September 28, 2006

9/28: The Importance Of Pre-season

With the Washington Redskins finishing their pre-season schedule 0-4, many local Redskins reporters tried to stress that pre-season games were meaningless and that the Redskins were going to be just fine. Despite recently beating the sad sack Houston Texans, the Redskins are still only 1-2 and it is now clear that the offensive woes visible in preseason games are plaguing the Redskins in games that matter as well.

The voting that matters for WH '08 is still over a year away, but the blogosphere is playing host to virtual pre-season games today. After an interview with MA Gov. Mitt Romney (R) was posted on RedState a debate erupted over Romney's pro-life credentials. The debate is ongoing and the issue far from settled for Romney, but the give and take between pro- and anti-Romney forces at RedState ought to be just as valuable to political handicappers as the Redskins preseason was to football fans.

Following the 9/27 posting of MA Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) interview with RedState's Erick Erickson (which has been promoted back to the top of the page as of 9 a.m. on 9/28), Ben Domenech (of Washington Post plagiarism flame-out fame) posted an entry titled "Mitt Romney lies about abortion" with quotes from past Romney speeches and his line from the RedState interview: "I've never called myself pro-choice." Ben writes: "Mitt Romney tries to justify his position in the interview by stating that he's always been personally opposed to abortion, but did not want to impose his personal views on the populace. Even if that's true, consider this: by Mitt Romney's definition, Ted Kennedy isn't pro-choice either." Ben concludes that Romney's change is due to political calculations, not personal beliefs. The post lit up RedState's comment boards. A completely unscientific reading shows them running pretty even at first but trending pro-Romney as time wore on. Samples include:

• liberty2208: "Thank you so much for posting this information. It really lets me see his true colors. I didn't know too much about Romney but always thought he was on the side of Life and in step with us values voters. I guess I was completely wrong. We really need to look past his articulate speech and likeable demeanor and focus on what he really believes, what his core principles are. If he is lying about protecting Life and our values I wonder what else he has conjured up to try to deceive the conservative base???"
• Sami: "He is still my guy. There isn't going to be any substantive moves on Roe v. Wade in either direction. Mitt is still the man to reign in the spenders and fix soc.sec. as well as give new energy to healthcare changes.
• TheSnakeGuy: "Mitt is pro-life. I suppose you would rather have a democrat as governor in MA. Don't penalize the guy for getting elected. He has made politics in MA more conservative and the policy there is much more pro-life than if a democrat was governor their. Go Mitt!"
• Leverkuhn: "the Pro-Romney forces here at Redstate and in the blogosphere in general like to play fast and loose with the facts. Truthfully, I am not opposed to what Romney stands for so much as I am simply uneasy with the sense I get that he and his supporters would gladly endorse the eating of Irish babies if that would further their ends."

National Review Online's biggest Romney supporter Kathryn Jean Lopez looked at the post and added: "Romney's a leader, as more and more folks being exposed to him are seeing and noting. He needs to clearly communicate his commitment to a culture of life over these next pre-primary months as he has been privately, especially, and will, I betcha, in some big ways publicly. But as far as then-vs.-now kinda stuff, I'll take his convincing evolution over any in the reverse direction anyday."

Commenting on the torture debate in the Senate MyDD's Matt Stoller worries: "I didn't use to be worried about a McCain candidacy, but what's becoming increasingly clear is that the Democratic candidates are simply unwilling to attack him. That's a serious problem. If Democratic Presidential candidates won't go after him now, after he faced a humiliating defeat by an unpopular President, just how are people going to go after him in 2008?"

TAPPED's Ben Adler looks at how "[m]assive disenfranchisement in the closest swing states have marred the last two presidential" and calls for "progressives to focus on putting control of election oversight in the hands of competent and honest officials." Adler asks readers to donate to ActBlue's Secretary of State Project (SOS) "which attempts to raise money for incorruptible secretary of state candidates."

With GOPers nailing down the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul for their '08 convention, DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas is rooting for Denver. His second choice: "anywhere but New York." Denver based Jeralyn Merritt at TalkLeft adds: "A lot is riding on the unionization factor -- Denver's hotel workers are not unionized. But, as we reported here two weeks ago, the unions have dropped their opposition to Denver hosting the Convention. ... My advice to the DNC: Choose Denver. We're an important swing state. We were red, but we've been turning blue. We're closer to the heartland. We're clean and friendly and beautiful."

