Hillary Clinton Asks To Keep Donor Money for 2012

The New York Observer reports:

Hillary Clinton's campaign is sending out letters to donors asking permission to roll a $2,300 contribution to Clinton's 2008 general election coffers to her 2012 senate election fund instead of offering a refund.

The letter, read to me by one recipient, includes a photocopy of a handwritten note from Clinton that says, "Dear friend, your commitment has meant so much to me over the course of my presidential campaign. You were there for me when I needed you the most and I'll never forget it. I hope you'll help me continue to fight for the issues and causes we believe in by filling out the enclosed form in support of Friends of Hillary."

The form says, "I hereby verify that my 2008 general election contribution may be designated to the 2012 Senate election. I designate the entire amount to the 2012 primary election. However if I have already contributed to the 2012 primary, I designate any amount in excess of $2,300 to the 2012 general election."

"If we do not hear back from you by August 28 2008 we will automatically refund your contribution."

This donor, at least, had no intention of signing. "Of course I'm going to get my money back," the donor told me.

Could This Be Why Hillary Won't Leave?

U.S. to Attack Iran; Bush and Cheney Plan to Solve Disputes with Iran "radically and resolutely"

ShortNews.com reports:

The Israeli Army Radio and the Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post have both quoted unnamed Israeli officials today as saying that the US President George W Bush plans to launch an attack on Iran within the next few months.

According to officials a senior member of the Bush entourage on his recent trip to Israel said that both Bush and his Vice president, Dick Cheney planned to solve disputes with Iran “radically and resolutely”.

The unnamed sources claim the only reason the US Administration has not attacked Iran earlier is because of reservations expressed from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The sources of this report is PressTV:

Israeli officials claim that US president George W. Bush intends to launch a military attack against Iran before the end of his term.

"George W. Bush intends to attack Iran within the next few months, before the end of his term", The Israeli Army Radio and the Jerusalem Post quoted unnamed Israeli officials as saying on Tuesday.

The officials claimed that a senior member of the president's entourage during Bush's trip to the occupied Palestine last week said that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney believed they should solve the issue of Iran 'radically and resolutely'.

They, however, claimed that Defense Secretary Robert Gates' and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's reservations had so far prevented the administration from launching an attack on Iran.

Earlier, a news website close the Israeli intelligence agency revealed that during his visit to al-Quds Bush criticized Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert for not attacking Lebanon after the political defeat of Fuad Siniora's government in the recent crisis in Lebanon.

A "Clinton cohort" reports to Huffington Post that Hillary Clinton is asking key supporters (superdelegates) not to desert her during the next two weeks of campaigning, assuring them that she "won't embarrass them".

Could her subtext be, "You'll see why I haven't gotten out of the race (war with Iran), and I'll make the case that I'm the experienced 'war president', not Obama".

If true, how could she know?

Bill Clinton, as a former president, gets the same daily intelligence briefing that Bush gets. We've heard about plans for an imminent strike against Iran for a while, but what isn't available to the public, but is in daily briefings, is the most up-to-date information on U.S. military placement. If it was happening, if a military strike against Iran was operational, the Clintons would know about it.

Hillary's Downfall

Another Notch On Hillary's Belt of Lies & Deception

Once again, Hillary Clinton demonstrates she is a stranger to truth.



If Hillary Clinton believes that hers is an honest representation and assessment, her fitness for the job of President of the U.S. needs to be questioned.

Kathy Kiely and Jill Lawrence interviewed Hillary Clinton for USA Today:

Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed Wednesday to continue her quest for the Democratic nomination, arguing she would be the stronger nominee because she appeals to a wider coalition of voters — including whites who have not supported Barack Obama in recent contests.

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Clinton's blunt remarks about race came a day after primaries in Indiana and North Carolina dealt symbolic and mathematical blows to her White House ambitions.

The Obama campaign, looking toward locking up the nomination, stepped up pressure on superdelegates who have the decisive votes in their race.

In both states, Clinton won six of 10 white voters, according to surveys of people as they left polling places.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said that in Indiana, Obama split working-class voters with Clinton and won a higher percentage of white voters than in Ohio in March. He said Obama will be the strongest nominee because he appeals "to Americans from every background and all walks of life. These statements from Sen. Clinton are not true and frankly disappointing."

Clinton rejected any idea that her emphasis on white voters could be interpreted as racially divisive. "These are the people you have to win if you're a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election. Everybody knows that."

Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Clinton's comment was a "poorly worded" variation on the way analysts have been "slicing and dicing the vote in racial terms."

However, he said her primary support doesn't prove she's more electable. Either Democrat will get "the vast majority" of the other's primary election votes in a general election, he said.

Clinton lost North Carolina by 14 percentage points and won Indiana by 2 points after competing full-out in both states. She had loaned the campaign $6.4 million in the past month. She said she might lend more.

"We should finish the contests we have and see where we stand after they're over," she said, referring to the six remaining primaries that will end June 3.

There were signs of unrest Wednesday, even among Clinton allies. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein wondered to The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper, "whether she can get the delegates that she needs." Former South Dakota senator George McGovern, whose 1972 presidential bid gave Clinton her first political experience, switched his support from Clinton to Obama.

Can you spot Hillary Clinton's deception in the May 4, 2008 AP article she was citing?:

Barack Obama's problem winning votes from working-class whites is showing no sign of going away, and their impression of him is getting worse.

Those are ominous signals as he hopes for strong performances in the coming week in Indiana and North Carolina primaries that would derail the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. Those contests come as his candidacy has been rocked by renewed attention to his volatile former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and by his defeat in last month's Pennsylvania primary.

In an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll in April, 53 percent of whites who have not completed college viewed Obama unfavorably, up a dozen percentage points from November. During that period, the numbers viewing Clinton and Republican candidate John McCain negatively have stayed about even.

Huge preference for Clinton

The April poll — conducted before the Pennsylvania contest — also showed an overwhelming preference for Clinton over Obama among working-class whites. They favored her over him by 39 percentage points, compared to a 10-point Obama lead among white college graduates. Obama also did worse than Clinton among those less-educated voters when matched up against Republican candidate John McCain.

"It's the stuff about his preacher ... and the thing he said about Pennsylvania towns, how they turn to religion," Keith Wolfe, 41, a supermarket food stocker from Parkville, Md., said in a follow-up interview. "I don't think he'd be a really good leader."

Just before the Pennsylvania primary, Obama said many small-town residents are bitter about their lives and turn for solace to religion and guns.

Recent voting patterns underscore Obama's continued poor performance with these voters, who are often pivotal in general election swing states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

In Democratic primaries held on or before Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, whites who have not finished college favored the New York senator by a cumulative 59 percent to 32 percent, according to exit polls of voters conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks.

In primaries since Feb. 5, that group has favored Clinton by 64 percent to 34 percent. That includes Ohio and Pennsylvania, in which working-class whites have favored Clinton by 44 and 41 percentage points respectively.

