Jason Linkins is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, covering media and politics. He's based in Washington, DC. Previously, he wrote for HuffPo's Eat The Press, and has also contributed to DCist and Wonkette.
Former Hillary Clinton flack Howard Wolfson and I may have had structural disagreements over whether the voters in states like Virginia are "important" enough to be considered the equal of those in New York and California, but I clearly should have heeded repeated warnings that he and I would find abundant common ground on other issues. Now that Wolfson has launched his indie-rock blog, Gotham Acme, I can see that it is true.
I don't expect much "hipness" from the musical tastes of political- types -- though I should perhaps assume that a Reggie Love-recommended Hell Hath No Fury could not survive Obama's iPod vetting process. But Wolfson's stated indie-rock preferences run well beyond simply owning that last Snow Patrol record. Plus, he links to informationleafblower, which is a clear sign of discernment.
Wolfson calls Brooklyn's TV On The Radio "America's best band." I'm inclined to agree! And I similarly hope they find their way to Washington, DC. Like the aforementioned informationleafblower often does, Wolfson is keeping score about who shows up in DC to play and who skips our fair Capital City. There could be some stern conference calls in someone's future! I'd encourage Wolfson, though, to not discount our homegrown offerings, such as DC's excellent Jukebox The Ghost, who will play the Black Cat on October 4.
BELLAVIA: But Sen. Hagel -- we can disagree on a lot of issues -- but Sen. Hagel has never been shot at in Iraq, he's never seen what an IED looks like or been detonated on. This is an individual that could embed himself instead of doing a two-day congressional delegation. Go out there, walk with the troops, see what's going on on the ground.
Ma'am, I've served over a year and our organization is just stock-full of Purple Heart and Valor Award winners. We've seen the worst of this fight. There's no propaganda here, ma'am. We love America. We want to win the war that our Congress sent us to fight. You don't send Americans -- men and women -- to lose a war, to end a stalemate. You send them to win in a war, and that's what we're trying to do. And you know what? We're closer today than we ever have been.
Shorter Bellavia: The problem with Hagel is that he does not love America, and would prefer we lose wars.
Somehow, I think that constitutes an attack on a Vietnam veteran!
Bellavia went on to add, "Now, again, with Sen. Hagel -- my problem with Sen. Hagel is, again, his experienced is based on what? The Mekong Delta. It's based on Vietnam, a totally different fight, a totally different enemy, and by the way, it was 30 years ago. That doesn't cheapen his service. That doesn't cheapen his expertise. But when it comes down to Iraq, I will take that specialist who's 20 years old from Decorah, Iowa, who served three tours in combat, over anything any member of the House or Senate has to say."
Unless I missed something, the current GOP contender for President is not a specialist from Decorah, Iowa but a man whose "experience is based on" the Mekong Delta. Flying above it, anyway. Sometimes violently colliding with it. In fact, one of the only differences between the service records of Hagel and McCain is that McCain was tortured in a POW camp. Of course, if you listen to the Bush White House, McCain wasn't tortured, either.
Over at the Cato Institute's blog, Jim Harper argues that McCain's "I'll follow bin Laden to the Gates Of Hell" rhetoric at the Saddleback Forum gave our terrorist enemies something to cheer about: "What a gift to the recruiting efforts of Al Qaeda! - to have an American presidential candidate declare himself a follower of Osama bin Laden."
A little glib at the outset, methinks, but Harper's goal isn't to get off a zinger. It's to point out that any national leader worth his salt should recognize that America "will be made more secure by deflating the world image of Osama bin Laden and making his movement less attractive."
McCain's "gates of hell" talk is leadership malpractice, and he should stop using it immediately. Calling the threat of terrorism "transcendent" is equal parts incoherent and false. Terrorism stands no chance of defeating the United States or the West unless we ourselves collapse the society. Speaking this way about terrorism thrills our terrorist enemies and draws recruits and support to them. Silence would be much better, presidential campaign or no.
And McCain's lack of silence speaks volumes about his overall foreign policy incoherence, because every time he opens his mouth about the world at large, the man is speaking in nonsensical superlatives. This tendency gets documented well by Matt Welch over at Reason, who correctly notes that melodramatic exaggerations are "a feature, not a bug, of McCainite neoconservatism." Welch puts McCain's recent hyperbolic response into perspective:
Consider another line from last week: "I think it's very clear that Russian ambitions are to restore the old Russian Empire. Not the Soviet Union, but the Russian Empire."
Let's review what McCain is alleging here: Not only does Russia have malevolent designs on recently detached "Near Abroad" territories within nearby Georgia, Belarus, and Moldova -- a critique, I hasten to add, that I share -- McCain warns that the Bear is also working actively toward re-swallowing all or much of such Russian colonial holdings-turned sovereign states as, oh, Finland, Armenia, the Baltics, a pack of 'stans, and a big chunk of Poland.
It's one thing to look into Putin's eyes and (accurately) see three letters: K-G-B, quite another to base your foreign policy approach on the assumption that the second biggest nuclear arsenal in the world wants to go on the biggest nation-gobbling rampage the globe has seen in over 60 years, devouring a half-dozen NATO members in the process.
Welch notes that this isn't, by any means, a recent phenomenon with McCain either, but rather a two decades-long pattern of hysteria. Matt Yglesias, deploying his typical flourish for summation, puts it like this:
In short, not only is Russia on the march beyond Tbilisi to Ukraine, Finland, and substantial swathes of Poland but that's not even the transcendent issue of our time. And North Korea's nuclear program is "the greatest challenge to U.S. security and world stability today" but that's not the transcendent issue of our time. And Islamism is the transcendent issue of our time, but not a serious international crisis or an especially great challenge to U.S. security and world stability. Now of course there's no way to make sense of that, because it's not supposed to make any kind of sense. McCain just thinks that overreacting is the right reaction to everything. It's a hysteria-based foreign policy.
