May 11, 2007

5/10: Truth In Advertising

Nothing brings the Right to life, so to speak, as forcefully as a debate over abortion rights with potentially far-reaching consequences in a WH campaign. Unfortunately for Rudy Giuliani, however, talk this a.m. runs decidedly against his decision to aggressively embrace his pro-choice creds. While this is notable for many reasons, it's particularly interesting to watch how willing conservatives have been to dismiss fresh evidence of Mitt Romney's pro-choice past, while they write Giuliani's political obituary. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, conservatives believe, it's better to support an abortion-rights supporter who's moving toward your views, than the abortion-right supporter who won't. Oh, and rest assured, this story isn't going anywhere, anytime soon.

ROMNEY: Ann? Ann Who?

AmericaBlog's Chris says Mitt Romney's response to reports that his wife Ann donated to Planned Parenthood is "sexist." "His second response 'I was effectively pro-choice at that time' is troubling though and strikes me as outdated and sexist, as if his wife was simply an extension of himself rather than an individual who may happen to think differently. Is that what he was saying yesterday? Sure seems like it."

Expressing the frustration of many conservatives with the ongoing Planned Parenthood storyline, The Corner's Kathryn Jean Lopez links to this story with this headline: "If You Have Not Given Money To Planned Parenthood, Please Stand Up."

David Brody says he's not sure he cares about this story. "First of all, it would be a bigger deal if Mitt Romney gave the money. Plus, considering that Romney ( and presumably his wife) were pro-choice back then, it makes sense. Are we going to start holding everyone accountable for their past donations to specific organizations? Where does it end? I mean it's not like Ann Romney worked at Planned Parenthood."

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan posts this '02 clip of Romney saying in '02 he would "unequivocally" protect a woman's right to choose.

In other Romney distractions, TownHall's Matt Lewis writes that Al Sharpton's recent comments about Romney's religion are a definite boon to the Mormon '08er. Lewis: "This helps Romney by giving him publicity, and more importantly, by casting him as the victim. Republican Primary voters hate Al Sharpton -- and will jump at the chance to disagree with him. And the fact that he was involved in the recent Imus scandal gives this story extra legs. 2. Whether or not Mitt Romney wins, I think it is clear that his candidacy has helped the image of The Church of Latter-Day Saints. If nothing else, Americans will be more familiar with the church."

GIULIANI: If It's Thursday, Then I'm Pro Choice

In other GOP maneuvering re: abortion rights, plenty of folks were talking about today's New York Times report that Rudy Giuliani will strongly embrace his pro-choice credentials. TownHall's Dean Barnett writes that this weeklong story about Giuliani is mind-bending, but reveals a little-known truth about his '08 campaign. "Rudy's been running for president for over five years. He had to know that the subject of abortion was going to come up. He had over five years to get his story straight. He's a bright guy. This should have been a no-brainer."

"The fact that Rudy failed to button down such a crucial part of his campaign narrative buttresses a theory I put forth a couple of weeks ago -- he just doesn't want it. What we're seeing out of the Giuliani campaign is strangely self-destructive politicking. And this has been going on ever since he solidified his position as frontrunner."

Meanwhile, another view from Glenn Reynolds on InstaPundit Under the headline: "Things That Don't Bother Me," he writes, "I understand that the pro-life people, and the social-cons generally, are unhappy with this. But hey, a lot of gun-rights people thought that Bush was squishy on the gun issue -- and he has been. Nonetheless, he's been a lot better than Kerry or Gore would have been had they been elected; his support for the assault weapons ban, for example, was extremely limp. Likewise, the social-cons are crazy if they let this sort of thing keep them home on election day in 2008. And I think that the Republicans' troubles started -- as I pointed out at the time -- when the social-cons overplayed their hand during the Terri Schiavo affair. But hey, vote for who you want."

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum writes that Giuliani is fighting a potentially unwinnable battle against CW, which says no pro-choice GOPer can win the party's WH nod. "My money's on conventional wisdom. After all, Rudy's only doing this because he knows he really doesn't have any choice. Today's revelations about his donations to Planned Parenthood took waffling off the table as a feasible campaign strategy. He's screwed and he knows it."

Matthew Yglesias agrees. http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/05/prochoice_rudy.php "It seems like the obvious Rudy Giuliani campaign startegy was to run as a proponent of overturning Roe v. Wade while remaining nominally pro-choice -- joining the Wittes/Rosen/Whomever camp. Instead, though, after a lot of flailing around it seems he's decided to forthrightly take up the doomed mantle of the pro-choice Republican and run as Pete Wilson redux or something. ... It sure seems out of the question to me. Maybe not if there was some substantial body of thinking that commitment to anti-choice views played a major role in the '06 defeat or something, but that's not really out there. John McCain and Mitt Romney should, in my opinion, be popping some champagne this morning."

