8/16: Let The Sunshine In

Perhaps it's due to the GOP's recent electoral success, but the right side of the 'sphere continues to focus less on campaigns and elections and more on other (still political) projects. 8/16 is yet another example of the trend as a broad coalition of conservative bloggers and other established institutions join forces to promote an anti-pork spending project that, since the GOP's in power, ought to bring embarrassment to GOP lawmakers in the midst of a tough cycle. With their current belief in partisanship at all costs (see CT SEN), would lefty bloggers ever put forward such an effort that had the potential to hurt so many Dems?

Robert B. Bluey at Right Angle Blog announces a partnership between Human Events Online, the Sunlight Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, Porkbusters.com, Heritage Foundation, Club for Growth, Townhall.com, the Washington Examiner, and Tapscott's Copy Desk to help citizens research pork projects.

The Examiner is hosting a state by state database of 1,867 pork projects hidden in the 2007 Labor-HHS appropriations bill awaiting approval in the U.S. House. The Examiner invites readers to: "Check out the earmarks for your state and then call your congressman and ask if he or she sponsored any of your state's earmarks. If the answer is yes, ask why the congressman's name isn't on the earmark. If you recognize the institution designated to receive the earmarked tax dollars, call them and ask them what they intend to do with your money. ... Then email us at info@examiner.com with the subject line "Earmarks" and tell us what you found out. The Examiner will be asking more questions about who got the earmarks and why, so your information could be very important. You will be part of an army of citizen journalists determined to shine some much-needed light on spending decisions made behind closed doors by powerful Members of Congress.

Captain's Quarters has already located his favorite project: " I already found the three million dollars that went to the Charles B Rangel Center for Public Service. That one's mine. Go find yours now!"

Whether it's the London-aviation plot, fallout from CT SEN, or the impending 9/11 anniversary, lefty bloggers have significantly stepped up their posting on foreign policy. Bloggers clearly want US troops out of Iraq, but outside but after, that foreign policy consensuses and priorities are unclear. Matt Stoller at MyDD for instance, believes "the reality of America is that we cannot be destroyed by outside forces, we can only destroy ourselves ... Now, to be clear for the idiot right-wingers reading this, terrorism is one of many problems that we must solve, and it's a serious problem, though probably a lot less serious than global warming."

Others on the left feel that while the Dems should go on the offensive on security issues, scare tactics are not the answer. Adele Stan at TAPPED: "I've just watched the new scare-mongering television ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), and I can't say it makes me feel terribly cheerful. While I do think it's high time that the Dems played the security issue to their advantage, this thing has an icky feel to it, especially with its implication that the Democrats will be tougher on illegal immigration than are the Republicans."

Also at TAPPED Matthew Yglesias argues the DSCC hit the right message: "the great thing about the spot is that it doesn't really make any kind of argument or logical sense. Rather, it simply has a clear emotive message -- if you find yourself increasingly frightened by the world situation, blame the guys who've been running the country. That's crucial. Ever since 9-11, Bush has been locked in a "heads I win, tales you lose" dynamic where if people feel reassured they're supposed to credit him, but if people feel frightened they're supposed to . . . turn to him for comfort. Simply put, Democrats are going to have a very hard time winning elections fighting from within that framework. The ad is a great step toward changing it."

Ed Kilgore at New Donkey looks back at GOP rationalizations for Bush's '04 re-election and argues that incident's like the London plot undermine GOP strength on the issue: "Back during the last presidential campaign, I became convinced ... that the most powerful thing the incumbent had going for him was a rough and unsophisticated argument that went like this: "Some Arabs came here and killed a bunch of Americans. George Bush went over to Iraq and killed even more Arabs. Since then there have been no attacks. He must be doing something right." ... Anything and everything that reminds Americans that the Iraq War has not done a thing to reduce the terrorist threat against the United States will erode that argument, and with it, the GOP's belief that any and all concerns about national security will benefit it at the ballot box."