Cong. Dems are coming under fire from lefty bloggers for their handling of the detainee treatment issue. Reed Hundt at TPM Cafe writes: "When the Supreme Court ruled against permanent incarceration without legal process, I crankily warned that the Democrats would miss the political point: namely, that the R's would create a pro-terrorism, anti-due process bill and force a vote on it in the fall. ... I urged that the D's introduce legislation that mandated immediate trials, and that they insist that in the absence of trials the Administration couldn't get to the truth and couldn't adequately mete out punishment where deserved, and so was losing the war on terror. ... So Congressional D's did nothing. ... Now the D's are caught flat-footed, and the Netroots weren't on the ball. In my cranky view. This awful legislation will pass without much attention being paid." Also critical of Dems:

• Jane Hamsher at firedoglake: "As Digby always says, it's time to stop the Biden-esque exhortations about what Democrats should and shouldn't be doing and actually do it."
• Cenk Uygur at The Huffington Post: "There is no excuse. Democrats who vote for this bill because of cowardly political expediency will forever be tainted. We will never forget. This is the most un-American bill I have ever seen. ... Any Democrat who votes for this is the worst kind of coward. I am tired of giving them one more chance. Stand up, you spineless weaklings. You have the right to filibuster to protect all of us against this very thing. Use it!!!
• Arianna Huffington at The Huffington Post: "Back in 2002, many Democrats, afraid of being branded as weak on security, voted to give the president the authority to decide if and when it was necessary to invade Iraq. A power he quickly abused. So now, still wracked with the fear of perception, they seem willing to give him the power to decide if and when it's okay to breach the Geneva Conventions. Haven't the Democrats learned anything over the last 4 years? The only thing they have to fear is the fear of being true to themselves.

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas still urges readers to pressure Dems "to do the right thing," but takes issue with diarists who threaten to quit the Dems if they roll on torture. Kos writes: "Stop whining. Stop [kvetch]ing. And keep working to build a Democratic Party with backbone. ... And remember, this is a long-term process. Just like conservatives didn't quit politics when Nixon was killing them with new government programs like the EPA or OSHA, we can't take our ball home every time we lose on an important issue."

Chris Bowers hits a similar note at MyDD listing every recent anti-progressive bill that passed with some Dem votes and concluding: "Progressives need to be fair to Democrats, the majority of whom have come to side with progressives on virtually everything. Don't blame Democrats in general for rolling over to Republicans--blame the minority who regularly do that, and name their names."

Not all hope on the left was lost. Hunter at DailyKos argues the torture bill is exactly the type of issue the filibuster was invented for: " think there'd be some merit in delaying the Torture Bill a day or two, just so we can get a more concrete idea of what sorts of torture are or are not allowed to be performed on prisoners of the United States. You know, just flesh it out a little. Is waterboarding covered? There's been quite a bit of disagreement over that. What about broken bones, does that count? Fractured, or broken, does it make a difference?" Matt Stoller at MyDD describes defeat of the bill as "not impossible, but it's not likely."

There are many lefty heroes in the debate however. Atrios has video of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). Christy Hardin Smith at firedoglake links to video of Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), and Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA)

National Review Online's Kathryn Jean Lopez notes: "Only 34 Democrats voted for the House bill on terror detainees, but two of them were liberal Senate candidates: Sherrod Brown and Harold Ford."

Iraq war supporter and vehement Bush critic Andrew Sullivan posts video on the story of Canadian rendition victim Maher Arar and writes: "The bill now being rushed through the Congress makes it more likely. Just don't say you haven't been warned."

Lefty bloggers have settled on their favorite quote from the released portions of April's National Intelligence Estimate: "We assess that the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the duration of the timeframe of this Estimate." "Recent former Defense Intelligence officer" AJ in DC writes at AMERICAblog: "Ladies and gentlemen, that's the ballgame right there. ... The assessment is saying that the main motivations for terrorism -- and the report puts Iraq at the top of that long list -- outweigh our ability to prevent it, meaning, essentially, that Iraq is more harmful than helpful in our counterterror strategy." Georgia10 at DailyKos ads: "Translation: We are losing the War on Terrorism. We are making terrorists faster than we can kill them, and a wave of violent extremism is spreading across the globe faster than we can put out the ideological fires. ... You cannot win the war against violent extremism with bombs or bullets. To quote the character V from V for Vendetta: "ideas are bulletproof."