So does John Hawkins at Right Wing News. "I'm glad Rudy is 'at peace,' with losing over his abortion stance, because no matter how much money and name recognition he has or what strategies he tries, this is going to be the final nail in his coffin."

Still, Rudy did receive this quasi-defense explainer from Philip Klein on American Spectator's blog. "This is probably the best of the bad options Giuliani has open to him at this point. Those who vote primarily on abortion will not be satisfied unless he is pro-life, and it is impossible for him to take that position without committing the flip flop of the century. His past statements and his record on the issue are a given. It's pretty clear that his attempts to mollify social conservatives (i.e. talking about how much he hates abortion) haven't won him fans in the pro-life community either."

OBAMA: Tempests (And Tornadoes) In Teapots

MyDD's Bowers takes on Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) for criticizing Sen. Barack Obama. Bowers: "If there were ever a portrait of someone who has spent too long on Capitol Hill, this might be it. Grassley apparently believes that he owns the Hawkeye state, that no one -- particularly not another Senator -- has the right to organize a grassroots lobbying effort among his constituents. ... As is fairly apparent, Grassley is vulnerable -- and he knows it. This is why he is so offended that a Democrat would come into his state, expose his knee-jerk conservatism and call his constituents into action to lobby him. So kudos to Obama for calling Grassley out."

Following up on Obama's KS gaffe, PowerLineBlog's John says it suggests the Dem frontrunner doesn't know much about tornadoes. "A tornado is extremely violent, but also relatively small. No tornado in American history has killed anywhere near 10,000 people; the highest fatality count is 689. The idea that a tornado would wipe out all 10,000 residents of a small town, as suggested by Obama (the actual population of Greensburg is 1,600) would strike anyone who knows anything about weather as ludicrous."

CLINTON: Iraq? Never Heard Of It

TPM's Greg Sargent writes about good news for Hillary Clinton on Iraq in this new Marist poll. "This is a very crudely put question. But it's still interesting. The conventional wisdom has held for a while now that Hillary's current refusal to term her vote for the war a 'mistake' is creating problems for her among Dem primary voters. Yet here only 9 percent of Dems say her 'position' on the war makes it less likely that they'll back her. What's the story here? Has Camp Hillary succeeded in its mission to steer the current discussion away from the initial vote? Do Dem voters care more about her current policy positions to the exclusion of her refusal to say the word "mistake"? Do Dems simply care less about her "mistake" thing than the pundits said they would? Is the current standoff with the White House over Iraq sharpening the Dem primary electorate's focus on the present and obscuring past Dem differences?"

RICHARDSON: I Approve This Message

Washington Monthly's Drum writes that Bill Richardson's new TV ads could be a huge miscalculation. "Call me crazy, but am I the only one who thinks that these new ads ... are wildly, bizarrely, wrong? Sure, they're funny, and I know they're aimed at those crazy hipsters who watch YouTube, not the old fogies who watch CNN, but still: isn't Richardson's whole problem that even though he's got a resume as long as your arm nobody really knows what he stands for? And don't these ads just confirm that while ostensibly making fun of it?

Later, he posts this update: "Comments are running approximately a thousand to one against me (I'm extrapolating). The general feeling seems to be that since Richardson is basically unknown, anything short of video of him sodomizing a goat is a winner as long as it gets him some attention. Could be."

Meanwhile, Crooks and Liars's SilentPatriot thinks the Richardson ad is "freaking great. Informative, original and hysterical. ... This is not an endorsement, but Governor Richardson easily has the most impressive résumé of any candidate in the race on either side."

F. THOMPSON: Je t'Aime, Nicolas

NRO picks up would-be WH GOPer Fred Thompson's post on ABC Radio News' Fred Thompson Report that the Nicolas Sarkozy's victory last week shows the U.S.-French love affair is in full bloom. Sort of.

Thompson: "The election of Nicolas Sarkozy ... has been a serious blow to those who claim that America has earned the undying hatred of Europeans. Oh, to be sure, the French media hates us, but there are a lot of people who say ours does too. Regardless, Sarkozy's victory has sent shock waves through the world's media centers."

"A French president who openly admires America is an embarrassment to those who view us as the country bumpkin cousins of the sophisticated Europeans. American pundits and politicians who say we should change our foreign policies to win the European popularity contest ought to be feeling a little embarrassed too."