The AP-Yahoo poll shows less educated whites present a problem to Obama in part because of who they are. Besides being poorer, they tend to be older than white college graduates — and Clinton has done strongly with older white voters.

'Lacks content'

Yet political professionals and analysts say more is at play. They blame Obama's problems with blue-collar whites on their greater reluctance to embrace his bid to become the first black president, and his failure to address their concerns about job losses and the battered economy specifically enough.

Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., said Obama lost among working-class whites in the state because his message of how this generation's time has come did not address their economic needs.

"While it's incredibly motivating and passionate and compelling, it lacks content," Madonna said. "Hillary would come in and relate to them, talk about the specifics of her policy."

Pennsylvania also illustrated the problems racial attitudes among less educated whites are causing Obama.

In exit polls, one in five of the state's white voters who haven't completed college said race was an important factor in choosing a candidate, about double the number of white college graduates who said so. Eight in 10 of them voted for Clinton over Obama, and only about half said they would vote for Obama over McCain in November.

"The scab is peeled back off," Democratic pollster John Anzalone, not working for either presidential candidate, said of the latest attention focused on Wright and Obama's denunciations of him. In video clips of past sermons, Wright has damned the United States for its history of racism and accused the government of spreading the HIV virus to harm blacks.

Obama pollster Cornell Belcher said that while working-class whites have favored Clinton, the fact that huge numbers of them and other voters have participated in Democratic contests boded well for the November election.

"I don't think there's going to be erosion in the fall of a core group of Democratic voters," Belcher said.

While less educated whites tend to vote less frequently than better educated voters, they are important because of their sheer number.

Exit polls show they have comprised three in 10 voters in Democratic contests so far, a group that cannot be ignored in a contest that has seen Obama maintain a slim lead. They made up 43 percent of all voters in the 2004 presidential contest, when they heavily favored President Bush over Democrat John Kerry.

Underlining his need to connect with these voters, Obama has geared some television ads in Indiana toward economic issues. In recent days he has turned to small events, rather than his trademark huge rallies, concentrating on the economy, including lunching with a blue-collar Indiana family while discussing their problems.

He has let cameras record him playing basketball in hopes of connecting with the passionate fans of the sport who populate Indiana and North Carolina.

The findings from the AP-Yahoo News poll are from interviews with 863 Democrats on a panel of adults questioned in November and April. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

The poll was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it free.

The exit poll is based on in-person interviews with more than 36,000 voters in 28 states that have held primaries this year in which both candidates actively competed. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1 percentage point, larger for some subgroups.

Setting aside some serious reservations about the methodology of this poll, it's more than a month old, and it was done before the Pennsylvania primary. Hillary Clinton makes these remarks citing this poll weeks after the Pennsylvania poll, after the Indiana and N. Carolina primaries which she lost.

Did He Really Say That?

Another Example of How The Media is Complicit in Helping Those in Power Manipulate, Ever So Subtly, the Collective Consciousness of the Masses



On Hardball with Chris Matthews, Chuck Todd's characterization of Michelle Obama's reasons for this being the one and only time Barack Obama would run for the presidency:



Chuck Todd's rendition is not exactly what Michelle Obama said. From Vanity Fair:

But Mrs. Obama has no interest in an ongoing quest for the White House. “To me, it’s now or never,” she tells me a few days later, in Chicago, where we’ve met up again at the campaign’s Michigan Avenue headquarters. “We’re not going to keep running and running and running, because at some point you do get the life beaten out of you. It hasn’t been beaten out of us yet. We need to be in there now, while we’re still fresh and open and fearless and bold. You lose some of that over time. Barack is not cautious yet; he’s ready to change the world, and we need that. So if we’re going to be cautious, I’d rather let somebody else do it, because that’s a big investment of time, just to do it the same way. There’s an inconvenience factor there, and if we’re going to uproot our lives, then let’s hopefully make a real big dent in what it means to be president of the United States.”

And what it means to Mrs. Obama is sacrificing many of the things she holds most dear, in favor of a larger goal. Although she has concluded that this mission is worth what it takes, achieving such acceptance has been difficult, and the adjustments are ongoing.

On the campaign trail in Connecticut, the NY Times reports:

Michelle Obama told a group of supporters today not to assume that her husband, Barack Obama, would return for another try at the White House, or be any more appealing as a candidate later, if this bid falls short. “It’s not a threat,’’ she said. “It’s the reality.’’

Speaking to five sympathetic women at a Stamford diner who had been hand-picked by her campaign, Mrs. Obama described some ways that youth had its advantages. “This is the only time we will have a chance to have someone who is three years from paying off his student debt,’’ she said, “and still going to Target to get toilet paper.’’

Time spent in Washington, engaging with special interests, she noted, does not always help politicians stay in touch with working-class people or their problems. “Realistically, you get more isolated,’’ she continued.

“I don’t know if things would be the same in four years, and why wait?’’ she declared.

Mrs. Obama also expressed some concern about the impact another campaign of this type might have on her daughters. “People say: ‘We like you. Do this in four years.’ Easy for you to say. But what about those two kids who have already not seen their dad much this year?’’

At times, the conversation, monitored by dozens of reporters with cameras and pads straining to hear every word, felt like an episode from the television show “The View” — women sitting around a table dishing about their home lives and their struggles, except not once in the hourlong conversation was there any evidence of nastiness.

Mrs. Obama said she was skeptical of many of the arguments behind waiting for another round. “For Americans to say, ‘Now we’re ready for you, Barack,’ it doesn’t always work that way. Wait until he’s spent more years in Washington and he’s farther away from folks? Wait till he’s made more money? Wait for what?’’

Her listeners mostly agreed. “They want him tied up in the machine,’’ said Alexis Mitchell, a 59-year-old family therapist from South Windsor. Before the event, she had said she was in Mr. Obama’s camp because she liked the “grace he exhibits, especially under pressure’’ and appreciated his background as a community organizer.

While she voted for Bill Clinton for president, she said she was dismayed by the tone of his wife’s campaign. “I have not liked the way she bared her claws and exhibited her nasty side, saying she will dig up stuff on Barack,’’ Ms. Mitchell said.

Once Mrs. Obama arrived, she wasted little time complimenting her five companions on how great they each looked, especially Meredith Olmstead, a Darien homemaker who announced that she was expecting another child.

To Taiwo Stanback, a 24-year-old Yale University graduate who said she was juggling side jobs since her position at a New Haven nonprofit group lost financing, Mrs. Obama joked: “Oh, no you can’t do three jobs? You’re not industrious enough.’’

Trying to connect to a group that ranged in age from 24 to 59, Mrs. Obama referred to her own experience after school. “So much of what you’ve said, I’ve been there,” she said. “After my law degree I wanted to go into nonprofits, but the cost of loans from all these wonderful degrees I had made it very difficult.’’

“Barack and I just paid off our college loans three years ago,’’ she said.