Talking Points Memo Josh Marshall writes on the NIE: "The problem is that in Iraq we've managed to create a whole new rallying cry for a new generation of terrorists. And because they're more dispersed, both organizationally and geographically, we're really not prepared to handle the threat they pose. ... We've actually done fairly well in the actual War on Terror, in the sense of taking down the organization that attacked us on 9/11. Simultaneously we've both squandered hundreds of billions of dollars and a lot of valuable time and good will creating a new threat with the fiasco in Iraq."

At firedoglake, Sheldon Rampton takes the opportunity to promote his movie: "The Best War Ever."

TERROR POLITICS II: U.S. Policy On Iraq: The League Leader In Terrorist Creation Since 1996

For his response to the NIE , The Mudville Gazzette looks at Osama bin Laden's opinion on the topic in 1998: "The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post... Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim." Mudville also includes similar bin Laden statements on Iraq from 1996.

Iraq war supporter and vehement Bush critic Andrew Sullivan added his opinion on the NIE's conclusions: "As a supporter of the war in Iraq, it's clear that over three years later, it has spawned more terrorism, and is now causing more innocent deaths on a daily basis than Saddam's vile regime. Whether this was inevitable or a function of the way it was conducted will be debated for decades. ... The only arguments the Bush administration has left is that in 2050, historians may regard it as a turning point, and that leaving now would be even worse."

TPM Muckraker's Paul Kiel reports that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth veteran Bob Perry's Economic Freedom Fund (EFF) is behind "political calls" bombarding West Virginians and Iowans. Worse, caller ID is identifying other innocent companies as the source of the calls, causing An Event to Remember's Paige Barnes many headaches. EFF did not respond to TPM Muckraker's calls for comment.

Rep. Major Owens (D-NY) takes to The Huffington Post to explain that while we all "celebrate Monday night football" the federal government ought to have directed more of its funds to "renters in the ninth ward" instead of to the Superdome renovation. Owens notes that "62 percent of the dome renovation cost of 185 million dollars was provided by FEMA. This same agency has declared that it has nothing for permanent rental housing." Owens concludes:

Ethnic cleansing across the oceans in Darfur has been rightly denounced by most of the civilized world. My prediction is that the White House October surprise before the general election will be a very aggressive initiative against the genocide in Darfur. Regardless of the wrong reason, let us applaud doing the right thing in Sudan. Meanwhile, this generation of Americans must seriously contemplate the fact that our grandchildren will be ashamed of us for the official ethnic cleansing we are permitting in New Orleans.

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas looks at close races across the country and notes: "And speaking of the "too liberal" line of attack, notice how it has zero traction in Senate races this cycle? The places where it's being employed -- Tennessee, Montana, Missouri, and Virginia -- are turning on entirely other things."

Oakland County sheriff Mike Bouchard (R) sat down with conservative Beltway bloggers 9/27. Right Angle Blog's Ivy Sellers writes: "All in all, I'd say Mike Bouchard is just about all conservatives could ask for in a representative -- he's a polite, well-spoken, pro-growth family man who understands the importance of being tough on security. He's also endorsed by the Club for Growth and Rightroots -- what more could you ask for?"

Knoxville, TN resident Instapundit recounts what he told Beltway denizens about the race between ex-Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker (R) and Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-09) while in town 9/27: "I think that Ford's got an excellent, and probably better-than-even chance at winning. That's because he's a very strong candidate with an excellent campaign operation. ... There's nothing wrong with Corker, but he's not as impressive on TV, and his campaign seems to be much less of a well-oiled machine. ... The race could still go either way, but the momentum is very much in Ford's favor at the moment. ... If Corker wants to win, he's going to need better ads, and a better-organized staff. Right now, I'd give the edge to Ford, who's already got both."

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is also bullish on Ford: "All the stars are going to have to be in alignment for Harold Ford to pull this off. He's got to run a kick-ass campaign, which he seems to be doing. Corker's got to run a feeble campaign. And you can check that box off. And the national tide's got to run in Harold's direction. But it may just happen."