IRAQ: Blank Check Democrats?

Devilstower writes on Daily Kos that the Dem leadership "clearly hasn't been consulting the conservative dictionary, otherwise they wouldn't make this kind of mistake. In Republispeak, 'compromise' has a very simple meaning:

com.pro.mise [kom-pruh-mahyz] noun, verb, -noun a settlement of differences made by Democrats folding their tent and giving Republicans everything they want. -- verb. the act of Republicans laughing while Democrats hand over the goods.

"When Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi paid a call on the Commander Guy (following the second demonstration that his veto pen will only be produced on occasions where it can be used to kill Americans), the Republicans seemed certain that Democrats would soon be demonstrating the traditional 'compromise.'"

At HuffingtonPost, David Sirota writes that the "Blank Check Democrats" are raising tough questions. Sirota: "Here we are six months after an election that delivered the Congress to the Democrats based on the American public's desire to end the war. Here we are at a moment when polls show the public firmly supports the Democratic leadership's effort to enforce accountability on the White House when it comes to the war. And yet here we are, once again at the mercy of a small faction of Blank Check Democrats threatening to essentially overturn the 2006 election's mandate and give the big middle finger to the majority of the American people on the most important national security issue in a generation."

PROSECUTOR PURGE: And Then There Were Nine ...

TPM's Marshall reports on "new details" in the firing of ex-US Atty Todd Graves. "The White House told Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) that Graves was canned for 'performance' reasons. But that's not what DOJ told Graves in his firing call."

More Marshall on the new reports from the Washington Post and the Post-Dispatch: "There are two key points to focus on here. The first is that the congressional investigation has been going on for some three months." And the DoJ "has repeated stated that eight US Attorneys were fired. That was clearly false. And there's a second point. We now know of several cases in which US Attorneys appeared on DOJ firing lists and then by supposed coincidence just happened to resign. The Graves revelation now puts the weight of evidence strongly in the favor of the conclusion that few if any of these resignations were unforced. No proof yet. But that has to be the assumption."

Marshall, on AG Gonzales's 5/11 testimony before the House Jud Cmte: "There's been a lot of back and forth and speculation about all the faulty memories, the fact that virtually every senior official at DOJ has denied any role in actually choosing the names on the firing list and all the various claims of privilege. At the risk of stating the obvious, this is all of a piece. For three months" the WH and the "clique" around Gonzales "have been involved in a concerted effort to cover up what happened here. And the intensity of the effort points to how bad the real story is. This has been obvious to anyone who has been following this story closely since January. But the fact that the DOJ has been collectively lying about the number of fired US Attorneys for all these months just confirms how true it is. Consider this: with all the document dumps, no emails or documents relating to Graves' firing? How can that be? The truth is that we still know very little about what happened here. Very little."

Meanwhile, TPM's Keil can't get enough of the New York Times' report that Gonzales believes he has weathered the storm.

"You can look at it two different ways: 1) Alberto Gonzales has been revealed to be at best an incompetent amnesiac and at worst an apparatchik determined to cover up the White House's total control of the Justice Department. He's lost even the confidence of administration loyalists on Capitol Hill and is nothing but a ghost with the title attorney general. 2) Alberto Gonzales has run the gauntlet. And he won! He doesn't have any credibility left to lose. You can guess what the Gonzales way of seeing the world is."

"Perhaps the most amusing bit in the piece is the assertion that Karl Rove is pushing for Gonzales' removal."

HOUSE '08: Raked Over The Cole

RedState's Erick is no fan of NRCC Chair Tom Cole (OK). "The GOP will not take back the House in 2008, and part of that blame will rest on Tom Cole's shoulders. ... Cole has a unique strategy for winning. First, he will back candidates who disagree with fundamental premises of the GOP base and second, he will try to out Democrat the Democrats in the general election."

"He also wants the GOP to recruit more moderates. Well, here's the kicker -- the country saw a purging of a few of its good conservatives last year, but there was a bloodbath among moderate Republicans. In fact, the Democrats ran to the *right* of many of the defeated Republicans. Oh, and on spending? A poll released today by Democracy Corps, a Democrat polling outfit, finds that 80 percent of likely voters disapprove of the federal government's handling of spending."

LEST WE FORGET: Window Shopping

Looking for a little escape without even leaving your office pod? Check out Andrew Sullivan's tour of the views from Dish readers' windows, from all over the world.

Posted by Conn Carroll at May 11, 2007 01:45 PM