Yesterday, with an assist from Tom Tomorrow, everyone noted Bill Kristol's backtrack on the whole "cone of silence" issue. But Kristol's response to that "Gates Of Hell" comment bears noting as well. When Barack Obama averred that "evil" must be "confronted," Kristol maintained that this response contained a "high level of abstraction." But things don't get more abstract than claiming you'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell. After all, there's no need: bin Laden is holed up somewhere much less metaphysical, the Afghan/Pakistan border. And for all of McCain's transcendent hysteria, he demonstrates only a tepid interest in going there.
But to McCain and his surrogates, these flights of fantasy represent "tough" and "realistic" talk. I say the next time Michael Goldfarb wants to criticize Dungeons and Dragons, he needs to rid his own house of Dungeon Masters first.
My friends, I had hoped to never write about the massive fail known as BarackBook ever again. Ever, ever, again. But the nimrods behind this inanity just won't allow me that pleasure, because they keep finding ways to make their hysterically dumb idea even dumber.
See, as most people and baby goats with even a passing understanding of Facebook knows, whenever one of your "Facebook friends" adds a new "friend" of their own, you get an "update" on your "News Feed." This is sort of the whole point of Facebook.
But today, when the minds behind BarackBook added an update of their own, they were confronted by the fact that their feature has only garnered 163 fans, who all hate and despise BarackBook. So, rather than having a dynamic social networking tool for their agitprop that's capable of blasting out oppo to thousands of McCain supporters at one time, they have to resort to using the communications arm of the Republican National Committee to do a blast email "Media Advisory" -- with RNC letterhead and everything -- titled "Friend Update Added to BarackBook," in the hopes that someone out there reports on their new clever addition to their frustrating wreck of a parody.
To say that this whole effort misses the point of Facebook would defame the High Art of Point-Missing.
I wouldn't want you to miss the "substance" of their new BarackBook addition, which features Obama adding "Unnamed Philadelphia Street Organizer" as a friend, all of which leads to a fulsome discussion in which the GOP pretends to be shocked -- just shocked! -- at the tradition of "walking around money" which every campaign employs regardless of party and which you could have read about in any one of Larry Sabato's books from twenty years ago, or from cave paintings.
Anyway, I would never suggest that the RNC and the McCain campaign in general do not include operatives and officials who are skilled, creative, and effective campaigners. But at some point, we all deserve a chance to meet the people who designed BarackBook, because their idea is stupid, and they are stupid, and this deserves to be recognized.
This effort is an affront to computers and the internet in general. If the Borg conquered Earth tomorrow, they would refuse to assimilate the makers of BarackBook, and instead would beat them savagely into pulp and feed them to chickens, who would then be thrown into the sun as hard as possible. That is all.
ThinkProgress is touting an encouraging study from the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy that indicates that wide swaths of middle-class Americans support a broad array of policies that are typically written off as being out of the mainstream. Furthermore, that support is not confined to self-identified Democrats.
DMI's first annual survey on the Middle Class and Public Policy reveals that America's middle-class households are fearful families - overwhelmingly pessimistic about the direction of the country, especially the economy and high gas prices. Most have little flexibility in their own economic situations and have little if anything left over each month after meeting basic expenses. The middle class is disgruntled with the direction of the country and politicians and see little coming out of Washington that would give them cause for optimism.
Middle-class Americans do know what policies they would like to see enacted. Despite media depictions of a sharp red and blue divide, the nation's middle class displays broad consensus on a range of public policies aimed at easing their economic squeeze...
According to the study, a "National health care plan available to all Americans at an affordable cost" is deemed an "excellent/good idea" by 75% of middle class Americans, including 57% of Republicans. Employer-paid family and medical leave also garners strong support (71%), across both sides of the aisle (63% Republicans/84% Democrats). One number that should leap out, however, is the broad consensus on whether "individuals who entered the U.S. illegally as children" should be allowed to "apply for legal residency if they go to college or serve in the military and have no criminal record." As it happens, the middle-class seems to value the notion of fairness strongly: 61% find that to be an "excellent/good idea," including 55% of Republicans.
Naturally, you can expect policies such as national health care and fair immigration practices to continue to be depicted by the media as ideas that draw their support from some limited faction or fringe, because that looks good with their big red-and-blue map of the United States in the background. But now, you will know that this is wrong.
Now that Pervez Musharraf is out of office, and no longer doing the sterling work of advancing democracy for which he is known, one wonders: what's next for the Pakistani strongman? Well, via Attackerman, the New Mexico Independent is reporting today that soon, quite soon, Musharraf might be alive and well and living it up in New Mexico, along with many other fine citizens knit up in various witness protection programs.
According to Shuja Nawaz, a former Pakistani journalist and International Development Agency official, that's precisely the plan.
"He's likely... to leave the country and that a possible immediate destination may be Dubai, and then eventually may be New Mexico in the United States," Nawaz told Margret Warner of PBS' Newshour, also on Monday." But this is unconfirmed," he added.
Warner immediately interjected "New Mexico?" somewhat incredulously, but quickly moved on to other subjects surrounding Musharraf's exit.
The NMIndy also reports that current Governor Bill Richardson "isn't aware" of any extant plan to bring Musharraf to New Mexico, but he'll likely get the news the same way everyone else does: after Musharraf seizes the town of Truth Or Consequences in a violent military coup.