Finally Larry Beinhart at The Huffington Post offers a list of facts Dems should hit the GOP with on security:

1. 9/11 happened on their watch.
2. George Bush and the Republicans failed to get Osama bin Laden.
3. George Bush and the Republicans gave Osama bin Laden
what he wanted.
4. George Bush and the Republicans squandered America's
power and prestige.
5. The Bush administration empowered Hezbollah.
6. The Bush administration radicalized Hamas.
7. Bush and the Republicans tied down our forces in Iraq while Iran
and North Korea invested in nuclear technology.
8. By the way, every major European nation has had successful arrests
and real trials of real, dangerous terrorists.
9. We have trashed the bill of rights.

TERROR POLITICS II: Conflicted On The Right?

The right side of the 'sphere is buzzing over a Guardian report that some of the information used to stop the London attacks may have come from torture. Karol Sheinin subbing for Michelle Malkin highlights this passage:

Reports from Pakistan suggest that much of the intelligence that led to the raids came from that country and that some of it may have been obtained in ways entirely unacceptable here. In particular Rashid Rauf, a British citizen said to be a prime source of information leading to last week's arrests, has been held without access to full consular or legal assistance. Disturbing reports in Pakistani papers that he had "broken" under interrogation have been echoed by local human rights bodies. The Guardian has quoted one, Asma Jehangir, of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, who has no doubt about the meaning of broken. "I don't deduce, I know - torture," she said. "There is simply no doubt about that, no doubt at all."

Sheinin comments: "Personally, I have no such quandary. It is one thing to debate the ethics of torture in a general sense, whether captured terrorists can be subject to uncomfortable conditions in order to extract information about their network and associates. It's quite another to understand the use of torture in order to save the lives of innocent people. An attack was imminent, and the information had to be obtained, no matter the method."

Ace of Spades uses the report to frame a torture debate: "It's time for liberals to stop dodging the question: What is worse -- for a terrorist to be made to suffer, or for thousands of innocent people, guilty of no more than conspiring to maximize air-miles, should be permitted to be murdered? ... Liberals really ought to stop insisting over and over that torture doesn't work and bother to read an expert's opinion on the matter. ... Liberals need torture to never work in order to claim that it is a zero-cost decision to not engage in the practice; that way they can claim we can act perfectly morally with absolutely no compromise in safety. A win-win situation. ... Well, there's a thing called nuance liberals should look into. It turns out that in at least one case torture has worked spectacularly well, and, given that it directly led to the survival of 2000-4000 innocent civilians, seems to have been the moral course of action."

Not everyone on the right was ready to concede the point. Say Anything asks: "Personally, I'm not willing to conclude that torture was used as I'm not willing to take some international human rights activist's word for it. Her definition of torture and mine probably aren't the same. That being said, this does pose something of an interesting moral question. The information from this detainee in Pakistan was undoubtedly crucial in thwarting a major terror plot that could have killed thousands and had dire consequences on the global economy. ... When we're talking about stopping a terror attack that is imminent how concerned can we afford to be about the treatment of one informant?"

Captain's Quarters argues that supporting regimes that use torture undermines the larger war on terror: "Strategically, supporting regimes that torture their captives makes little sense if we want to transform the region. Part of the reason we needed to eject Saddam from power was to allow democracy and respect for human rights change the Middle East from a powderkeg of suppressed and radicalized rage to a region of responsible self-government. Our alliance with Pervez Musharraf paid off in the protection of perhaps three thousand lives now -- but how long will we tolerate his form of oppression, and the radicalized anger it produces?"

