March 20, 2007

3/20: Hoping To Stay Positive?

We don't know whether the creative license taken by the creator of the "Hillary 1984" infringes on any of Apple's intellectual property rights claims (some bloggers did not even know of the original ad), but there's no doubt the official Obama logo on the hammer lady's shirt infringes on Barack Obama's copyright and trademark properties. Trademark in particular would be a strong claim since many viewing the ad could conclude the logo signals Obama's endorsement of the message. YouTube policy on intel. property rights enables Obama to flag the video, and given the clear violation involved, YouTube would have to remove the video if Obama protested.

Currently the Obama campaign refuses to discuss the spot, only saying: "There is a lot of energy for Sen. Obama on the Web, in communities all over the country ... and frankly, that energy will manifest itself in a lot of ways." But what if those manifestations come on Swift Boat-style anonymous ads? Shouldn't a candidate, especially one campaigning on ending 'negativity' in politics, move to silence such ads when they can? We certainly Hope Obama isn't playing a cynical game of allowing other to attack for him while he stresses how positive and uplifting politics should be.

DEM FIELD: More Dean Comparisons For Obama

IA Progress looks at the staffing efforts by the Dems' big three:

• On Barack Obama: "Some have compared Obama's staff to Howard Dean's from four years ago, because it seems to include an unusual number of ideologically motivated young people, many of whom have never worked a caucus before. Their typical field organizer offer, which is the lowest of the candidates reviewed here, is $2,000 per month. Because Senator Obama is so magnetic, they are having no trouble filling positions, but the low salary may not be enough to entice experienced operatives.
• On John Edwards: "In contrast to Obama's staff, most of Edwards's staff so far have Iowa political experience, and many have also worked with state director Jennifer O'Malley or state field director Jackie Lee before.
• On Hillary Clinton: "Hillary Clinton's campaign has been a bit slower to announce their hiring decisions here, but those whom they have hired have impressive resumes. Staffers who may not have significant Iowa experience but who have significant experience elsewhere are taking positions on the Clinton campaign that are well below where the staffers might be in most campaign hierarchies. Clinton is paying field organizers about $2,750 per month - the most of any candidate."

OBAMA: The Conversation Has Definitely Begun

Borrowing key analysis from TAPPED's Garance Franke-Ruta, MyDD's Adam Conner has the best rundown on the rise of the "Obama 1984 ad" (although, as Connor explains, the YouTube effort actually borrows its footage from Apple's 2004 iPod ad, not the 1984 original).

Noting that most bloggers he talked to about the ad responded "Oh that, I saw that weeks ago," Connor identifies Carla Marinucci's San Francisco Chroniclestory on the ad as the tipping point that sent the video viral (over 900K views at deadline). TAPPED's Franke-Ruta shares an IM exchange she had with one of the first bloggers to link to the YouTube 3/5, Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall:

I asked Josh via instant messenger where he got the link from, and he says a friend of his who knew the ad's creators sent it to him and that "the person assured me the creators were not tied to a campaign or a political org" and that "i took it as a given that they were dems [given who was doing the iming] and that they liked obama and that that was the point of their creating the video."

Conner then tries to answer, "Who is the creator, 'ParkRidge47?'" and links to a Micah Sifrypost sharing an email from ParkRidge47 claiming s/he created the ad in response to "a New York Times article about the Clinton's campaign bullying of donors and political operatives after the Geffen dustup." TAPPED's Franke-Ruta further notes: "Park Ridge is both a town in New Jersey and -- this can't just be a coincidence, right? -- the suburb of Chicago where Hillary Clinton, also aged 59, was raised."

Connor concludes: "The viral-level distribution from sites like YouTube, which gained so much political notoriety with Senator Allen's 'Macaca' moment, proves its potential for candidate-supportive message. And it call came from an independent supporter unaffiliated with the Obama campaign and distributed through the bottom-up grassroots people-powered effort growing around Obama's candidacy. Expect to see more like this in the future."

OBAMA II: Didn't Bush Love To Brag About His Washington Inexperience?

In non-YouTube Obama news, commenting on Obama's Oakland, CA, crowds DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas praises Obama's "I don't enough Washington experience" line and blogs: "Dodd, Biden, and Clinton have all the Washington experience in the world. To me, that's nothing to brag about. That's why I prefer Richardson, Obama, and Edwards. ... It's no surprise two of these three backed out of the Fox debate while Obama would've followed suit had the issue dragged on for a couple more days (they were close to making the announcement).