Word has gone out that an aching world should prepare themselves, through a thorough vetting process, to receive The Most Historically Important Text Message Of All Time revealing the name of Barack Obama's vice-presidential pick. Very few have noted how the text-message format itself is something of a predictor: I am comfortable, for instance, ruling out the possibility that Obama's choice will be American Samoa delegate Eni F. H. Faleomavaega, because who wants to text that? Also, he's a delegate from American Samoa.
Nonetheless, the myriad vice-presidential possibilities for both candidates are of great concern, even to Ana Marie and myself. At the risk of being painted as joiners, we wanted in on the discussion, too! So with the help of Liz Glover, we cut a special Veep-themed vlog in which we wonder if there's a VP the liberal blogosphere would accept for Obama, and what McCain's pick says about who's really running the campaign. Also: I cause something in Ana's kitchen to start beeping. Send us an email guessing what it is! The guess that is most better than the actual truth will win a prize. (That prize: a sense of pride.) Enjoy!
John McCain trooped out to another oil rig today, looking for a future Fortress of Solitude where he can spend his next gas tax holiday, in his Cone of Silence. Apparently, his proximity to international waters has a measurable effect on all that "Straight Talk" we hear so much about, because he continued his practice of offering up unkeepable promises:
MCCAIN: Our nation is sending $700 billion overseas every year to countries that don't like us very much. When I'm president that's going to stop. We're going to achieve energy independence, and we're going to do it by using every resource at our disposal to get the job done, including new offshore drilling.
But if there's one thing that's plainly clear, it's that oil importation is not going to stop during a potential McCain presidency through new offshore drilling. As the DNC points out, "it took 10 years from the date oil was discovered until the rig [McCain stood] on today produced a single drop of oil."
The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017. Total domestic production of crude oil from 2012 through 2030 in the OCS access case is projected to be 1.6 percent higher than in the reference case, and 3 percent higher in 2030 alone, at 5.6 million barrels per day. For the lower 48 OCS, annual crude oil production in 2030 is projected to be 7 percent higher--2.4 million barrels per day in the OCS access case compared with 2.2 million barrels per day in the reference case (Figure 20). Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.
Washington Post associate editor and famed Watergate investigative journalist Bob Woodward has returned to his recent stomping grounds -- the Bush White House -- for another "deep inside" look at the inner machinery that has driven the nation to war. The result, apparently, is the upcoming The War Within. It's Woodward's fourth such excursion, the previous three yielding Bush At War, Plan Of Attack, and State Of Denial, and, as usual, the Bush administration is happily looking forward to its release.
You can see the contrasting expectations for the book playing out in a single article in The Politico, today. The conventional wisdom is summed up with this sentence: "The book's revelations are likely to propel a re-examination of the Iraq war into the headlines just as the fall presidential campaign is taking off."
Like before, Woodward has again enjoyed "remarkable cooperation" from the White House at "all levels," and "top officials" participated in the effort. The Politico sells "two mornings" of interviews with the President as a major feature of the book, indicative of a sorry state of affairs in which the granting of an interview from the nation's most important public servant is seen as an act of extraordinary generosity and wonderment.
On that score, Woodward can rightly claim to have been greatly fortunate. But I guess none dare ask why it is that after four trips inside the White House, and all the touting -- unparalleled access! -- that has underpinned the sales strategy of each book in this Iraq War tetralogy, we are only now arriving at the one that might "propel a re-examination."
Back in November 2007, Woodward offered up a bit of a confession before a "War And The Fourth Estate" panel discussion, saying that he "was not nearly aggressive enough" during the period before the Iraq War began. Still, he strangely suggested that Bush's "driver" was "a duty to free people." Woodward said these words while the President was in the midst of running offshore prisons and passively sitting on his hands while our partner in the War On Terror, Pervez Musharraf, was suspending the rule of law in Pakistan.
It's a fitting example of the gap between activity and achievement that has persisted in Woodward's work on the Bush White House. The accounts are filled with scintillating details, but there's an overall refusal or inability to connect the dots. Joan Didion perhaps captured Woodward's latter day oeuvre the best by highlighting the intellectual "passivity" that emerges in the crush of quotidian detail, yielding work "in which measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent" amid "an agreement to cover the story not as it is occurring but as it is presented, which is to say as it is manufactured."
Naturally, White House officials aren't exactly concerned about what Woodward may write about them, confidently predicting that The War Within will burnish Bush's legacy:
White House officials say they are optimistic that the book, which the publisher says "declassifies the secrets of America's political and military involvement in Iraq," will reflect more favorably on Bush than Woodward's previous volume, "State of Denial," which came out in September 2006.
The president's surge strategy for Iraq, albeit late, has slowed the violence on the ground, and Bush aides believe the book will reflect that.
This is par for the course. The last time a Woodward tome was released amid the furtive speculation that it might "propel a re-examination" of the President in an election year, it was 2004, the book was Plan Of Attack, and the Bush/Cheney Re-Elect website gave it "a greater prominence than Ten Minutes From Normal, written by the administration's own in-house propagandist, Karen Hughes." Since the McCain campaign has made it a point to approach the Iraq War as good policy while simultaneously pretending to break with the current White House on the war's execution, no one should be surprised when the McCain website pimps Woodward's book in similar fashion.
Last Friday, Ana Marie Cox and I got together in the kitchen to drink white wine and answer questions from the HuffPo readership. Because people enjoy cameo appearances from Ana Marie's menagerie of delightful animals, we included one. Questions that came without attribution were officially ascribed to "Harold Ickes." And, as a work in progress alert, we were joined by the inimitable Wonkette videographer Liz Glover, who brings better equipment and actual editing experience. She's just getting her feet wet as far as filming us goes, but already provided us with some essential advice that sure to help those of you who are watching these from your offices: "Ten minutes long? Are you crazy?" I'm paraphrasing. She put it in a much nicer way!