Altercation sees larger forces at work when handicapping the '08 Dem field: "When Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean in 2004 right before Dean's campaign imploded, taking $40 million with it, everyone treated Gore as if he had gone even crazier -- what with growing a beard, pointing out that Iraq was a mistake and George W. Bush was a liar. My thought was that Gore was positioning himself for 2008. Hillary was already remaking herself as the DLC candidate and Gore was fitting into his role as the Moveon.org candidate. Those were the party's two national power bases, and their strength varies from region to region, but they both produce money and Moveon produces money and volunteers. ... If both Gore and Hillary do run for the presidency, I still think that's the way the race will shake out. With these two heavyweights in the race, there will be no "oxygen"--i.e. money and media attention--for anyone to cut-in on this meta-and mega-grudge match."

Ankle Biting Pundits Patrick Hynes reports on results from focus group expert Frank Luntz session with GOP voters in IA and NH: "John McCain and Newt Gingrich scored very high, Rudy Giuliani is beloved but faces issues problems, Mitt Romney faces religion problems, George Allen turns women off, and Bill Frist doesn't appear comfortable in his own skin." Hynes reminds readers of his McCain ties and includes more Luntz observations including:

• "Expectations for John McCain are the highest of any candidate. . . . He walks into any room, and figuratively into our sessions, with a decisive lead. And Republicans certainly like what they hear."
• While he didn't start with any measurable support, Luntz said, Gingrich ended both the Iowa and New Hampshire sessions "with the most new converts."
• "Rudy will always be America's mayor. But after hearing the whole story, Republican voters just aren't sure he's the right choice for America's next president," Luntz said.

The unofficial Lamont Blog highlights anonymous quotes from a 8/16 The Hill article on Dem displeasure with Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) indy run including: "At this point Lieberman cannot expect to just keep his seniority," said the aide. "He can't run against a Democrat and expect to waltz back to the caucus with the same seniority as before."

Chris Bowers at MyDD comments: "For now, it is good to know that some Democrats in DC are looking into it. ... In order to put an end to this trashing of our own party and for the Democratic nominee in Connecticut to win, we are going to need a lot more pressure on Lieberman from the Democratic establishment. Specifically, once he is certified on the ballot as the Connecticut for Lieberman candidate, and all challenges to his signatures have been dropped, we are going to need the Democratic leadership in the Senate to strip him of his committee assignments. ... Actions have consequences, and the price for ignoring the will of Democratic voters, and then trashing the Democratic Party for your own benefit while simultaneously feeding at the Democratic Party seniority trough must be made clear. If Lieberman wants to run on his own, then he should be forced to get seniority on his own. Party seniority is earned through consistently receiving the endorsement of the will of Democratic voters, and Joe Lieberman has lost that."

Meanwhile Greg Sargent at TPM Cafe asked Lieberman senior adviser Dan Gerstein for a Lieberman committment to caucus with Dems and received this answer: "Senator Lieberman is a Democrat, will continue to be a Democrat and is committed to caucusing with the Democrats should he be reelected. If reelected, he is absolutely committed to supporting Senator Reid as leader, and he very much hopes it will be as majority leader."

Lefty bloggers are picking up on the Hartford Courant's 8/15 report on the new 537 Vets for Freedom. Taylor Marsh writes: "Funny how Dan Senor's group is listed as a 527, but is doing highly partisan work. Does anyone actually believe that by siding with Lieberman against Ned Lamont the Swiftboaters for Freedom are being non-partisan? It's especially interesting given information I was handed this morning. Senor's group didn't even file their papers until the very end of July, wherein they signed on as a 527, which is not supposed to use any funds to directly defeat a candidate. Yeah, right."

Spencer Ackerman at TNR picks out another name from the piece: "Who's Taylor Gross? Only one of the GOP apparatchiks who assisted Bush in the Florida recount fiasco. As Gross's college alumni magazine wrote, he "found himself between Tallahassee and Miami, assisting with the recount hullabaloo and setting up press conferences for former White House Chief of Staff Jim Baker." In other words, had it not been for Gross and his ilk, Lieberman would be vice president, the Iraq war in all likelihood never would have happened, and Lieberman's increasingly mutual estrangement from the Democratic Party would be unthinkable."