Speaking of Fox News debates, MyDD's Matt Stoller notes the CBC "may soon announce [a] co-hosting arrangement with Fox News for the Presidential debates" and claims "[o]ne member of the CBC could stop this debate with a phone call, or even one from a staffer. That member is Barack Obama." Stoller concludes: "Obama could gain more credibility with new progressive activists that he's serious about a new type of politics with some quiet behind-the-scenes maneuvering here."

Tired of punditmusings on the "essence" of white support for Obama, Matthew Yglesias offers a more "banal" explanation for Obama's surge: "Obama is popular among the intersecting groups of black people, young people, and people for whom Iraq is a high priority issue. This, of course, is not very hard to explain. Obama is black, relatively young, and has a consistent record of opposition to the Iraq War. And, obviously, he's good at giving speeches to large crowds."

Finally, MyDD's Jerome Armstrong links to news "Michelle Obama has hired Melissa Winter" a former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) "gatekeeper." Armstrong comments: "I guess that puts to rest the idea that Matt Stoller is going to score an interview with Michelle anytime soon."

GOP FIELD: Still No IA Ground Game For Rudy

IA's Caucus Cooler has updated their IA Caucus odds for the GOP's big three:

• Mitt Romney goes goes from 3-1 to 7-2: "With all the good things going on for Mitt, the problem is that his poll numbers and public perception have taken a bit of a hit. The media's narrative of Mitt as a flip-flopper has saturated and it is mentioned in most news-stories about him."
• John McCain goes from 3-1 to 7-2: "The problem for McCain is that there is still a vocal contingent of conservatives who don't trust him because of his maverick reputation, and the spector of Rudy's gaudy poll numbers put a shadow on his trip."
• Rudy Giuliani move up to 4-1 from 5-1: "When we started writing this line-change our intent was to put Rudy in a 3 way tie with Romney and McCain. But the more we discussed around Cooler HQ we just couldn't pull the trigger. Rudy hasn't been in Iowa since November. He has to our knowledge only 2-3 staffers in the state."

HUNTER: He Should Probably Borrow Webb's Combat Boots

Captain's Quarters turns his keyboard over to Duncan Hunter for WH '08 guestblogging including:

Now, let me take a moment to talk about Iraq. What we're doing in that country is following the same basic pattern that we've used to expand freedom around the world for more than 60 years in places like Japan, Europe, and El Salvador. First, you stand up a free government. Next, you stand up a military capable of protecting that free government, and lastly, the Americans leave. ...

I returned this week from a fact-finding trip to Iraq where I met with top U.S. military commanders in Baghdad, Ramadi, and Fallujah and was briefed by Iraqi Army and police officials. ... Speaking from experience as someone who has had a son who spent two tours serving in Iraq as a Marine, I know that it's not easy for us here at home to know that our troops are risking their lives expanding freedom in a foreign country. But, even though it's difficult and dangerous work, it's also vital.

MCCAIN: Club For Anybody But McCain

Of the 13 John McCain interview segments The Brody File posted, the "John McCain Rips the Club For Growth" entry easily garnered the most blog coverage ... all of it negative. Conservative blogger beef: McCain blames loss of the Senate on Club for Growth's attacks on ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI).Townhall's Matt Lewis calls the interview "a bad move" and blogs: "Right after the Primary Election, I had dinner with one of the folks doing polling for Lincoln Chafee. He told me that Laffey's challenge to Chafee was the best thing that ever happened to Chafee, because it taught him how to campaign. ... Chafee's loss had little to do with the Club for Growth."

SC's Daily Chaser takes the story a step further pairing McCain's CFG comments with The State reports that SC Gov. Mark Sanford (R) has close ties to the group. The Chaser concludes: "So why hasn't Sanford endorsed McCain? Could it be that Mark Sanford is smart enough to know where his bread is buttered?"