Anyway, in this vlog, Ana and I discuss whether the Obama-Clinton rift could affect the convention in Denver, if McCain's continued "Celebrity" ads mine a racial vein, and the Georgian conflict.
Ana and Liz and I will be getting together later this week for our last vlog before Denver. Please send questions via email! Next time, we'll even turn on some lights.
Yesterday, George Will just about blew poor George Stephanopoulos' mind when he announced that he had done this "reporting" stuff and got an interesting little scoop: Joe Lieberman, who voted against Samuel Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court, is apparently of a different mind today:
WILL: Well, I called Lieberman's office this week and said, "Why did your man vote against Alito?" And they said, "He was wrong, now he likes Alito."
STEPHANOPOULOS: Did they really say he was wrong? That the vote was wrong?
WILL: He said that now that having seen Alito in action.
The folks at ThinkProgress are more than a little confused at how Alito "in action" spurred some sort of conversion in Lieberman. Back when Lieberman was busy opposing Alito, they note that the judge's civil rights record was central to Lieberman's cause for alarm. The Senator stated: "Judge Alito has repeatedly established a very high bar, an unusually high bar, for entrance to our Courts for people who believed they've been denied equal opportunity and fair treatment based on race or gender." Since then, Alito in action should have only confirmed these fears, not alleviated them.
On the other hand, Lieberman's flip isn't all that surprising, given his penchant for working both sides of the street. The "independent" Senator doesn't seem to have much of a problem being considered a potential vice-presidential nominee for John McCain or appearing at the GOP Convention. But quietly, he's also cut checks to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee so as to save his job if his McCain flirtation ends badly.
All this just goes to show that if you pick up the phone and call Lieberman's office, you will inevitably have a truly magical conversation.
The New York Times' Kit Seelye is backing up NBC's Andrea Mitchell, who reported on Sunday the contention that John McCain may not have been in the "cone of silence" before Saturday's Saddleback Chuch forum. But even as Seelye advances the story for the Times news pages, over in the opinion section, backtracking has begun.
NBC's Andrea Mitchell reported on "Meet the Press" that "the Obama people must feel that he didn't do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context. ... What they're putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama."
That's pretty astonishing, since there seems to be absolutely no basis for the charge. But the fact that Obama's people made this suggestion means they know McCain outperformed him.
NBC's Andrea Mitchell reported on "Meet the Press" that "the Obama people must feel that he didn't do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context. ... What they're putting out privately is that McCain ... may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama."
There's no evidence that McCain had any such advantage. But the fact that Obama's people made this suggestion means they know McCain outperformed him.
In other words, since Kristol now has to acknowledge that the "charge" that McCain was not in the "cone of silence" has legs, those details disappear so that Kristol can continue to paint the Obama camp as making baseless charges.
As Tomorrow points out, the only clue that readers get from the newspaper is "a small note in teensy tiny light grey type at the bottom of the page" that reads: "A version of this article appeared in print on August 18, 2008, on page A19 of the New York edition." Isn't it customary to note any substantive corrections to an article?
Good morning HuffPo readership and welcome to your Sunday Morning Liveblog, where I will be performing in the individual medley relay of pundit pain, and, like most of America, finishing close to last, and suspecting that some of these people may secretly be pre-teens from China. This week, I'm in Washington, next week, I'll be in Denver, Colorado, because there's going to be a huge Decemberists concert out there or something. Ought to be fun! I've never been to Colorado, so you Denverites (Denverians? Denverds? Denvoolians?) are welcome to make restaurant recommendations. As always, those can be left in the comments, or, feel free to send an email.
FOX NEWS SUNDAY
Russia v. Georgia, here dubbed the most "serious conflict in the West since the fall of the Soviet Union," as if the war in the Balkans didn't happen. I mean, honest, I think it's serious, like a girlfriend in a coma, but people, in a world, Kosovo. Srebrenica. Okay?
Condoleezza Rice has been to the region, warming up the local players for the one two punch of Ultimate Power that is Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman, and she says that Russia is not honoring the cease fire, and they are still occupying cities, and maintaining a presence on the "East-West Highway" - which is the name of a thoroughfare up in Maryland here, and I get a slight "WOLVERINES!" twinge whenever I hear Russia is occupying it.
Apparently, Rice says that Russian "peacekeepers" will be allowed to remain in South Ossetya and will have a 'limited range" of operation in Georgia, which I sure reassures Georgians.
Robert Gates, of course, believes there needs to be consequences, and Rice agrees that there should be and insists that there are already have been. She says that Russia's reputation as "forward leaning...is in tatters." But it's Dimitry Medvedev who said Russia would be forward leaning, so I don't know why Rice was saying that in the first place.
Is Russia officially kicked out of the G8? Rice says not yet, and that she's been talking "telephonically" with her counterparts in Russia and so the G8 relationship is an assist to those efforts. "This is not 1968," she says, not ruling out the possibility that it's 1938, or 1865, or even 480 BC.
What about the President's all-seeing gaze into Putin's soul. Rice gives a bunch of platitudes. Here's the bottom line: how bad is it to be reminded in this context that Bush's nickname for Putin is Pootie-Poot. I mean, "is everything on the table?" I'd sit down at any table with a man who called me Pootie-Poot with the confidence that I was going to roll him up and put him away. At least call him Pootie Tang, Mr. President.