Todd's emphasis on Michelle Obama's expectation of "wealth", instead of the isolation from ordinary Americans that is the life of a politician in Washington is harsh and not accurate. By suggesting Michelle Obama is preoccupied with riches ("wealth"), Chuck Todd helped the Clintons anchor a question planted by their campaign rhetoric about the Obamas' character and commitment to public service: That "Barack Obama is an elitist (even if he doesn't have money now) who is out of step with our (the Clintons' and blue collar voters') concerns."

What is significant in Todd's mischaracterization is, most politicians who have no wealth before entering public service (who are not self-made or rich through inheritance) don't get wealthy until they leave government and make good on the networking and contacts they've made from over their years of service. That is, if they get wealthy at all. If you don't have money before you get to Washington, serving in Congress can be a risky proposition, character building, because of the expense of having to maintain two homes (in your home district and in Washington, D.C.), with two sets of everything and overlapping services (furniture, cable tv, newspaper services, monthly utility bills with basic monthly fees whether you're there or not), and travel expenses back and forth to your home district.

I don't think Chuck Todd is part of any grand conspiracy, but I do think that healthy distance and boundaries between the fourth estate and the people they are covering in government have all but eroded. When lobbyists are literally sitting in offices at the White House and on the Hill writing legislation, and Scooter Libby is calling executives at NBC to complain about the coverage they're getting, and the media attends spin sessions after debates, and basically takes dictation from campaign surrogates like Terry McAuliffe and Howard Wolfson, the fourth estate is no longer an impartial chronicler to be trusted.

MSNBC's David Gregory and Ken Strickland dance with Karl Rove and a Rove impersonator

The Clinton Campaign Goes [SUBLIMINAL]

ALERT: Racially offensive language ahead!

Thursday's release on YouTube.com of a doctored clip from the 1992 documentary,"War Room" which has Clinton advisor Mickey Kantor disparaging Indianans to George Stephanopoulos and James Carville, first by saying that "Indianas are shit", and then that Indianans are "white niggers" was an inside job by the Clinton campaign.

How do I know and why did they do it?

The answer to the latter question explains the former:

The Clinton campaign did it to get the word "nigger" out into the public. The intention wasn't to offend Indianans or to have Indianans think that people within the Clinton campaign think Indianans are the scum of the earth (because it's so obviously a fake and can easily be denounced): It was just to get the n-word out into the public arena. Ideally, in a news venue where the word itself would be repeated again and again. Even reported as "the n-word", our minds know what the reference is to. The purpose is to create a sense of discomfort in some white voters (the undecideds) at the idea of a black man becoming President of the United States. You don't even have to connect it with Obama, because the effect is that voters see Obama and the word "nigger" becomes synonymous with him.

The effect on voters doesn't have to be much. It can be mild, but the people who are being targeted are the undecideds voters who, when they walk into the voting booth, literally are not sure which button to press/name to check off. The word "nigger" provides the motivation for choosing Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama.

If only one out of a hundred voters is influenced by a feeling that they have, for example, thinking of Barack Obama and thinking "nigger", and being uncomfortable voting for him (and because they're not even thinking of it consciously, it's just a slight increase in their physical discomfort, the effect may be mild and not even register consciously), it's enough to throw the election to her. In a neck and neck race a change of one to two percent can make the difference between victory and defeat.

It's not a conscious experience. It's a gut reaction, a slight increase in discomfort. Particularly for those people who aren't aware of the issues, but who just vote based on whether they like somebody. There's a certain percentage of people who vote that way, who voted for Bush that way, over Al Gore and John Kerry. "Which candidate would you prefer to have a beer with?", as if there's even a possibility of that ever happening.

These are people who won't vote for somebody they get uncomfortable thinking about.

The diabolical 'beauty' of this plan (unlike other critically negative campaigns, such as saying that Hillary is "polarizing" which is an overt connection that people will consciously reject or accept) is that on the surface there's no connection between the phrase "white niggers", the word "nigger" and Barack Obama. You're not using the term in any way directly connected with Obama but you are getting the word into the public awareness.

In a certain number of people, the word will automatically be associated, not consciously but viscerally, with the African-American candidate. They will think "nigger" and then they will think of the candidate. They will think of the candidate and then they will think "nigger". They become interchangeable. And the voters to whom this is happening may believe that they're not racist (and consciously they may not be), but they will be uncomfortable voting for a "nigger" for President.

In a tight race such as this, enough voters may be swayed by this tactic to make the vote go one way rather decisively.

And it's feasible, given the kind of campaign Senator Clinton has chosen to run, to think that this was intentionally done with that result in mind.

It certainly dovetails into the whispering "He's unelectable"-campaign that superdelegates have been telling journalists they're being subjected to by the Clinton campaign. And also the truly bizarre comments made in the last three days by N. Carolina's governor Mike Easley ("Hillary makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy"), Paul Gibson, president of the Sheet Metal Workers' Union in Indiana, who said of Hillary Clinton, she has "testicular fortitude", and James Carville who said if Hillary gave Obama "one of her cojones, they'd both have two". These are not spontaneous utterances, they don't just pop out these mens' mouths. These are carefully crafted and intended for the same undecided voters who, if voting for a woman as president creates similar unease as voting for the black man, the Clintons want them to think, "Worry not, this woman makes Sylvester Stallone look gay".



There is no conceivable way that the Mickey Kantor clip benefits anyone but Hillary Clinton. Once the word ("nigger") is 'out of the barn', so to speak, the voters' discomfort has been created. All that is left for the Clintons to do is to keep up the whispering campaign, that "Obama is unelectable", only they don't have to whisper anymore because it's being discussed openly in the media. It will ring true for voters because they assume others are having the same feelings of discomfort, and won't vote for him.

Guam Recount "Imminent"

Pacific News Center reports:

The Democrat Party Nominating Committee said officials will look over the large amount of "spoiled ballots" in the coming days.

At issue is the small margin of victory of Senator Barack Obama. He beat his rival, Senator Hillary Clinton by 7 votes, but well over 500 ballots were deemed invalid during the tabulation process.

Herbie Perez, chairman of the nominating committee, said she will not certify the results because the Committee needs to ensure that all the uncounted ballots were properly identified as "spoiled."

She said officials from the Party and representatives from both candidates will meet probably Monday or Tuesday to address that issue.

Perez revealed she is also looking into the missing ballots.

More than 8,100 were printed in response to reports of shortages at precinct sites. But when the final tally came in, only a little over 4,500 ballots were used.

Obama "Temporarily" Leads Guam Caucuses

What an odd way to report the fact that Obama is ahead, but that's how Xinhua.net is choosing to report the story:

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama temporarily led Hillary Rodham Clinton as the results of Guam caucuses are rolling out on Saturday.

With 37 percent of villages' results reported, Illinois Senator Obama led with 55.3 percent to 44.7 percent for Clinton.