Someday the blogosphere's coverage of this race may escape the '70s. That day is not today. Ryan Lizza at The Plank tracked down "53 year-old technical manager in the nuclear industry" George Beam who was roommates with Billy Lanahan who "was the third member of a hunting party" which allegedly ended with Sen. George Allen (R) stuffing the head of a dead deer into the mailbox of an African-American family. Lizza reports that one night over "beer at U Heights," Lanahan told Beam that the incident was not racial, but just a prank.

Eric Kleefeld at TPM Cafe followed up with Louisa County Chief Deputy Donald Lowe who reported that records from the era were spotty but that "AACP officials and other prominent figures has not unearthed anything like the doe-head story. ... but nothing yet implicating Allen." Not Larry Sabato also contacted the Louisa County Sheriff's Office and reported: "This is an active investigation again- I have the cell phone number of deputy working on the case." For his part, DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas wasn't getting his hopes up: "I'm not banking on this story being corroborated. But if it is, you'd have to think it would be the nail in Allen's coffin."

On the right, National Review Online's John J. Miller shot back noting that ex-Navy sec. James Webb (D) used the n-word in his fiction and argues: "A lot more people have encountered racial epithets from having read Webb's novels than from having heard Allen speak them (and Allen, crucially, has denied speaking them)."

Over at Raising Kaine, Webb Netroots Coordinator Lowell Feld looks at Team Allen accusations that Webb used the n-word while he was in college and agrees with Webb campaign press secretary Kristian Denny Todd that Allen's staff is "pure slime." Feld adds: "I couldn't agree more. By the way, can this campaign degenerate any further? And did we expect anything different with people like Dick Wad(hams), Chris LaSwiftBoatVita, and Scott "Hitler Ads" Howell in charge at Allen for Senate HQ? Hmmmmm."

At the official AllenHQ Jon Henke laments: "It's an incredible shame that the Democrats have chosen to make the Virginia Senate Race a campaign about what African-American Bishop Gerald O. Glenn called "character assassination" rather than about the many issues facing Virginia." Conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt adds: "At this rate, the Allen-Webb race should easily surpass 1984's Jesse Helms - Jim Hunt Senate race as the most dispiriting political exercise of the modern era. I know Allen and Webb both really wanted to make history, each in his own way. But I bet this isn't what either one of them had in mind."

Still on the right, Virtuconindustries reports from a Webb campaign speech in Alexandria, VA: "What struck me the most was that I don't think he said anything that Pat Buchanan would disagree with. Most of the speech was platitudes, but he did talk about two issues. One was that we should leave Iraq. The other was economic populism such as "sending jobs overseas". Webb criticized immigration, without even differentiating between legal and illegal immigration."

The fetching Amanda Congdon at AmandaAcrossAmerica interviews the once pseudonymous Duncan Black. Also, Arianna Huffington has video from behind the scenes at The Colbert Report.

The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum has issues with a William Arkin post at Early Warning: "The simplistic story line that the Democrats are pushing is all about and solely about Iraq: withdraw U.S. forces, defeat the Republicans, tidy up foreign policy by giving human rights to prisoners and being nicer in the world, and voila, terror subsides." Drum responds:

I write a blog. That means I make sharp points in very brief posts. But even at that, nothing I've written could even be unfairly caricatured the way Arkin does, let alone fairly. Ditto for other liberal bloggers who are even sharper and briefer than me.

Some of these liberals think we ought to withdraw from Iraq and some don't. I think it's safe to say that virtually all of them believe that a less militaristic and more internationalist foreign policy would be a net benefit. But it's also safe to say that none of them - not one - believes this is all it will take to put a stop to militant jihadism. And yet, after five years of speeches, articles, symposia, and books by Democrats on national security, that's what Arkin writes.

LEST WE FORGET: What, The Iron Sheik Wasn't Available?

Right Wing News was "watching TNA wrestling via TiVo" when he came across the pro-illegal immigration character Konnan ranting "about America and white people (Incidentally, if you're trying to make pro-wrestling fans hate you -- and they were -- that's a pretty good way to go about it)." RWN concludes:

Whether you're a fan of pro-wrestling or not, it's worth your time to watch the video above because the characters appear to be nothing more than a personification of what people didn't like about those illegal immigration rallies. Listen to the rhetoric that they use and keep in mind that when a politician supports comprehensive immigration reform AKA amnesty, a significant percentage of the American electorate will see it as nothing more than a thumbs up to the sort of thing they're hearing from those wrestlers.

Posted by Conn Carroll at September 28, 2006 12:37 PM