Should Musharraf step down? "This is a matter for the Pakistanis to resolve." Would the U.S. grant Pervez asylum? Long answer...I'm not hearing a yes? But I'm not hearing a no! But Wallace interrupts and re-asks the question, and she says it's not on the table. Rice won't state a preference between John McCain or Barack Obama for President.
Battle of the Surrogates with Tom Ridge and Claire McCaskill. What price would McCain exact from Russia? Ridge says that he would kick Russia out of the G8. Also, many other clubs for imperialists! And no more UNICEF cookies! McCaskill is asked about Susan Rice's statement that McCain may have hurt the situation, and McCaskill sort of fumbles through an answer that we need to let Bush do his job and that McCain's response was political. She's right that McCain's decision to dispatch the whiny/pouty Voltron that is Graham and Lieberman, but really, McCain is sort of allowed to state opinions on the matter.
Ridge and McCaskill goes back and forth, and McCaskill fares better. Ridge says that McCain has been to Georgia three times, so maybe Obama can go there so McCain can cut some ads, or not go so McCain can cut some ads.
Will Ridge be Veep? Would everyone be confortable with a pro-choice runningmate? Ridge sort of soft-coats it, I think it's pretty clear that most of the GOP, at least in an official capacity, wouldn't be comfortable.
McCaskill says that "Hillary Clinton is not the enemy." Wallace asks if Hillary's supporters "settle for the pageant of a roll call?" Uhm...do they have any other choice?
Ridge is playing that "voted for a tex increase X times" where X equals any instance in which the government funds anything.
"Everyone's being polite!" says Wallace. Yes, and I'm glad. It's too early. I can't believe you have Bill Kristol on this early.
Panel time, with the aforementioned Kristol, with Bill Sammon, Mara Liasson, and Jill Zuckman. Kristol says that Obama went to Saddleback last night to do more than reach evangelicals and was "eloquent," but naturally feels McCain was better. Zuckman notes that McCain isn't as comfortable as many Republicans talking about religion. Sammon disagrees and says McCain fared better last night.
Liasson gets the first question about Hillary (no one bothered to ask if whether Tom Ridge on the ticket would affect McCain's standing, which is weird, because it absolutely would), and says that we will have to wait for Denver. She's not sure that placation is a good idea. Wallace wonders if the story for the first three days of the convention will be about the Clinton-Obama opera. Kristol pooh-poohs, saying that the influence of the media is overstated. That, coming from a man who got that whole Colin Powell endorsement wrond.
Zuckman and Sammon say Obama will be picking Bayh. Liasson agrees that Bayh is the cautious choice. Kristol says Kaine is the strongest pick and will be the pick which means he won't be the pick. Kristol also says that Jack Reed would be smarter than Bayh.
Bayh would be a disaster. I mean, the Netroots would have a big freak session, which wouldn't really impact the outcome of the election because they've got no other choice in the end but to grin and bear it. But the Bayh pick would inpact the election greatly because Bayh was a co-chair of the Committee to Liberate Iraq. With John McCain. So, Obama would be saddled with someone, who, like Clinton, had to spend the year attempting to explain her poor judgement on the war, except Bayh compounds the sin by being a partner with the Republican opponent, and lacking the experience of Clinton. It's a terrible idea. So, Obama fans, I hope the NO TO BAYH group has a significant dimension on MyBO! If not, get it done!
Meanwhile the panel gets going on Russia-Georgia. Sammon throws Condi under the bus, saying that Georgia has been undermined and that we are left with two puppet provinces, and that's troubling. Except, haven't they more or less been puppet provinces anyway?
Liasson, "McCain has been very out front on this." Obama's going to be lucky if he comes out of this show with no one criticizing his decision to stay on vacation. I really think the Obama camp made a big mistake, optically speaking, to keep the candidate at a distance. Practically speaking, of course, neither candidate actually did anything to literally help the situation.
Ahh, there. Zuckman said it. Sammon says that Obama and Bush "have come around to McCain's tougher rhetoric." But that's silly. McCain's "rhetoric" is a thing apart from Bush's response, which has not been of the same bellicose strain as McCain. Rather, it's been cautious and diplomatic, and, really, ineffective.
Of course, if you want to put McCain's good week in perspective, well, I really can't say it any better than Wonkette's Sara Smith:
Oooh, it's TROUBLING NEWS on the McCain front. Despite every conceivable advantage in news coverage this week, he has steadfastly refused to budge from his squatting position at the bottom of the polls. Why hasn't John McCain capitalized on the many blessings showered on him by the press, and Fate? And what does this say about his ability to lead?
...
And yet!!!! John McCain remains 4.6 points behind Barack Obama in the Real Clear Politics poll average. Conclusion: John McCain has a problem with white working-class voters.
Sarah's right! Why can't McCain close the deal?
Dana Perino, power player? I'm not even going to dignify that with the electrodes I'd need to attach to run current through her body.
THIS WEEK, WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
Comment, from Abigail1:
isn't it bad news for McCain that prominent Republicans like Condi and Hagel won't say they are going to vote for him? Imagine if it were Albright and Kennedy.
I think that Rice isn't more enthusiastic is the larger problem. Her, "as you know I am a Republican" line, more or less intimating a lack of real enthusiasm says something. And consider what it may say? There's little doubt that McCain and Rice are fundamentally of the same mind where the direction of our foreign policy is concerned. So why the dampness? Hagel is not as shocking to me, because Hagel's overarching problem is not necessarily with McCain (though I don't think there's any possibility in the world Hagel will vote for McCain). It appears to be more about the quality of governance in general, with an undertone of being specifically disappointed with the quality of Republican governance.