The residents in the U.S. territory with a population of nearly 175,000 are not allowed to vote for president in November, but the voters are electing eight delegates on Saturday, who will each have a half vote at the Democratic presidential nomination convention in Denver in August.

Among Guam's five superdelegates, two have already pledged their votes, each to Clinton and Obama, and the rest three remain undecided.

Neither of the two Democratic hopefuls campaigned in person in the Pacific island, but they have appeared in radio and TV ads, as well as long-distance interviews.

Both of them promised voting rights for president, more affordable medical care and better economic opportunities.

Obama, in particular, wooed voters with his background of growing up in Hawaii to show his sensitiveness to the needs of islanders.

Hillary's Dilemma

How does she get people who are inclined to vote for this man...



....see this man when they look at their ballots...



ALERT: Racially offensive language ahead!

If I were Macchiavellian, and in a neck and neck race with a black opponent, and I wanted to manipulate racist attitudes, I might ask myself, "How can I get the word "nigger" into the public consciousness without actually calling him that?"

One way to do it indirectly is applying the word to a completely different group of people and creating a firestorm or setting up a straw man. For example, creating a tape where it looks as if someone on my team called Indianans, "white niggers", then release it anonymously into the public arena (on the internet, on YouTube.com) and make sure it got reported on TV (CNN, Anderson Cooper's 360/MSNBC/ABC).

The beauty of this tactic is that it doesn't matter if it's accurate and it doesn't matter if anybody believes it. The purpose is to get the word out ("nigger") into the public consciousness. At some level, a certain level percentage of the voters will associate the word with my black opponent and that can create a reluctance to vote for him. Even if it influenced 1% of the voters, it's a significant factor in a race as close as Indiana.

It's very sophisticated, obviously very underhanded, but it can be effective, as any social psychologist can attest. [Think you're for Obama (or Clinton, or McCain)? Want to see if your unconscious mind agrees? Take the Presidential Candidates Implicit Association Test at Harvard University's virtual laboratory, Project Implicit.]

Given the kind of campaign Senator Clinton has chosen to run, I'm having a very hard time believing she isn't behind the last minute Mickey Kantor-YouTube slur video. It certainly dovetails into the whispering "he's unelectable" campaign that superdelegates have been telling journalists they're being subjected to by the Clinton campaign.

The broader implications of what this means for our country and our culture in the 21 century is unconscionable. Unless we evolve, there are always going to be those less high-minded people plotting to exploit unconscious processes for their own selfish advantage.

Is It All Over (Superdelegates Making Up Their Minds) But The Shouting?

Democrats' Suspense May Be Unnecessary

At Politico.com, Elizabeth Drew reports:
The torrent of speculation about the end game of the Democratic nomination contest is creating a false sense of suspense – and wasting a lot of time of the multitudes who are anxious to know how this contest is going to turn out.

Notwithstanding the plentiful commentary to the effect that the Pennsylvania primary must have shaken superdelegates planning to support Barack Obama, causing them to rethink their position, key Democrats on Capitol Hill are unbudged.

“I don’t think anyone’s shaken,” a leading House Democrat told me. The critical mass of Democratic congressmen that has been prepared to endorse Obama when the timing seemed right remains prepared to do so. Their reasons, ones they have held for months, have not changed – and by their very nature are unlikely to.

Essentially, they are three:

(a) Hillary Rodham Clinton is such a polarizing figure that everyone who ever considered voting Republican in November, and even many who never did, will go to the polls to vote against her, thus jeopardizing Democrats down the ticket – i.e., themselves, or, for party leaders, the sizeable majorities they hope to gain in the House and the Senate in November.

(b) To take the nomination away from Obama when he is leading in the elected delegate count would deeply alienate the black base of the Democratic Party, and, in the words of one leading Democrat, “The superdelegates are not going to switch their votes and jeopardize the future of the Democratic Party for generations.” Such a move, he said, would also disillusion the new, mostly young, voters who have entered into politics for the first time because of Obama, and lose the votes of independents who could make the critical difference in November.

(c) Because the black vote can make the decisive difference in numerous congressional districts, discarding Obama could cost the Democrats numerous seats.

One Democratic leader told me, “If we overrule the elected delegates there would be mayhem.” Hillary Rodham Clinton’s claim that she has, or will have, won the popular vote does not impress them – both because of her dubious math and because, as another key Democrat says firmly, “The rules are that it’s the delegates, period.” (These views are closely aligned with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s statement earlier this year that the superdelegates should not overrule the votes of the elected delegates.)

Furthermore, the congressional Democratic leaders don’t draw the same conclusion from Pennsylvania and also earlier contests that many observers think they do: that Obama’s candidacy is fatally flawed because he has as yet been largely unable to win the votes of working class whites. They point out something that has been largely overlooked in all the talk – the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries were closed primaries, and, one key congressional Democrat says, “Yes, he doesn’t do really well with a big part of the Democratic base, but she doesn’t do well with independents, who will be critical to success in November.”

Crazy? Or Crazy Like A Fox?

What Bill Clinton's Odd Denial of Previous Day's Comment ("They Played the Race Card On Me") May Be About....Because He Surely Did Say It

Here are Chris Matthews and Chuck Todd talking about on Pennsylvania primary day:



MSNBC's pundits have a habit of bending over backwards to give the Clintons every benefit of doubt (or ignore the obvious entirely), and Chuck Todd doesn't break with that tradition.

Let's look at the story as it unfolded on Monday.



CNN reports:

Former President Bill Clinton denied Tuesday he had accused Senator Barack Obama's campaign of "playing the race card" during an interview Monday.

Bill Clinton is facing tough questions Tuesday over an interview with a Delaware radio station.

A recording of the former president making the comment is posted on the WHYY Web site.

It says he made the comment in a telephone interview with the Philadelphia public radio station Monday night.

Clinton was asked whether his remarks comparing Obama's strong showing in South Carolina to that of Jesse Jackson in 1988 had been a mistake given their impact on his wife Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign.

"No, I think that they played the race card on me," said Clinton, "and we now know from memos from the campaign and everything that they planned to do it all along."

"We were talking about South Carolina political history and this was used out of context and twisted for political purposes by the Obama campaign to try to breed resentment elsewhere. And you know, do I regret saying it? No. Do I regret that it was used that way? I certainly do. But you really got to go some to try to portray me as a racist."

After the phone interview, a stray comment of his on the issue was also recorded before he hung up: "I don't think I should take any s*** from anybody on that, do you?"

But outside a Pittsburgh campaign event Tuesday, a reporter asked Clinton what he had meant "when you said the Obama campaign was playing the race card on you?"

Clinton responded: "When did I say that and to whom did I say that?"



"You have mischaracterized it to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your games today," Clinton added.

"I said what I said -- you can go back and look at the interview, and if you will be real honest you will also report what the question was and what the answer was. But I'm not helping you."

Clinton did not respond when asked what he meant when he charged that the Obama campaign had a memo in which they said they had planned to play the race card.

