "national language" of the U.S. without affecting any of the millions of government documents now printed in Spanish, the Senate today voted 58-39 to declare English "the official muffin of Congress."
"With lots of nooks and crannies to hold the melted butter," the new amendment reads, "the English muffin has come to symbolize the glory of the Congressional lawmaking process."
While conservative critics noted that "the English muffin is not a muffin at all in the traditional sense," a coalition of Democrats and progressive Republicans managed to push the measure through.
When asked what effect the amendments would have on President George Bush's comprehensive immigration reform proposal, one unnamed Senate Republican said simply, "Toast. Rye toast."

Posted by Conn Carroll at 12:30 PM

May 24, 2006

5/24: Bloggers See, Bloggers Do

For all the vitriol that bloggers throw at Washington insiders, they sure know how to mimic their behavior. Pouring through poll numbers, handicapping races, and hosting straw polls...these sound more like the tasks of political professionals then amateur with keyboards. Who knows? Maybe some day the Markos Moulitsas and Duncan Blacks could sit down with the Stu Rothenbergs of the world and refrain from using profanity or words like "wanker" "extremist" or "cesspool."

LANDSCAPE: State Of The Kossite Nation

The following poll numbers are in no way scientific, but as the 800-lbs gorilla of the blogosphere ignore these DailyKos "poll" numbers at your own risk. * denotes less than 1%.

WH '08 Dem Primary Matchup WH '08 Dem "Fantasy" Primary
Feingold 44% Gore 68%
Clark 15 Feingold 15
Warner 10 Clark 4
Edwards 8 Warner 3
Clinton 2 Edwards 2
Richardson 1 Kerry *
Biden 1 Clinton *
Kerry 1 Richardson *
Bayh * Biden *
Daschle * Bayh *
Dodd * Dodd *
Vilsack * Daschle *
Other 6 Vilsack *
No freakin' clue 4 Other *
No freakin' clue *

Dean As DNC Chair Reid As Sen Min Ldr Pelosi As Min Ldr
Approve 87% Approve 65% Approve 30%
Disapprove 9% Disapprove 26 Disapprove 56

WH '08 Dem Primary Matchup reported at 14324 Total Votes

WH '08 Dem "Fantasy" Primary reported at 10631 Total Votes

Dean As DNC Chair reported at 13193 Total Votes

Reid As Sen Min Ldr reported at 10487 Total Votes

Pelosi As Min Ldr reported at 10265 Total Votes

And Chris Bowers at MyDD ran a poll searching for the least-liked WH '08er. The results, with 1192 ballots cast:

Least Favorite WH '08er
Clinton 25%
Biden 19
Daschle 11
Feingold 9
Kerry 8
Bayh 7
Dodd 5
Vilsack 4
Warner 4
Clark 3
Edwards 3
Richardson 2

ELECTION'06: Senate Edition

Lefty blogger optimism for Dem. '06 Sen, chances has not dimmed. Chris Bowers at MyDD has his latest Sen. outlook: "The Senate is now in play. However, like last month, I predict a three to five seat gain for Democrats. ...Thirty-second analysis. The addition of Arizona to the "already competitive" tier gives Democrats a sixth potential pickup. Arizona moves up two tiers in one month with a wave of new poll results showing Kyl under 50%. In an otherwise stagnant environment, this sharp movement should offer hope to Democrats in states like Nevada, Tennessee, and Virginia. While Rhode Island threatens to slip back a tier, it still is not feasible to project Democrats capturing the Senate (yet). Democrats seem to be gradually improving their Senate chances every month."

Over at lefty hang outDailyKosmole333 looks at NV and MT: "Nevada is considered one of the Purple States ... first off we have Jack Carter, son of Nobel Laureate and former President Jimmy Carter. Jack Carter is a great candidate with integrity and a real populist message that is going to work in the West. If we want to retake the Senate, I think this race is a must win. ...Montana Senate...This is one of the most important Senate races in 2006 because the seat is currently held by one of the most corrupt Republicans in the Senate. For this reason, Montana is listed by BBC news as one of the states to watch this year.

Back at MyDD lefty Jonathan Singer looks at AZ: "Taking a look at the latest SurveyUSA 50-state poll and specifically the new list of Senators' approval ratings, Kyl sticks out as one of the most unpopular U.S. Senators today; in fact, he has the fourth highest disapproval rating of any Senator. But as bad as his numbers are today at 44 percent approval and 47 percent disapproval, Kyl's trend is even worse. Over the course of the last two months, during which time Kyl's well-funded and relatively popular Democratic challenger Jim Pederson has been on the air, Kyl's disapproval rating has shot up 11 points."