THIS WEEK wants you to believe, by the way, that the HEART OF THE NATION'S CAPITOL is the Newseum. I think the Newseum is great, like a pancreas. But not the heart. If THIS WEEK were truly coming to you from the Heart of the Nation's Capitol, we'd be seeing this from yesterday's showcase of the GirlsRock DC Summer Camp at the 9:30 Club. I want to point that out because of the enduring myth that DC doesn't produce anything that's good or worthwhile. Not true!
Bush gave a statement at his Ranch, and I'm immediately struck by how bad the brush problem has gotten there! It's encroached all the way up to the makeshift podium! Well, I won't miss those trips to Crawford. I really think that the terror alert should spike to Blackwatch Plaid/Run For Your Damned Lives every time he goes there, since that seems to be the time that people start drowning and explicit warnings of Osama bin Laden attacks get ignored.
SECDEF Gates says that "the whole world is looking at Russia through a different set of lenses," and that constitutes "consequences." Wow. Really? Are you sure that's not too harsh? I mean, they invaded Georgia, sure. Is that any reason to move from the rose-colored glasses to the cabernet sauvignon colored ones?
Gates goes on the assert Georgia's "westernness." Which is sort of zero sum. It's not like Georgia is a model democracy governed by good sense. Oh...but Western investors, and Western companies get mentioned. Phew. Nearly forgot! It's really about protecting wealth. Sometimes, I get these funny ideas about "helping people!" But hey, I was the one who mentioned Srebrenica today! If the VRS had massacred a bunch of dollar bills, there'd probably be a smoking hole in th center of Europe right now.
I find myself wondering why Condi Rice is relegated to the sideshow of this whole affair. She's the bloody Cold War expert. You'd think she'd be all out in front here.
"We have seen a side of Russia that we all hoped was a thing of the past," says Gates. I had a bad feeling long before Putin started smooching children on the tummy. I don't know. A world leader who takes children aside to suckle on their abdomen would be the first guy I'd put on the "Kinda Skeeves Us Out" list. Gary Kasparov agrees. Deep Blue: staying out of this for the time being. And that's why America should never trust chess-playing computers!
"Are we seeing a fundamental change?" Didn't Russia game this conflict many years ago by issuing the residents of these Georgian republics passports? This is not a fundamental change, this is a long con. But Gates is parroting the party line: we've "seen a hard side to Putin" but this is a "turn," a surprise, it's troubling. Gates seems flabbergasted because Putin, and Russia, seemed to want to work with the U.S. But that doesn't constitute alliances or friendship. That simply constitutes the recognition that diplomatic ties to the United States are useful when interests line up. Gates seems to recognize this in terms of non-proliferation.
Gates disagrees that al Qaeda has fully reconstituted as a threat in Afghanistan/Pakistan, citing the lack of a partner state to use as a platform for attacks. I think Gates is whistling past the graveyard. Clearly, the partner state in the new generation of al Qaeda is Pakistan.
Here's another one for your Stuff You'll Be Surprised No One's Talking About file, a story from the Washington Independent, "Taliban, al Qaeda Unchecked in Pakistan." Note the word Taliban! That's right people, they are getting the band back together!
Here's the mothereffing lede!
Al Qaeda and the Taliban are executing suspected U.S. informants in Pakistan in a campaign to terrorize potential spies and reinforce the authority of the militant organizations across the country's vast and volatile tribal belt.
I mean: wow. If I had Robert Gates across the room from me, this is the sort of KABOOM I'd lay on the man, if i were a reporter!
CIA operatives are shackled by a Pakistan restriction requiring them to work under its ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence - the largest intelligence organization in Pakistan] directorate, according to Keller and other former agents. CIA and ISI relations have been marred by mutual distrust in recent years. U.S. intelligence is particularly concerned that ISI elements are sympathetic to the Taliban -- if not Al Qaeda.
Brother, there is your state sponsorship of al Qaeda Nation, right there! I mean to tell you people, there are few predictions that I am willing to make in this life. I'm not a betting man by nature. But if we are ever so lucky to get some sort of final analysis done on our post 9/11 partnership with Pakistan, it is going to come out that the ISI was, at all times, LOUSY with not just al Qaeda sympathizers, but with de facto agents of al Qaeda as well.
OMG. Battle of the surrogates with Tom "The King of Wistful Thinking" Daschle and Mitt "Fraud Bot 2000" Romney. Now, I know I should have contemplated suicide!
For Daschle, Iraq represents an opportunity cost to this conflict, which is on some level true, but it's not like sending troops to Georgia was ever in the cards. He goes on the assert that Obama had a specific plan of heading this off, involving NATO, but I'm just not sure that's true. He's right that we've failed to be attentive to Russia.
Ugh, Romney. Here's the way he thinks. He's asked if the Georgians maybe made this bed for themselves by hustling troops into South Ossetya, and Romney says, "Well, if you mean did Georgia bring this on themselves by standing up for freedom and democracy." There is no matter so important or complicated that Romney can't reduce to a dumb bumper sticker. SUCH IS THE POWER OF HIS STUPIDITY.
GS asks again, and Romney notes that Russia's parlay has "been anticipated for some time." This means, to Romney, that "Bill Clinton should have listened to John McCain!" And the eight intervening years? Of Bush's Ouija Board approach to Putin? Not mentioned!
OH NOES! George Stephanopoulos thinks Czechoslovakia still exists! He's losing his bearings!