Meanwhile, at a Pittsburgh press availability on Tuesday, Obama was asked about Clinton's charge that his campaign had drawn up plans to use "the race card."

"Hold on a second,'' he said. "So former President Clinton dismissed my victory in South Carolina as being similar to Jesse Jackson and he is suggesting that somehow I had something to do with it?"



"You better ask him what he meant by that. I have no idea what he meant. These were words that came out of his mouth. Not words that came out of mine.''

Clinton commented just before the South Carolina primary that "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

Question for Bill Clinton: Is your knowledge of these memos (the "memos from the campaign and everything" that you spoke about with Susan Phillips in the WHYY interview that you claim "show that they planned to do it all along") connected to the break-in of Obama campaign offices in Allentown on April 19, 2008, where laptops and cell phones were stolen?

The memo on the subject of race from Amaya Smith, S. Carolina press secretary for Obama for America lists news accounts of events during the campaign, and nothing else.

Filed Under: What The Hell Were They Thinking?

Security Relaxed At Obama Rally

Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at Reunion Arena in Dallas on February 20, 2008. More than 17,000 people filled the building for a chance to see the Illinois senator on his first public appearance in Dallas since announcing his presidential candidacy. (UPI Photo/Robert Hughes)

The Star-Telegram reports:

The Secret Service told Dallas police to stop screening for weapons while people were still arriving at a campaign rally for Barack Obama, a report said.

Police stopped checking people for weapons at the front gates of Reunion Arena more than an hour before the Democratic presidential hopeful appeared on stage Wednesday, the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram reported.

Police said the order to stop using metal detectors and checking purses and laptop bags constituted a security lapse, the newspaper reported.

Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence -- who heads the department's homeland security and special operations divisions -- told the Star-Telegram the order had been intended to speed up seating of the more than 17,000 people who came to hear the candidate speak.

Lawrence said he was concerned about the large number of people being let in without being screened, but that the crowd seemed "friendly," the newspaper said.

Several Dallas police officers -- speaking on condition of anonymity because the order came from federal officers -- told the newspaper it was worrying to see so many people get it without even a cursory inspection.

The Star-Telegram said the Secret Service did not return a call seeking comment.

She's Nothing If Not Indecisive

Norma McCorvey, 'Jane Roe' in Roe vs. Wade, chooses a presidential candidate like she chooses sides on the abortion debate: "I'm for Brownback Huckabee Paul"

Norma McCorvey on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court with Gloria Alred in 1987

Norma McCorvey's baptism by Rev. Phillip Benham in 1995

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports:

It's not as well-known as his anti-war stance, but Ron Paul - an OB-GYN by trade - is also pro-life.

This is a fact he has highlighted in Republican early primaries as he has tried to sell his libertarian, anti-establishment ethos to the Republican rank and file.

He will get a boost at an event in Washington tomorrow when the "Roe" in the Roe v. Wade 1973 court case, Norma McCorvey, endorses his bid for the presidency.

McCorvey has famously changed her mind about abortion and now the woman whose court case created current abortion law crusades against the practice. Paul is McCorvey's current choice for President, but he was not her first.

Back when the Presidential campaign was getting going, before the summer, McCorvey endorsed Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. She even campaigned for him at the Iowa straw poll in August, which is an early test of a campaign's organization in that state.

At the outset of the 2008 campaign, Brownback was seen as the pro-life candidate of choice. But his star fell with the rise of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who eventually won in Iowa at the January caucus.

It's interesting that McCorvey is now going to go with Paul, although, with Brownback as evidence, don't expect her endorsement to turn the public tide in Paul's favor.

McCorvey, a pathetic woman with a trainwreck of a life, should never have become the face for safe and legal abortion; a pox on any group that tries to exploit her for their cause. Any cause.

As If We Needed Any More Proof Of A Failed & Corrupt Democracy

Edwards' Campaign Funds Frozen As Partisan Tiff Paralyzes Election Panel

Boston.com reports:

John Edwards, who is relying on federal money to help fund his presidential campaign, may not get any more. The list of lobbyists raising cash for the candidates, and how much they have brought in, remains hidden.

The Federal Election Commission doesn't have enough members to oversee what is expected to be the most expensive election in US history. Down to just two of its six commissioners, the FEC can't assemble the quorum of four votes required to approve federal campaign funds, enact regulations, undertake fraud investigations, or provide legal advice to candidates.

The reason: Senate Democrats have refused to confirm former Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky to a seat on the FEC, and, in response, Senate Republicans won't let through President Bush's three other nominees.

"There are decisions that need to be made; now there is no one to make them," said Gary Kalman, a lobbyist with the Boston-based Public Interest Research Group, which favors stronger campaign finance laws.

So far, Edwards is the only top-tier presidential candidate to agree to limit campaign spending to $50 million in exchange for partial federal funding. The FEC can't approve any more money for Edwards beyond the $8.8 million it certified in December. The government has yet to disburse Edwards's money, though he can borrow against the promise of getting federal funds.

"We fully expect the FEC to meet their obligations under the public-financing system," Edwards spokesman Eric Schultz said.

Barack Obama and the Speech That Launched a Thousand "SHEE-IT!"s

The speech did nothing for me, but apparently it did plenty for his supporters and pundits across the political spectrum:



I think Obama's read on what his win in Iowa meant, and on where Americans are at ("hope over fear", "unity over divisiveness", "moving beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger in Washington") is his speechwriter's fantasy. I hear that it helps to be in the room when Obama gives a speech, in order to understand his appeal.

Transcript:

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: Thank you, Iowa.

You know, they said this day would never come.

They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose.

But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do.

You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days. You have done what America can do in this new year, 2008.

In lines that stretched around schools and churches, in small towns and in big cities, you came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents, to stand up and say that we are one nation. We are one people. And our time for change has come.

You said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that's consumed Washington.

To end the political strategy that's been all about division, and instead make it about addition. To build a coalition for change that stretches through red states and blue states.

Because that's how we'll win in November, and that's how we'll finally meet the challenges that we face as a nation.

We are choosing hope over fear.

We're choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America.

You said the time has come to tell the lobbyists who think their money and their influence speak louder than our voices that they don't own this government -- we do. And we are here to take it back.

The time has come for a president who will be honest about the choices and the challenges we face, who will listen to you and learn from you, even when we disagree, who won't just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know.

And in New Hampshire, if you give me the same chance that Iowa did tonight, I will be that president for America.

I'll be a president who finally makes health care affordable and available to every single American, the same way I expanded health care in Illinois, by...

... by bringing Democrats and Republicans together to get the job done. I'll be a president who ends the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and put a middle-class tax cut into the pockets of working Americans who deserve it.

I'll be a president who harnesses the ingenuity of farmers and scientists and entrepreneurs to free this nation from the tyranny of oil once and for all.

And I'll be a president who ends this war in Iraq and finally brings our troops home...