Righty Mark Kilmer at RedState has his own PA Sen. news: "Pennsylvania's Republican gubernatorial nominee Lynn Swann spoke to the Pennsylvania Press Club in Harrisburg on Monday, promising property tax relief in the first year of his Administration. In the Q&A, Swann was asked if he had chosen to endorse anyone to replace State GOP chairwoman Eileen Melvin, who quit last week after a disastrous primary performance by the State committee. Swann said he had several names under consideration, and that he, Senator Santorum, and other GOP leaders would discuss it. He did not mention Senator Specter. ...For the final question, someone had asked him if he planned a "kiss a little butt," a reference to Ed Rendell's most recent excuse for pushing and backing the legislative pay raise of 2005. The candidate smiled and replied: "John, the answer will be decidedly "NO." - I'll let all the bending over and kissing in Ed's administration."

ELECTION '06: House Edition

Plenty of lefty blogger energy is being devoted to the House. Matt Stoller at MyDD plugs businesswoman Darcy Burner's challenge to Rep. Dave Reichart (R-WA): "The district is trending blue, and Burner is incredibly smart and a natural campaigner. ...She is also young (35) and web-savvy, having worked at Microsoft, and these traits will serve her well in a House that is desperately in need of new blood. She has promised, for instance, to post on her Congressional web site a list of all meetings with lobbyists by her or any staff member, which is a fundamentally new approach to governance."

Also at MyDDThe Southern Dem looks at NC-8: "Respected polling firm, Anzalone Liszt Research, has released a new poll...and it shows Larry Kissell with tremendous momentum pulling away from Republican incumbent Robin Hayes. ...The number that first jumps out is the informed vote where Kissell leads Hayes by 7 points. (49% Kissell/42% Hayes). ...A campaign insider pointed out that this is a district that went for Bush in 2004 by 54%. These are not Kerry Democrats, so the presidential race actually helped Hayes at the polls. There is no national or state-wide race that will bring voters out who only vote top of the ticket. This is going to hurt Hayes and that's one more strike against him."

Over at DailyKos mole333 looks at some NV races: "There are also two House races in Nevada and here is where I think we have a shot, albeit a long shot, at Sweeping Nevada. One of these House races, NV-3, is a genuinely close race, one of the 10 House seats the Republicans most fear losing. ...But there is one more race worth considering: NV-2. This is not seen as a close race, BUT...it is an open seat this year and we all know that open seats are opportunities NOT TO BE MISSED."

NM is also looked at: "First there is the NM-1 House race. The Republican incumbent, Heather Wilson has taken more money from Exxon/Mobil's PAC than any other New Mexico politician - $5,000 already in this cycle, and $27,000 since 2000. She took $4,000 from Halliburton's PAC in the 2004 cycle. She is the EPITOME of what I call a corrupt Halliburton Republican. The Democratic opponent is two-term state Attorney General Patricia Madrid. An extraordinarily well-qualified candidate, Madrid seems poised to be a leading Democrat from the West."

Of course it wouldn't be lefty blogger land with out some Dem infighting. Matt StollerMyDD : "Al Wynnis in a 77% Democratic performing district in Maryland, a very safe seat in the fourth district. Al Wynn is also one of the Verizon 5 who screwed us on net neutrality in his subcommittee vote after getting $19,000 from telecom interests. But there's lots to dislike about Wynn. Iraq. The bankruptcy bill. The estate tax. The energy bill. Wynn consistently sells out his constituents because he's never challenge Enter Donna Edwards, a very well-respected public servant and current executive director of the Arca Foundation. She's one of the serious good guys."

JEFFERSON: Throw Him Under The Bus

If lefty bloggers have to choose between their "culture of corruption" mantra and the career of a Dem. congressman from Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the choice is simple: Rep. William Jeffesron (D-LA) is gonna have to rescue himself. At DailyKosVirginiaDem writes: "I've noticed that the Democratic campaign effort for 2006 is attempting to run against a Republican "culture of corruption" this year. ...However, a certain Democratic congressman is undermining this effort. ... My plea is obvious. Tell Mr. Jefferson to resign immediately." Kos himself dropped in for an editorial comment: "I agree wholeheartedly. No double standards. Corruption is corruption, no matter where it may arise -- kos."