5/17: The Mystery Continues

Verizon's 5/16 denial of certain facts in "media reports" about their relationship with the NSA has lefty bloggers scrambling to paint a picture that keeps the story alive and the Bush admin clearly in the wrong. Righties, meanwhile, are more interested in discrediting the original story. The immigration debate also continues to rage and the 'sphere reacts to primaries in KY, OR, and PA.

Demonstrating the disconnect between party establishment and bloggers once again, lefty bloggers bemoaned state Treas. Bob Casey's easy victory over history professor Chuck Pennacchio while righty bloggers celebrated the ousting of the top two state Senate GOPers.

K-blog summed up the feelings of most lefty bloggers: "I know this isn't the right attitude ... but I can't believe the scope of these results: Chuck lost. Valerie lost. Georgia lost. Kovach lost. Susan lost. All the people that were worth a damn lost. Is there any GOOD news?" LeftIndependent was also unhappy: "There is only one political party in America, the right wing hegemony over the two phony parties, Democrats and Republicans. America is proof that democracy does not work. The only hope now is that a third Party or Independent mounts a campaign against both Casey and Santorum."

Pennacchio thanked his supporters and claimed: "Our 2006 Senate campaign was a critically important step in a larger citizen movement to restore Pennsylvania's politics to Pennsylvanians." Over at MyDD commenter dblhelix thought the insurgents at least put in a good effort: "The two challengers had no money and no ads -- perhaps one ad for sandals? 10-20% of the votes for pure grassroots is pretty impressive (not in a winning way, of course). Fellow commenter Rafe Noboa wasn't impressed: "At some point, you have to win. Moral victories are still defeats."

Lefty MyDD commenter mleflo2 did not want Dems to get complacent about the 11/06 general: "Don't be so confident that he will definitely beat Santorum. The polls are getting close, and he is pro-life in a moderately pro-choice PA. Asked people if they are going concerned about whether Casey pro-life stand is going to prohibit the women from voting for him, the women said yes. He got to reassure those suburban women in the Pittsburgh suburbs that even though he is pro-life, he won't overturn Roe or they won't come out." As always trademark blogosphere color could easily be found. MyDD commenter blogswarm: "I am so proud of the DSCC tonight -- we finally have a DSCC nominee to show the world that DC Democrats care as much about Theocracy as anything that Bin Ladin can push."

Lefty MyDD denizens were more upbeat about Rep. Don Sherwood's (R-PA) narrow escape from unknown challenger Kathy Scott. MyDD commenter HellofaSandwich: "This is a lot more favorable an outcome for Carney than a 90-10 Sherwood-Scott blowout would have been. This is gonna really alter the media's assessment of this race, and it will make Carney a viable investment option for Democratic donors." Fellow MyDDer RamblinDave had reasons to be apprehensive: "It looks like Sherwood is pulling away from Scott, but she'll probably hold him to not much more than 55%. Probably the best thing that could happen for the Dems. But I can't help remembering that this is the same district that re-elected Joe McDade twice when he was under indictment (and once he even won the Democratic primary as a write-in). Still, Sherwood isn't a pork-barreling legend in his own time like McDade was."

Righty GrassrootsPA put the defeats of GOPers state Senate Pres. Pro-Tem Robert Jubelirer and Senate Maj. Leader Chip Brightbill under the header: "CONSERVATIVES WIN HUGE VICTORIES ACROSS THE STATE!" RedState echoed the sentiment: "A big, big, night for conservatives in PA."

RedState commenters hoped conservatives kept the energy up. RS commenter Crank: "And a lesson for conservatives everywhere: if you want the bums out, replace them with better Republicans." RS commenter Marcus Traianus: "This is exactly the type of message we need to get out. Change the party from within, not by staying home. It is how we built this majority and will keep it healthy." Even blogger and George Washington University senior Mark Harris of Save the GOP was able to ride anti-incumbent fervor to victory.

Not everything was well in righty-land however...Hall of Famer Lynn Swann has some blogger shoring up to do. RedState commenter HamandEgger: "Tonight will serve as a wake-up call for the Swann campaign. Let's see if he wakes up or hits the snooze bar. Swann was the GOP establishment candidate and he paid them back by not criticizing the GOP leadership for the pay raise and for the corruption. Towards the end of the primary campaign he went so far as to endorse Senator Jubelirer. Will conservatives vote for him in the end? Probably. But based on what he has done so far will they give him their money or their time? Depends. Without the ground troops, I don't know how well he can do."