... who restores our moral standing, who understands that 9/11 is not a way to scare up votes but a challenge that should unite America and the world against the common threats of the 21st century.

Common threats of terrorism and nuclear weapons, climate change and poverty, genocide and disease.

Tonight, we are one step closer to that vision of America because of what you did here in Iowa.

And so I'd especially like to thank the organizers and the precinct captains, the volunteers and the staff who made this all possible.

And while I'm at it on thank yous, I think it makes sense for me to thank the love of my life, the rock of the Obama family, the closer on the campaign trail.

Give it up for Michelle Obama.

I know you didn't do this for me. You did this -- you did this because you believed so deeply in the most American of ideas -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.

I know this. I know this because while I may be standing here tonight, I'll never forget that my journey began on the streets of Chicago doing what so many of you have done for this campaign and all the campaigns here in Iowa, organizing and working and fighting to make people's lives just a little bit better.

I know how hard it is. It comes with little sleep, little pay and a lot of sacrifice. There are days of disappointment. But sometimes, just sometimes, there are nights like this; a night that, years from now, when we've made the changes we believe in, when more families can afford to see a doctor, when our children -- when Malia and Sasha and your children inherit a planet that's a little cleaner and safer, when the world sees America differently, and America sees itself as a nation less divided and more united, you'll be able to look back with pride and say that this was the moment when it all began.

This was the moment when the improbable beat what Washington always said was inevitable.

This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long; when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a common cause; when we finally gave Americans who have never participated in politics a reason to stand up and to do so.

This was the moment when we finally beat back the policies of fear and doubts and cynicism, the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up. This was the moment.

Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope. For many months, we've been teased, even derided for talking about hope. But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path.

It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.

Hope is what I saw in the eyes of the young woman in Cedar Rapids who works the night shift after a full day of college and still can't afford health care for a sister who's ill. A young woman who still believes that this country will give her the chance to live out her dreams.

Hope is what I heard in the voice of the New Hampshire woman who told me that she hasn't been able to breathe since her nephew left for Iraq. Who still goes to bed each night praying for his safe return.

Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire. What led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation. What led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.

Hope -- hope is what led me here today. With a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas and a story that could only happen in the United States of America.

Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

That is what we started here in Iowa and that is the message we can now carry to New Hampshire and beyond.

The same message we had when we were up and when we were down; the one that can save this country, brick by brick, block by block, (inaudible) that together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

Because we are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America. And in this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe again.

Thank you, Iowa.

Fred 'Opportunity Knocks' Thompson Provided Legal Counsel For Pan Am 103 Terrorists

The NY Times reports:

A little over three years after Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, Fred D. Thompson provided advice to a colleague about one of his law firm’s new clients: The man representing the two Libyan intelligence officials charged in the terrorist bombing.

The colleague, John Culver, a partner at the Washington firm of Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn began advising the two suspects’ Libyan lawyer in February 1992. Mr. Thompson, according to a memorandum from that era written by his secretary, held “discussions with Culver re: Libya” that same month.

At the time, Libya was facing international outrage for refusing to comply with a United Nations demand that the two suspects be extradited to the West for trial in the 1988 bombing, which killed 270 people. Revelations that American firms were representing Libyan interests provoked a furor among the Pan Am victims’ families. Some law firms refused to represent the country or the suspects, while others withdrew.

The involvement of Mr. Thompson, who worked part-time for Arent Fox as a lawyer and lobbyist from 1991 until shortly before his election to the Senate in 1994, never became public. But Arent Fox’s chairman, Marc L. Fleischaker, confirmed that Mr. Thompson, who is now seeking the Republican presidential nomination, briefly provided Mr. Culver with advice about the suspects’ case, billing the firm for 3.3 hours of his time.

The firm was hired to provide guidance on the tense questions surrounding where the two men should be tried, Mr. Fleischaker said, and Mr. Thompson’s background as a former prosecutor, as well as his government relations experience — he had close ties to senior officials in the first Bush administration — “gave him insight on jurisdictional issues such as that.”

Karen Henretty, a spokeswoman for his presidential campaign, said that Mr. Thompson had no authority to decide which clients the firm represented. Mr. Thompson has faced questions about his work for two other Arent Fox clients. He initially denied working on behalf of a family planning group seeking to overturn an abortion counseling ban at federally financed clinics, but billing records showed that he spent nearly 20 hours on the matter. His work on behalf of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the deposed Haitian leader — a phone call to John Sununu, then the White House Chief of Staff — has also become fodder for his rivals because of human-rights abuses during Mr. Aristide’s presidency.

The memorandum by Mr. Thompson’s secretary reviewing his work for Arent Fox, compiled in 1993 as he was running for the Senate, was buried among thousands of Mr. Thompson’s papers archived at the University of Tennessee, and casts new light on his time there, beyond his work on the Libya case.

It lists the clients he brought into the firm, which included construction firms and a Texas chemical company embroiled in a case involving the illegal dumping of hazardous waste.

Mr. Thompson also helped others at Arent Fox, the memorandum shows. He met, for instance, with the Chilean ambassador in 1991 and then traveled to Chile to try to garner business for the law firm from that country’s government. He consulted with one of the firm’s partners about a Mexican trade agreement and helped other lawyers with introductions to important Republican officials.

Mr. Thompson has said he makes no apologies for his legal and lobbying work, emphasizing in one online essay that every person, no matter how unpopular, is entitled to representation and that lawyers’ work on behalf of a client is no indication of their own personal views.

Asked about Mr. Thompson’s participation in the Libya case, James Kreindler, a lawyer who represents 130 of the victims’ families, said: “Pan Am 103 was really an attack on the United States, so while some families understood the concept that everyone deserves a defense, a number were offended and angered that American lawyers were willing to earn fees by doing anything to help this pariah nation or the two bombing suspects.”

Today, in the post-Sept. 11 political climate, all the presidential candidates are jockeying to prove their antiterrorism credentials, with Mr. Thompson vowing last week to fight “radical Islamic terrorism” vigorously. Yesterday, his campaign noted that during his eight years in the Senate, Mr. Thompson supported sanctions against Libya.

In 1992, Libya was among those countries the United States listed as state sponsors of terrorism for acts that included the 1989 bombing of a French airliner and the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco that killed two American soldiers.

Arent Fox, in papers it was required to file with the federal government, reported that from February 1992 to August 1993, it provided advice on American and international law to Ibrahim Legwell, the Libyan lawyer appointed by the Libyan Bar Association to represent the two intelligence officials charged with the Flight 103 bombing. Arent Fox received $833,960 in fees and expenses for its work on the case.

Mr. Legwell, reached in Tripoli, said his main goal was to see that his clients were tried in Libya or in a neutral country. He said Arent Fox “contributed a lot” to the defense effort. Mr. Legwell said he had no record of ever speaking with Mr. Thompson but noted: “I remember that this name was mentioned.”