Team McCain did manage to get somedetractors to link to video of McCain saying: "We Lost the Election Because of Spending"

Other than his CFG criticism, McCain also took hits on his comments on campaign finance reform (Ankle Biting Pundits: "The man still doesn't get it when it comes to why conservatives are upset with him over CFR. ... The main reason conservatives are upset with you about CFR is because it impinges the right to free speech.") and for movement on immigration policy (Captain's Quarters: "John McCain started his campaign for the presidential nomination in 2008 with two strikes against him -- the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act and immigration reform.. ... Will his sense of pragmatism inspire him to backtrack on that legislation as well? And would anyone trust him even if it did?").

ROMNEY: 'Not Ready For Prime Time'

Mitt Romney's Castro-fumble in Miami, FL, did not escape blogger attention. Ankle Biting Pundit's BT writes: "As someone who grew up in an area of Texas that was majority Hispanic, trust me, you do not want to be the white guy trying to speak Spanish when you have no clue what you're saying. ... Way to go, gringo." Bull Dog Pundit adds: "[W]hat it does tell me is that his campaign is still not ready for prime-time."

The Right Angle's Matt Naugle ties the episode into a larger anti-Romney narrative: "between this, and flip-flopping on abortion and campaign finance reform, and trying to court social conservatives while saying Republicans were wrong to get involved in the Terri Schiavo case and condemning Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace's comment that homosexuality is immoral, keeping track of Romney's blunders is a overwhelming task."

THOMPSON: Not Just In It For The Buzz

Reps. John Duncan (R-TN) and Zach Wamp (R-TN) set off a fresh round of Fred Thompson speculation with the launch of their Draft Fred Thompson Committee. Reactions from The Corner include:

• Jonah Goldberg: "Good guy, fun actor, etc etc. He ain't gonna run. I base this on virtually nothing, except for the fact that he seems to be in it for the buzz."
• Rich Lowry: "I think he's seriously considering it, more seriously than I would have thought even a week or so ago."
• Kathryn Jean Lopez: "At first, he was flattered to be wanted. Then he decided to have a little fun with it, see if it was for real. While in this mode, he quickly came to realize how deep the yearning conservatives have for a real conservative leader is, and how they feel like they don't have one in the current mix. I think he's now heartened by the fact that so many people seem to want that leader to be him / think it could be him. And so I think increasingly he's been seriously considering the possibility of running over these last two weeks.

Under pressure from emailers Goldberg admits "there's clearly something going on" and posts an example: "This guy is gonna run, and he will take the party by storm. He is as close to a true Reagan Conservative as we have seen in many years, and is the answer to our prayers. Just you watch, and I will email you again to gloat from time to time."

Moving left, The Plank's Bradford Plumer tries to remember why Thompson wasn't a factor in '00 and can only identify failed hearings on China and possible romantic links to Margaret Carlson as strikes against him. Kausfiles is more concerned by the lack of a compelling case for Thompson: "Wherein lies the greatness of Sen. Fred Thompson? Just asking! All I remember is he was given custody of an important set of hearings -- into China and campaign finance -- and screwed them up. ... Thompson didn't accomplish much in two years plus a full six-year term, no?"

Keeping his feet planted in the entertainment world, Thompson pens a response to Iran's reaction to 300 for Pajamas Media including:

Who are these guys who are getting all flushed over our cultural insensitivity? People who want to blow Jews off the face of the earth. The regime that stormed our embassy in 1979 and kept Americans captive for 444 days. Iran's Hezbollah puppets have killed more Americans, than any other terrorist group except Al Qaeda. Explosive devices from Iran are being used right now against our soldiers in Iraq. They're clearly more skittish about cultural warfare than the sort that actually kills people - like the one against Israel that Iran financed just a few months ago.

PROSECUTOR PURGE: TPM Needs You!

Talking Points Memo staffers and readers ("Josh and I were just discussing how in the world we are ever going to make our way through 3,000 pages when it hit us: we don't have to. Our readers can help.") are currently plowing through over 3K pages of DoJ documents related to the firings of eight US Attorneys. At deadline, nothing had been frontpaged from the new documents. Earlier Josh Marshall refuted WH press/sec. Tony Snow assertions that San Diego USA Carol Lam was let go due to lax immigration enforcement: "The point is that while Snow wants to point to the March US Attorney 'ratings list' as evidence that the desire to fire Lam long predated both the Cunningham controversy and the May 2006 emails, they simply don't show that."