The only blogland discussion on KY focused on retired USMC officer Andrew Horne's (D) defeat to former newspaper publisher John Yarmuth (D). Lefty mark at Swing State Project: "Another Fighting Dem goes down (Andrew Horne). This storyline is slowly slipping away from us with the loss of Paul Hackett, Tim Dunn, Joe Sulzer, and now Horne." Fellow commenter HellofaSandwich: "Good point. How many Iraq vets are left standing now? I can only think of David Harris in Texas."

Swing State Project founder DavidNYC offered a limited defense of the fighting Dem meme: "I don't see how how the "storyline is slipping away from us" when there are some 70 Fighting Dem candidates. And the four most prominent - Duckworth, P. Murphy, Sestak, Massa - are thriving. What I will agree with is that the Fighting Dems idea isn't turning out to be as powerful as some people, myself included, had hoped, in large part because very few of these candidates are running anything approaching even mid-major status races. Yeah, there are a few nice profiles here and there in the media every so often, but I don't think this is going to be as big as some of us thought."

No any surprises in OR. Policy analyst Ridenbaugh Press breaks down the OR Gov. results this way:

Probable public explanation on Ron Saxton: Republicans wanted a winner; Kevin Mannix was too damaged by past losses and recent controversies; Saxton moved enough to the right in image at least to pick up a heavy slice of the conservative vote. ...Probable public explanation on Ted Kulongoski: Labor and several other interests weren't strong enough to engineer a replacement. ...Implications for Ben Westlund's independent campaign: Not especially good, at least at first glance. Both major party nominees won decisively, and a Mannix win on the Republican side (or a Hill upset on the Democratic) would have worked better for him. But this will take more evaluation. Looks like a fun one come November - the early line at least is that Oregon apparently has a hotly-contested gubernatorial contest on its hands."

Righties were mostly silent in OR but zoregon had this to say at lefty Swing State Project: "The gov race for Oregon is a mixed bag. The good news is that Mannix lost to Saxton in the GOP primary. This is good because Saxton is a moderate Republican and this signals that the wide-right is losing steam in Oregon and we might be returning to the days of moderate and sensible Republicans (Sen. Hatfield). The bad news is that the dem candidate Kulongowski is not popular and a moderate republican will push him in November." Lefty Blue Oregon hoped turnout numbers signaled Dem. victory in the general: "It probably means little, but with 528-530 precincts in on both sides, about 188K total Dems and 178K total Reps have voted in the gubernatorial races."

The Westlund for Governor campaign was quickly on the Blue Oregon comment board trolling for unhappy lefties. Stacy Dycus from Ben Westlund for Governor wrote: "We believe that the weak primary turn-out is a reflection that voters weren't happy with their choices, unfortunately this also hurt local measures and candidates, no coat-tails here. This is fertile ground for an independent people!"

The natives were under whelmed Blue Oregon commenter TK: "Great points and potentially compelling candidate, but the press release format doesn't fly in blogland... at least the comments sections anyway. If he isn't already, Ben should take the time to read and comment here at Blue Oregon and other popular local blogs. It's not that we don't appreciate SOMEONE from a campaign dropping by, but trust me, it's worth his time to press some virtual flesh. If he has already and I haven't noticed, my apology."

Lefty bloggers were in full conspiracy mode as yet another telecom company denied key parts of USA Today's 5/12 NSA story.

Some lefties thought the denials hinged on the denials use of the word "provided." The Political Animal: "One possibility: they allowed the NSA access to their trunk lines (as described here) and the NSA collected the data themselves. This would allow the telcos to say that they hadn't "provided" any "customer records" to the NSA, which would be technically true." The Next Hurrah: "So yeah. The Telecoms may be technically correct. They didn't give the data to NSA--or have it taken from them. They just opened the backdoor and allowed the NSA to waltz right in and take what they wanted." AMERICAblog: "Verizon didn't "provide" the NSA with domestic customer data. Verizon could have simply "let" the NSA tap into their phone system, their database, etc. and thus would not have "provided" the NSA with data, they simply would have provided the NSA with access to their database, their phone system etc."