Mr. Culver, a former Democratic senator from Iowa, said that Mr. Thompson was not a primary member of his team, and that his contribution amounted to “a couple of conversations.”

“In a large firm, you frequently consult with people who have experience” in the field of law at hand, he said. In the end, after protracted negotiations with the United Nations, Libya agreed in 1999 to hand over the two men for trial by a special court in the Netherlands. One of the men was convicted and is serving his sentence in a Scottish jail.

In 2003, Libya accepted responsibility for the Pan Am bombing and agreed to pay the victims $2.7 billion in compensation. After Mr. Qaddafi’s renunciation of terrorism and his agreement to end programs to develop unconventional weapon, the United States last year removed Libya from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Republicans don't seem to have any problem coming up with convenient rationalizations for putting their values on a high shelf when it comes justifying their support for Rudy Guiliani. My hunch is that Fred Thompson's inability to pass up a satchel full of blood money won't either.

Where There's Smoke AND Fire . . . .

. . . . Can Karl Rove Be Far Behind?



Senator Larry Craig (R.-ID) Arrested In Minnesota Airport

From RollCall.com:

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men's public restroom, according to an arrest report obtained by Roll Call Monday afternoon.
Craig's arrest occurred just after noon on June 11 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the Hennepin County District Court. He paid more than $500 in fines and fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed. He also was given one year of probation with the court that began on Aug. 8.

A spokesman for Craig described the incident as a "he said/he said misunderstanding," and said the office would release a fuller statement later Monday afternoon.

After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report. At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, "What do you think about that?" the report states.

Craig was detained for approximately 45 minutes, interviewed, photographed, fingerprinted and released, and police prepared a formal complaint for interference with privacy and disorderly conduct.

According to the incident report, Sgt. Dave Karsnia was working as a plainclothes officer on June 11 investigating civilian complaints regarding sexual activity in the men’s public restroom in which Craig was arrested.

Airport police previously had made numerous arrests in the men’s restroom of the Northstar Crossing in the Lindbergh Terminal in connection with sexual activity.

Karsnia entered the bathroom at noon that day and about 13 minutes after taking a seat in a stall, he stated he could see “an older white male with grey hair standing outside my stall.”

The man, who lingered in front of the stall for two minutes, was later identified as Craig.

“I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, ‘fidget’ with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes,” the report states.

Craig then entered the stall next to Karsnia’s and placed his roller bag against the front of the stall door.

“My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall,” Karsnia stated in his report. “From my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me.”

Craig was wearing dress pants with black dress shoes.

“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states.

Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could ... see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider.”

Karsnia then held his police identification down by the floor so that Craig could see it.

“With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit. Craig responded, ‘No!’ I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet. ... Craig said he would not go. I told Craig that he was under arrest, he had to go, and that I didn’t want to make a scene. Craig then left the restroom.”

In a recorded interview after his arrest, Craig “either disagreed with me or ‘didn’t recall’ the events as they happened,” the report states.

Craig stated “that he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that his foot may have touched mine,” the report states. Craig also told the arresting officer that he reached down with his right hand to pick up a piece of paper that was on the floor.

“It should be noted that there was not a piece of paper on the bathroom floor, nor did Craig pick up a piece of paper,” the arresting officer said in the report.

On Aug. 8, the day he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in the Minnesota court, Craig appeared via satellite at a ceremony that took place in Idaho in which former Idaho federal Judge Randy Smith was invested into his new position as a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

If this is how men are getting arrested in Minnesota for public lewdity, I think it's bullshit.

But what I want to know is how does a U.S. Senator get arrested in June, plead guilty on August 8th, and the public doesn't hear about it until August 27th?

On a day (and probably the rest of a week) when the news cycles would have been filled with "Gonzales Resigns; What's Bush Going To Do Now?", it's going to be 24/7 of "Larry Craig: Is He Or Isn't He?" stories.

Last week, speculation abounded about Karl Rove's departure from the White House, and what it would mean for Republicans in the 2008 without Karl Rove running Republican dirty tricks campaigns from the White House. I think we now see that a Karl Rove outside of the public eye is a worse nightmare.

From Mike Rogers at BlogActive.com during the Mark Foley-House Page program scandal last year:

I have called on Senator Larry Craig to end his years of hypocrisy by leveling with Idahoans about who he really is. I am also calling upon several prominent Idaho social conservative leaders to ask them how they square their anti-gay positions with their support for this leader.

I have done extensive research into this case, including trips to the Pacific Northwest to meet with men who have say they have physical relations with the Senator. I have also met with a man here in Washington, D.C., who says the same -- and that these incidents occurred in the bathrooms of Union Station. None of these men know each other, or knew that I was talking to others. They all reported similar personal characteristics about the Senator, which lead me to believe, beyond any doubt, that their stories are valid.

Larry Craig being mentioned as possibly connected to Congressional scandals is nothing new. Check out these video clips from 1982 when he preemptively denied his involvement in a Congressional sex and drug scandal. (I love what he says about unmarried people back then and how often do politicians issue preemptive denials based on rumors?):

Why does it matter?

Senator Larry Craig has a long history of supporting anti-gay legislation. He voted no on adding sexual orientation to the definition of hate crimes, and expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. He's opposed ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, that would benefit gay and lesbian people by prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. He voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and supports a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

Congressman Barney Frank about Larry Craig on Real Time with Bill Maher:

Craig is up for reelection in 2008.

Was 2 1/2 Years For Libby An Excessive Sentence?

Bush's statement on Monday in sparing former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term:

The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today rejected Lewis Libby's request to remain free on bail while pursuing his appeals for the serious convictions of perjury and obstruction of justice. As a result, Mr. Libby will be required to turn himself over to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his prison sentence.

I have said throughout this process that it would not be appropriate to comment or intervene in this case until Mr. Libby's appeals have been exhausted. But with the denial of bail being upheld and incarceration imminent, I believe it is now important to react to that decision.

From the very beginning of the investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's name, I made it clear to the White House staff and anyone serving in my administration that I expected full cooperation with the Justice Department. Dozens of White House staff and administration officials dutifully cooperated.

After the investigation was under way, the Justice Department appointed United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald as a special counsel in charge of the case. Mr. Fitzgerald is a highly qualified, professional prosecutor who carried out his responsibilities as charged.

This case has generated significant commentary and debate. Critics of the investigation have argued that a special counsel should not have been appointed, nor should the investigation have been pursued after the Justice Department learned who leaked Ms. Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak. Furthermore, the critics point out that neither Mr. Libby nor anyone else has been charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or the Espionage Act, which were the original subjects of the investigation. Finally, critics say the punishment does not fit the crime: Mr. Libby was a first-time offender with years of exceptional public service and was handed a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to the jury.

Others point out that a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable. They say that had Mr. Libby only told the truth, he would have never been indicted in the first place.

Both critics and defenders of this investigation have made important points. I have made my own evaluation. In preparing for the decision I am announcing today, I have carefully weighed these arguments and the circumstances surrounding this case.