Daschle suggests that the sticky wicket where Russia is concerned is that many of our own interests are knit up in the farbic of Russo-American diplomacy. There is a laundry list: Iran, North Korea, loose nukes, climate change. Daschle notes that a balance must be struck between consequences and realpolitik so that a whole host of other situations don't utterly disintegrate. Romney's response is, "Well, of course we work with people around the world." Well, Mitt, old buddy old chum! We're talking about the Russians, here. DO try to KEEP UP.
MITT ROMNEY: McCain will "Work with our strongest enemies." Uhm...did Mitt just throw the whole "negotiate without preconditions" argument and rip it into a million little pieces? Hope David Axelrod caught that? (I suspect David Axelrod has been on vacation a little long himself! (Ooooh, and now I've maybe earned a secret backstabbing from David Axelrod! I'll let you know if it gets all pus-filled!))
ROMNEY: "There are people who have ambitions...to be authoritarian." People like John McCain!
Does Georgia require Obama to pick Unnamed National Security Guru as Vice President? Daschle says: UH. HEM? HAW! Judgement! Whoever we pick will have judgement! Judgement flows from Obama's hand to those beneath him.
Will Obama offer Daschle the Veep job? Daschle says no. Cue wave of relief.
Will McCain choose Romney? Mike Huckabee says no! Romney says BLEEP BLORP BOORP. John McCain has been to South Ossetya! WHY HASN'T OBAMA AND PARIS HILTON SOLVED THE CRISIS?
Oooh, snap! Daschle says Obama has got mad geography skillz! He's like a Garman, and he will drive America through Georgia, to the nicest Chinese restaurant in Tblisi.
Commenter DaOne bottom-lines Georgia thusly:
Under this administration, aid got to Georgia quicker than it did to New Orleans during Katrina.
Panel Time! With E.J. Dionne, George Will, Michael Gerson, and jan Crawford Greenburg. Will says both candidates did well, and that Obama's strategy is to "limit his defeat" among evangelicals. Dionne says that "Rick Warren wins," which maybe stings Stephanopoulos, as it should, since his debate was like being forcefed a hog lagoon.
Greenburg says that Obama could, more than turning people out, get them to stay home, but that the Supreme Court is the key issue. Gerson says something, but I'm too mesmerised by his weird hipster glasses to pay attention. It was probably some manner of tepid naysaying.
Greenburg makes another good point: the evangelicals, on balance, aren't the "change" votes. They are the ones who are looking for a daddy (presumably not in the fashionable sort of downtown bars where one can, on the average weekend night, gain the temporary company of one). I'd add that the evangelicals aren't looking for A New Hope either!
What happens to McCain in the Tom Ridge/Joe Lieberman as Veep world? GS says he undoes any good he's done with evangelicals. George Will did some actual reporting! He called Lieberman's office to ask how his vote against Alite squares with his McCain support, and was told that Lieberman now thinks his vote was wrong. That causes a mini-stir at the panel.
Now Greenburg loses me with a recitation of Accepted John McCain Media Hagiography: he has a "history of reaching across the aisle to solve all those problems in Washington." Uhm...what solutions were those, exactly?
Dionne notes that Tim Pawlenty is the safe choice. Gerson thinks it's not an uninteresting choice, which eliminates all possiblilty that I'd spend a weekend with Gerson.
GS thinks that the situation in Georgia will dictate who the vice president would be, but that's just the worst sort of reasoning! Georgia is but a sliver of America's concerns right now, and some of our larger concerns are domestic concerns. The idea that this single incident should now play a fundamental role in the Obama White House foundation is absurd.
Dionne says Bayh or Biden, and touts Bayh, who the GOP would LOVE TO HAVE AS THE NOMINEE. Will this panel note Bayh's obvious problem? No. It's about losing a Senate seat. Then the panel goes nuts for Biden. Then Will says that Sam Nunn is the obvious choice because the biggest issue in the world is loose nukes (and it's a big issue, but let's note that Will's not the sort who has to worry about Social Security or Medicare), and that Nunn would put Georgia in play. Dionne says, "Nunn is Lieberman in reverse."
The case for Biden, in my opinion, is that he strives to gain an encyclopedic knowledge of foreign policy and then relishes in beating his opponents up with it. But will his vindictive side, which appeals to me, appeal to other voters? And really, won't wide swaths of America just think of Biden as a northeastern phony? I think Biden reinforces the enthusiasm of bicoastal Democrats, but adds a little bit of alienation to folks in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and throughout the West. Not that this machine-connected panel would ever consider that.
Gerson on Bush's approach to Putin: "His approach is to believe in leaders, to idealize (whatever that means) these leaders and then ask them to live up to their standards." WHAT AN ANSWER. I mean...if you had heard Bush say, years ago, that he "believed in Putin, and was going to expect Putin to live up to those standards," would you have not SCOFFED? That is a policy of utter, childlike naivete at best.
And really, by his own standard, President Bush would, in the end, be extremely disappointed in President Bush.
And then he talks about "the fog of war" and how difficult it is to know what's going on. "The President can't just come out and make statements without knowing what's going on on the ground!" Uhm, seems to me that there was once a time when Bush not only made such statements, he turned those statements into banners and hung them on aircraft carriers. Jeez, Michael Gerson, com,e back to the planet the rest of us live on, just for a fracking day why don't you?
Listen to George Will! Who calls Russia a hunter-gatherer economy in steep population decline that grows less powerful by the day. He's right. This is not a Munich moment. There will be no annexation of the Ukraine. There will be no march of the world-conquerors. What danger exists in Russia today must not be confused by the dangers they posed in the past. There will be no remake of Red Dawn. It remains to be seen if these puny Cold War resonances will lend much to 2009's release of Watchmen.