After a brief skim of the documents dumped so far, The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum argues MI USA Margaret Chiara is "one of the most inexplicable cases" since "she was completely blindsided by the request to resign, was never given a reason for being let go, and can't afford the loss of income from being out of work for even a short while. However, the administration's lies about the mass firings made it even more difficult than usual to find new employment on short notice."

Also on the left, Matthew Yglesias explains why Pres. Clinton's removal of US attys in '93 is different than Pres. Bush's current actions:

A world in which there's 100 percent turnover of US Attorneys when partisan control of the White House switched, but who otherwise can expect to continue in their jobs as long as they maintain basic standards of conduct, has no particular implications for the neutral administration of justice. A world in which US Attorneys are subjected to the day-to-day whims of the West Wing has completely different implications.

PROSECUTOR PURGE II: An Insult To Barney Rubble

A preponderance of conservative bloggers and their readers seem to favor ending the AG Alberto Gonzales era at DoJ. Michelle Malkin notes Laura Ingraham "blasted" Gonzales last week and Malkin reposts a poll of readers showing 61% believe Gonzales ought to be fired. Malkin shares: "For what it's worth, I can't say I'll miss him.

The AmSpec Blog crowd is also ready to move on:

• Quin Hillyer: "Gonzales claims he had no clue about any specifics concerning one of the most important personnel matters within his purview. If true, that's pathetic. If not, then he is a liar. Meanwhile, he went before Congress and impugned the reputations of all the fired attorneys. That was both politically dumb and also classless. ... This administration needs to lance the boil on this story. The quicker, the better."
• John Tabin: "I'm with Quin. Once in a while, the Democrats are going to get a scalp; it might as well be someone who's no big loss."
• James Poulos: "Alberto Gonzales has always been the Barney Rubble of the second-term Cabinet. Hailed from day one as a major-league lightweight, he now proves himself a first-class drag."

Gonzalez still has his defenders though. Mostare eagerto deflect blame to ex-CoS Kyle Sampson while otherssee plots hatched by career staff in the Dep. AG and Exec. Office for US Attorneys. Either way, "smart insiders" are telling Rich Lowry Gonzales will be out "perhaps by the end of the week."

IRAQ: 80% Of MoveOn Members Can't Be Wrong

With 80% of MoveOn's 3.2 million members in support of the current House Iraq war funding legislation, TPM Cafe's Greg Sargent reports that the organization is "now going up on the air with radio ads bashing two GOP incumbents who oppose the bill." The ad targeting Reps. James Walsh (R-NY) and Phil English (R-PA) is called "Spineless" and accuses the Reps of "rolling over in support of George Bush, in support of sending in more troops, sacrificing more lives and more money on this religious civil war."

At The Huffington Post, Rep. John Murtha also urges support for the measure writing: "After four years of incompetence and mismanagement, this Administration must come to the realization that Iraq's civil war can only be solved by the Iraqi people and that stability in Iraq can only be accomplished when U.S. and coalition forces end the occupation and redeploy."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Effective Not That Different From Ethical

Daily Kos' Adam B shares his contributions to a blogger ethics panel he sat on 3/16:

Given the traceability of IP addresses and the tenacity of online readers (and site owners), there is very little to separate the ethical from the effective in online politics. By that, I just mean this: you will get caught. Whether it's concern trolls and shills getting outed or Wikipedia mischief traced back to its house.gov source, it's actually a lot harder to get away with unethical behavior here than it is when a campaign floods a talk radio show or letters-to-the-editor page with the concerns of "ordinary citizens".

LEST WE FORGET: Be Afraid Bill Gates

Predicting that in the future all work will be done by three groups, "Robots will do the routine work, artists will do what the robots can't, and lawyers will sue them. Everyone else will be wearing straw hats and driving around not working," Scott Adams muses on tax policy at The Dilbert Blog:

I saw a statistic that the people in the top 5% of incomes pay the majority of all the taxes in the United States. If that trend continues, we only need one super rich guy to pay all of the taxes. The rest of us can just enjoy our robot slave labor and free social services. If the guy paying all the taxes says that's unfair, we'll just vote for a robot president who will order the army (of robots) to kill the one rich taxpayer and replace him with a robot that doesn't whine so much. I don't see how that could go wrong.

Posted by Conn Carroll at March 20, 2007 12:36 PM