Other lefties thought the key was a long distance vs. local distinction. The Anonymous Liberal: "The Times seems to be hinting that the key records are not the local call records (if those even exist) but rather the records of the long-distance carriers with whom the local companies interact. Perhaps the denials by Verizon and BellSouth reflect this distinction. We'll see." TalkLeft and The Left Coaster also pick up on this possibility.

Talking Points Memo believes the telcos are just lying: "For all the shilly-shallying, Verizon does appear to come right out and deny they gave any customer records to the NSA. ...So what gives? ...I think I've got the answer: they're lying. ...Now, I don't know that they're lying in a precise, semantic sense. In fact, I suspect they're not. There must be some way in which what they're saying is technically true. My hunch is that there's some third party involved here, a subcontractor, a private vendor, perhaps another government agency. And because of that their claims are technically true." The Blogometer thinks Josh is on to something with his last thought (see Thought Of The Day below).

Many righties took the opportunity to bash the MSM. In the Bullpen: "So just like the story on the CIA having so-called "secret prisons" across Europe that there is no evidence of, is this leak to the press yet another attempt by a leaker to attack the Bush Administration aided by poor reporting? Or is this some plot hatched by the CIA to pass off bogus information to reduce the credibility of leaked sources?" Blue Crab Boulevard: "Now, the question becomes did USA Today get suckered into reporting a political hit piece out of their desire to get a leak of the year prize? Oh sorry, that should read Pulitzer." IOWAVoice: "Aren't anonymous sources great? You can say pretty much anything you want in a news article, claim an "anonymous source" told you, and then when it falls apart, pull the old Dan Rather defense....that until such information is proven false, they will report it as being true."

Hotline-alum Public Eye doubts we'll ever get the truth: "Still, we're entering some rocky territory, especially for a story about a 'secret' program based entirely on anonymous sources. Given the administration's refusal to confirm or deny the report, the company denials and the anonymous sources, it may be time to ask how we'll ever get the truth out of this story."

Righty bloggers jumped at Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) 5/17 revelation that members of the FISA court were briefed on the NSA phone record program. Captain's Quarters: "The revelation answers critics of the Bush administration's efforts to use datamining to detect terrorist sleeper cells. ... After all the concern that the Bush administration had hijacked the call data with no oversight, we now find out that the FISA court had known of the project the entire time. Will this stop the criticism of the program? Probably not, but it should reduce some of the hysteria we've seen about it." Confederate Yankee: "If Hatch's comments are correct, it would seem to throw a considerably large wrench in the theories of those who are calling these programs an illegal conspiracy by the Bush Adminstration. It seems rather difficult to have a "conspiracy" if everyone was in on it. ...If two FISA judges were also in the loop about these programs, it won't keep conspiracy theorists like Glenn Greenwald quiet, but it might just make their shrill cries a bit easier to ignore.

RightWinged took the opportunity to highlight perceived lefty hypocrisy: "Of course I have to keep wondering why the left isn't angry at the ACLU who is collecting personal information for fund-raising purposes...in the last post I specifically wondered why the left and the media aren't upset about the Echelon program (under Clinton) or Clinton's spying on pro-life political opponents. I'm not expecting an answer." While fellow righty Wizbang wondered if it wasn't his side that were the hypocrites: "Anyone on the right who thinks this is a good idea should be disabused of that notion by 3 simple words. "President Hillary Clinton." Ask yourself. ... Do you really trust the Clinton's with this data?"

Lefties responded to Hatch's announcement by stressing that the court was only "informed" of the program, not given an opportunity to approve it. AMERICAblog: "Oh, well, if judges were "informed" that we were going to begin mass illegal spying on American citizens, then that makes it constitutional and legal. Silly me, I thought judges were the ones who decided such things." Running Scared: "As I've said previously, I personally think it's a bit early to be saying that the program is "illegal" since that's a term best left up to the courts to decide. Is it now our policy to simply "inform" the Judiciary about questionable activities rather than getting their consent and formal approval?"

Lefty The Political Animal just wants somebody other than the current Administration overseeing the program: "It's possible that the NSA programs that have been disclosed are reasonable ones. But if that's the case, there's no excuse not to have Congress pass a law making them clearly legal and setting firm boundaries on how they're used. Hearings can be done in closed session if necessary, something that's common for sensitive intelligence issues. But Congress should have a say. No executive, regardless of who's president, should be allowed to unilaterally decide for itself what's legal and what's not. That's the job of Congress and the courts."