Christy Hardin Smith at firedoglake looks at ex-Pres. Bill Clinton's 8/15 GMAappearance and comments: "It's time for Bill Clinton and other Democrats to get their butt to Connecticut and campaign for the Democratic candidate Ned Lamont."

Arianna Huffington also saw Clinton's kind words for Lamont but wants more from Team Clinton: "If the Powell Doctrine can be distilled as never enter a battle without force so decisive you know you can easily win it, the Clinton Doctrine can be distilled as never enter a battle in any serious way until it's so late that your contribution is meaningless. ... Want an example? How about the Battle of Connecticut, in which we were treated on Monday to the following brave statement from the most famous face of the Democratic Party. Now, as I recall, the Democratic Party was pretty loyal to Bill Clinton in his hour of need. Had it not been, it's not likely he would have finished his second term. And the most he can now do for his Party is throw out meaningless truisms like, as the ABC reporter put it, "A vote for Lamont was not, as Lieberman had implied, a vote against the country's security." That's a profile in something, but it ain't courage."

Stephen Spruiell at National Review Online looks at Lamont's 8/16 WSJ op-ed and finds no difference between Lamont's current health care prescription and the one Lamont criticized Lieberman for in a 5/13 interview with WSJ's James Taranto.

Bob Geiger and RedState are both keeping track of Sen Dem Lieberman/Lamont positions. The only major difference between the lists: RedState has Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) in the pro-Lieberman camp and Geiger has him as being "firm about not being firm."

Finally, TPM Cafe has gambler Alan Schlesinger on Hardball and Open Source has a radio conversation between bloggers Matt Stoller at MyDD, John Nichols of the Nation, and Townhall's Mary Katherine Ham.

Progressive blogger opinion of Sen. George Allen's (R-VA) 8/11 use of the name "Macaca" to describe a ex-Navy sec. Jim Webb (D) volunteer has not evolved:

• Atrios: "Sad to say that the real reason George Felix Allen, Jr. shouldn't be a senator isn't that he's a racist - which he clearly is - it's that he's dumb as a box of rocks."
• Talking Points Memo: "So he's either a closet racist who let the truth slip. Or a very calculating crypto-racist. Nice range of choices. And this guy's a major GOP prez aspirant."
• Matt Stoller at MyDD: "George Allen, bigot, is becoming a de facto narrative."

On the right, Commonwealth Conservative ("one of the racist Virginia crackers") reports he was at the event, admittedly after the comment occurred, but guarantees "that not one single person in the crowd took it as a racial comment." Commonwealth has a photo of the Webb volunteer from 8/11 and writes: "In my neck of the woods, we call that a mohawk. What's laughable is that the guy says he has a mullet. Listen, I was born and raised in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, on the Kentucky border. I know what a mullet looks like. That ain't one. ... Also, I can verify that the Allen campaign had discussed this guy's mohawk hairstyle long before the Breaks event. Before noon that day, prior to the Norton event, they called and told me that "a guy with a mohawk" would probably be there; he had been trailing them at other events. So the campaign had been identifying him by his hairstyle."

No one on the right bought into the racism charges, but Allen did come in for some heavy criticism. Rich Lowry at National Review Online offered two pretty representative thoughts:

• -I find it hard to believe that he was trying to speak a coded racist language with his listeners. I do, however, think Allen has a mean streak that showed here. If you are going to single out a 20-year old kid working for an opposing campaign, you better do it with a real light touch that seems to have been lacking in this case.
• -An experienced politician operating at this level is simply not allowed to make gaffes like this. Yes, some of the commentary might be unfair; yes, the media coverage might be over-blown, etc., etc. But this is a blatant unforced error, and to make a mistake with the slightest tinge of race about it is doubly damaging for Allen. This will be in the backs of the minds of Republican primary voters for a long time to come.