Mr. Libby was sentenced to 30 months of prison, two years of probation and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison.

My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting.

The Constitution gives the president the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby's case is an appropriate exercise of this power.

Was a 2 1/2 year prison sentence excessive?

As John Dean, former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon notes:

"There is a historical parallel to certain Watergate-related convictions. For example, former Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell, White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs John D. Ehrlichman were each sentenced to 30 to 96 months for perjury and obstruction of justice - two of the three crimes of which Libby was convicted (They each served some 18 months before they were released.)

Providing a closer parallel to the Libby situation, Presidential Appointment Secretary and Deputy Assistant to the President Dwight Chapin was convicted for lying about his involvement in the 1972 Nixon campaign "dirty tricks" operation. Chapin was not convicted for involvement in the dirty tricks per se, but rather for making false statements to the grand jury about his activities. Chapin was sentenced to 10-to-30 months in prison, with the judge required that he serve not less than 10. Similarly, Libby was not convicted for leaking information about Valerie Plame Wilson's covert status at the CIA, but rather for lying about his efforts to leak the information.

Comparing the price of fines (adjusted for inflation) between 1974 and 2007 ($45,000/$250,000), Libby seems to be getting off cheaply, but I think it's fair to conclude that no matter what it had been, the secret fund set up for Libby (see Barbara Comstock) would have had enough to cover it.

All those convicted during Watergate who were attorneys lost their licenses to practice, and should Libby fail to prevail on appeal, he will lose his license, too.

Unless, on his way out of town in 2009, Bush grants Libby a full pardon, in addition to this interim stop-gap measure to keep Libby out of prison. (I wouldn't be surprised if there is a pardon for Libby on January 19, 2009, given Bush's visit with his father at Kennebunkport this past weekend and Dad's own history of preventing investigations with pardons.)

There is, however, nothing to prevent a prosecutor in the future, in the next administration, from opening up a new investigation. Should a new investigation uncover evidence of a conspiracy, Libby, et al, could face a whole new set of charges. (What would Bush-Cheney and Republicans do to make sure that doesn't happen?)

Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald couldn't get to charging Libby (or anyone else) with conspiracy because Libby's lies obstructed the investigation:

FITZGERALD: This grand jury's term has expired by statute; it could not be extended. But it's in ordinary course to keep a grand jury open to consider other matters, and that's what we will be doing.

Let me then ask your next question: Well, why is this a leak investigation that doesn't result in a charge? I've been trying to think about how to explain this, so let me try. I know baseball analogies are the fad these days. Let me try something.

If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fastball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really hurt them, you'd want to know why the pitcher did that. And you'd wonder whether or not the person just reared back and decided, "I've got bad blood with this batter. He hit two home runs off me. I'm just going to hit him in the head as hard as I can."

You also might wonder whether or not the pitcher just let go of the ball or his foot slipped, and he had no idea to throw the ball anywhere near the batter's head. And there's lots of shades of gray in between.

You might learn that you wanted to hit the batter in the back and it hit him in the head because he moved. You might want to throw it under his chin, but it ended up hitting him on the head.

FITZGERALD: And what you'd want to do is have as much information as you could. You'd want to know: What happened in the dugout? Was this guy complaining about the person he threw at? Did he talk to anyone else? What was he thinking? How does he react? All those things you'd want to know.

And then you'd make a decision as to whether this person should be banned from baseball, whether they should be suspended, whether you should do nothing at all and just say, "Hey, the person threw a bad pitch. Get over it."

In this case, it's a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn't to one person. It wasn't just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.

And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?

FITZGERALD: Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?

And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.

As you sit here now, if you're asking me what his motives were, I can't tell you; we haven't charged it.

So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.

I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.

This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.

During closing arguments at Libby's trial, Fitzgerald told jurors that "there is a cloud over the vice president. ... a cloud over the White House over what happened," according to a copy of the transcript of Fitzgerald's statements. "We didn't put that cloud there," Fitzgerald said. "That cloud's there because the defendant obstructed justice. That cloud is something you just can't pretend isn't there."

Prior to Libby's sentencing, Fitzgerald filed a sentencing memorandum (filed on May 25) in which Fitzgerald asserted that "[i]t was clear from very early in the investigation that Ms. Wilson qualified under the relevant statute (Title 50, United States Code, Section 421) as a covert agent whose identity had been disclosed by public officials, including Mr. Libby, to the press."

Moreover, as Media Matters points out: ...in a May 29 filing, Fitzgerald included an "unclassified summary" of Plame's CIA employment, which established that she had headed a counterproliferation operation focused on Iraq and had traveled overseas in an undercover capacity in the five years prior to the disclosure of her identity. From the document:

On 1 January 2002, Valerie Wilson was working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations (DO). She was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) at CIA Headquarters, where she served as the Chief of a CPD component with responsibility for weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq.

While assigned to CPD, Ms. Wilson engaged in temporary duty (TDY) travel overseas on official business. She traveled at least seven times to more than ten countries. When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled under a cover identity -- sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official cover (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.

At the time of the initial unauthorized disclosure in the media of Ms. Wilson's employment relationship with the CIA on 14 July 2003, Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.

It was hoped that once facing time in the slammer, Libby would have a "come to Jesus"-moment and spill his guts for a reduced sentence. Bush saved the day for them all by sparing Libby from prison.

Of course it stinks, but did we expect anything else from this president or anyone in this administration?

The question that remains is, Can Bush and Cheney afford to risk another investigation by a future administration?

Impeachment may be the only way that Democrats take the White House in 2008.

Bush's Interior Dept Pushes With Plan To Drill For Oil Off Virginia

The Washington Post reports:

The Interior Department will announce a proposal Monday to allow oil and gas drilling in federal waters near Virginia that are currently off-limits and permit new exploration in Alaska's Bristol Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, according to people who have seen or been told about drafts of the plan.

The department issued a news release yesterday that was lacking details but said that it had finished a five-year plan that will include a "major proposal for expanded oil and natural gas development on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf." Department officials declined to describe the plan.

Congress would still have to agree to open areas currently off-limits before any drilling could take place off Virginia's coast. Every year since 1982, after an oil spill off Santa Barbara, Calif., Congress has reaffirmed a moratorium on drilling off the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Last year, after a vigorous push by drilling advocates, Congress opened new waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

As Washington is all about compromise and making deals, I have one for Democrats in Congress:

Since the Democrats in office don't have the stomachs or the will to impeach Bush and Cheney (and it's making them crazy to have the base on their backs about it everytime they turn around), how about Democrats' guarantee that nothing Bush or the Republicans propose for the remainder of Bush's term gets made into law?

It's not like the Democrats had any plans to get anything done anyway, given that the 2008 campaign began so preternaturally early (the day after they won control over the Congress in the 2006 midterms), and almost all of the Democratic candidates are spending most of their time campaigning outside of Washington.