Both sides are still talking about immigration, but they're also following completely different parts of the story. Righties have picked up on a Mexican gov't lawsuit designed to stop the deployment of the National Guard to the border as well as a 5/16 Senate vote declining to prioritize border enforcement over a guest worker program. Meanwhile lefties have picked up on a 12/05 claim by DHS Sec. Michael Chertoff that National Guard deployment would be too burdensome.

Righty reax to 5/16 news that Mexico planned to sue in U.S. courts to prevent National Guard border deployment were predictable. Blue Crab Boulevard, QandO, Scared Monkeys, California Conservative, Diggers Realm, and IOWAVoice all had takes. Frznagn at LoadedMouth had the best line, addressing immigrants by turning a Bushism on its head: "Stop running from your ineffective government and do something about it!! Or are you afraid of hard work???"

Michelle Malkin describes the defeat of Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) pro-enforcement amendment as: "The first of many abominations to come." She then urges her readers to call Sens. who voted against the amendment. A Blog For All, California Conservative, and IOWAVoice all link to Malkin and urge their readers to do the same with IOWAVoice adding: "Michelle has a list of those voting against this common sense amendment, and those who didn't bother to vote at all, most notably John McCain (probably because he didn't want to go on the record and ruin his 2008 Presidential bid)."

TPM Muckraker picked up on a CQreport quoting Chertoff on the O'Reilly Factor in Dec. describing National Guard involvement at the border as a: "horribly over-expensive and very difficult way to manage this problem."PinkDome and Blanton's and Ashton's pick up on the story and TPM Muckraker follows through with excerpts from a Chertoff press conference on the National Guard issue.

Also on the immigration front, Bush's 5/15 WH address continues to reach its target audience as lefty columnist Robert Scheer signals his approval under a header, "Bush More Right Than Wrong on Immigration." Scheer writes at The Huffington Post: "What Bush got right about serious immigration reform is the need to join two apparently irreconcilable but inevitably co-dependent goals: control of the border and amnesty for most of those already here illegally. ...Bush's two specific proposals in this regard, a guest-worker program and tamper-proof identity card for those workers, represent Band-Aids rather than the harsh medicine that exploitive employers should be compelled to swallow.

Bill Robinson at The Huffington Post thinks he has found a key figure in the NSA phone record story: Hank Asher. Robinson writes: "Two days after 9/11, coincidentally, he (Hank Asher) was sipping a martini in his $8 million Boca Raton home, when he had the genius idea to use his massive database to see if he could create a "terrorist suspect list." ...By cross-referencing the 30 billion personal records Seisint had access to, he came up with 419 suspect names, and his pal Jeb Bush flew him to Washington so they could both show Vice President Cheney. Amazingly, according to Hank, five of the names were already being investigated by the FBI, and the sixth turned out to be one of the hijackers. Sold! Homeland Security threw millions at Asher for his system, which he dubbed - no kidding - The Matrix. ...The Matrix can scan everyone's records, not just criminals. Need to find every guy in America in his 20's with brown hair and a red truck who recently filed for divorce? The Matrix can do it in no time. Of course, it can be used for much darker purposes. But the real evil genius in this plan was that it would be controlled by the states, thereby skirting congressional oversight. ...Ironically, the type of fishing that The Matrix has been doing for the last couple years is something that John Poindexter argued against as national security advisor to Reagan. He tried to implement a new security classification called, "unclassified but sensitive" because, he said, if you put together a lot of unclassified, publicly available information, it could become classified information. ...Maybe Poindexter had a point. Maybe that's an argument privacy advocates should consider using. And Maybe Verizon and BellSouth didn't give the NSA our records after all. Maybe they gave them to someone who gave them to the NSA. A private contractor perhaps. But don't ask Hank. He sold The Matrix, and his company, to Lexis Nexis for $775 million."

LEST WE FORGET: Two Thumbs Way Up!!!

If you ever caught Siskel & Ebert's schtick back in the day you can't miss these circa 1987 promo outakes from MetaFilter. As one commentator notes: "...at least now I know Siskel wasn't the a**hole."