Also at NRO Byron York hoped Webb didn't get a free ride on racial issues: "In all the controversy over George Allen's use of the M-word, commentators and news reports are bringing up the senator's alleged fondness for all things Confederate. That's not surprising, but it's useful to remember that the Confederate issue, stirred up a few months by a long New Republic article, mostly disappeared after the Richmond Times-Dispatch, looking into why Democrat James Webb had not criticized Allen over the New Republic piece, reported that Webb himself has expressed deep reverence for the Confederacy. In May, the Times-Dispatch published an article , "Webb speech praised Confederate army; In 1990, the Senate hopeful spoke of forebears' sacrifices," that discussed a speech Webb gave at the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery on June 3, 1990. The entire text of the speech is available at Webb's website, and it is worth reading."

Mary Katharine Ham at Townhall sat down with Sen. Rick Santorum (R). Highlights include:

• Q: Let's start with the big news of the day. In light of the foiled terrorist plot in Great Britain this week, tell me a little bit about your vision for how we should fight the war on Islamic extremism, and how it differs from your opponent's.
• A: The difference between where the Democratic Party is and where my opponent is on this issue and me, is that my opponent runs around and talks about the 9/11 Commission and talks about how we have to spend more money on homeland security. That approach to me is basically the approach of "garrison America" or "fortress America." that the way to fight this war against Islamic fascism is to defend against it. I think that is a fundamentally flawed strategy. It's flawed because, while we have to take prudent measures to defend ourselves, the idea that focusing our attention on a defensive struggle against Islamic fascism is a failed strategy.
• Q: On immigration, many conservatives are upset about the Republican Congress' conduct, particularly the Senate bill. Is that going to be obstacle for you in pumping up the base and what are you doing about it?
• A: It's not an obstacle for me because I probably share their opinion on immigration. I voted against the Senate bill. I've been making that one of the major planks of our campaign. I talk about it all the time.
• UPDATE: Oh, I forgot to mention that I asked the Senator what blogs he reads: Little Green Footballs, RedState, and The Corner.

Right Angle Blog reports that as of early 8/16 the race to replace Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-02) between "conservative Club for Growth candidate" Sharron Angle (R) and Sec/State Dean Heller (R) "appeared to be up in the air. to a 428 vote lead out of nearly 70,000 votes counted." RAB writes: "The lead swung back and forth all through the night as Angle ran up a 2,000 vote lead in the district's largest county and her home area of Washoe County (Reno). But Heller was ahead in 13 of the district's 17 counties including a 1,000 vote margin in Carson City, the state capital. The district contains almost every county in the state and a small part of Clark County (Las Vegas area). In fact, most of Heller's lead was based on a big victory he won 979 to 701 for Angle in the small part of Clark County in the district."

Natural Born Killers producer and progressive activist Jane Hamsher at firedoglake unveils a new tool for progressive bloggers to influence MSM coverage: "The Spotlight Project." Hamsher writes: "It's a work in progress and since FDL has a wonderfully engaged readership, we'll ask for your patience and participation in test-driving this new feature. At the bottom of each post you'll now see a "Spotlight" tag next to the permalink. Clicking it takes you to The Spotlight Project, which offers you a list of contact information which allows you to forward the post of your choice to specific journalists. I'll ask that folks consider several things when doing this:

• * Please be polite and reasonable. We don't want folks to get angry and up-in-arms over a bunch of ad hominem attacks.
• * Since it's a serious tool that could have a profound effect as we try to re-shape the dominant narrative with key opinion makers, abusing it could not only lessen its effectiveness, it could neutralize it completely.
• * Praise is just as important - if not more so - than criticism.
• * We may have some initial birth pangs, so if you have any problems please report them here.

Hamsher goes on to suggest a first target: "Might I suggest following up on journalists who have printed Dan Gerstein's bogus allegations about site hacking that were never substantiated? That certainly fell into a media black hole after its damage was done, and I don't think those base fabrications should be allowed to disappear quite so painlessly."

The Blogometer will be going a little corporate today, plugging a Coca-Cola commercial, but for all the sex and violence in youth culture these days this on-line ad is worth spreading around.