More fun comments:
Robotfog:
"How do we make certain the idiots running this country don't try something nasty before leaving office? I mean, these people are very cruel. I wouldn't put it past them to order some bombings or some kind of half as sed response to Russia. Or even some demented little plot involving Iran."
I tell you what! There's stripping the "W"'s off of the computer keyboards and there's bombing Iran! Naturally, your local right-wing blogwuss would nevertheless screech that the keyboard violations constituted the greater breach of the public trust!
3rdCitizen:
"So, the 'serious consequences' that Russia is facing for their overblown invasion of a sovereign nation for dubious reasons is that their reputation is now in tatters. Ouch!"
OH BUT THAT'S NOT ALL BY A LONG SHOT! We might also boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi! Putin will surely cave once he understands how difficult it will be for him to spend the next SIX YEARS worried about whether the US will grace his nation with our finest ICE DANCERS!!
MEET THE PRESS
David Gregory is moderating the show today, though I have become convinced this week that Bob Costas and Bela Karolyi should be the two leading candidates.
The more I look at pictures of Putin and Saakashvili, the more i wonder if this all goes back to Putin's envy of Saakashvili's lustrous hair. Well, we're going to re-get to the bottom of this whole matter with Condoleezza "This is the 21st Century and countries can not do these things unless they are specifically us doing to specific invasions we do in the specific places we do them and hope to get away with it. Stop using the Unites States as precedent! Not fair! Not fair!" Rice, who is a "Cold War Expert" from "Stanford" "University."
Does Rice believe Russia will withdraw? She's skeptical! But thankful that President Sarkozy and the EU did something about it.
RICE: I was in touch with my Russian counterpart several times, and before the crisis really hardened and got hotter, I was in touch with him.
MY WIFE: "Hardened and got hotter?" What, were they making peanut brittle?
Rice went to Georgia to "support the Democratically Elected Government Of Georgia." John McCain said we are All Georgians, and thus Rice became the Georgian Secretary of State That Georgia Had Been Waiting For to Come to Georgia and Make Things Less Hot and Less Hard.
Will U.S. troops be part of the peacekeeping force? Shorter Rice: "Uhm...we don't really have any troops left." But the OSCE and the EU will be on hand to help!
Did Georgia provoke this crisis after repeated warnings? Rice won't answer the question. Rice says, basically, that the Georgians received instructions but so did the Russians. Yes, but, Georgia is our Beloved Western NATO Flirting Ally, and Russia is run by the ex-KGB agent tummykisser who assassinates people with radioactive sushi. So, realistically speaking, who should have stood down?
Rice says Russia "overreached" and is now "paying the price" for that, which, by the looks of things, makes it seem like I should have invaded Georgia, for kicks.
OH NOES! Russia's reputation is in tatters! President Medvedev said a bunch of pretty things about Democracy! Now it looks like we cannot trust the puppet President of Russia to speak about democracy with any degree of sincerity! WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THIS? "That vision that Medvedev put on the table is in serious doubt," Rice says. ALSO: BRIGADOON MAY NOT EXIST! EVERYONE DROWN YOUR CHILDREN!
Rice says that Russia's plan to undermine Georgia's democracy and destroy it's infrastructure is not going to succeed! Right: it's the bombed out buildings that refuse to rebuild themselves and the dead Georgians who refuse to come back to life that are undermining Georgia!
Mindbending. Russia got away with doing what they wanted, they still haven't withdrawn, they'll face no serious consequences, and yet Rice says that now they know they can't behave like this!
We will help rebuild Georgia! Unless it turns out it's full of poor, black people. In that case, everyone goes to the Astrodome for another round of Barbara Bush Fantasy Camp.
Now Rice is talking up how great Pakistan is as a partner against terror. Go back to that article in the Washington Independent, above.
Battle of the Surrogates! Featuring the Eyebrow versus the Exorcist! Two Southerners! Because you can really see Bobby Jindal and Tim Kaine getting loose at a Skynyrd show! A regular pair of moonshiners, these two! Fleein' dem dadgummed revenooers, what from the Federal guvvahmint!
Kaine praises Obama for offering a measured response, and eating Sno-Cones, because the GOP couldn't make any use of that in their campaign ads. Kaine has "significant concerns" abotu Russia and is all FOCUS and CHALLENGE and I CAN DO THE FOREIGN STUFF TOO. Jindal says that McCain showed some judgement because he once said "KGB" and "SURGE" and hwne the Pod People comes, he will warn us.
Kaine says that the Surge doesn't alter the fact that the overall Iraq War strategy was a DOA piece of policy. And we are talking loudly with no sticks. Obama will gather sticks, like a Kenyan tribesman.
Kaine has to fight off underminers like Ted Strickland, who pissed all over a shot at being Obama's VP in advance of anyone asking him. Kaine finds a lot of solid specifics in the Obama economic package to put out there. So Gregory decides to ask unanswerable questions: "Did this come out of the Clinton camp?" You answer in the negative, and Gregory will just rephrase the question. You answer in the affirmative, and it's a scandal. You say you don't know, you run the risk of looking dotty. The panel comes in behind you and clucks, "Well, of course Tim Kaine knows, blah-blah." I really wish David Gregory could resist being an idiot.
All of Gregory's questions on the matter are rivitingly stupid.
Jindal is such a goober! "Isn't that ad a swipe at President Bush?" And Jindal lapses into what amounts to a Jim Nabors routine. "Golllly! McCain's always bucked this here party!" BLAH BLAH STUMP SPEECH!
He also doesn't seem to be able to say the word "McCain." He keeps saying "Senator Cain." Tim Kaine? Kane from the X-Men? Horatio Caine from CSI: Miami?
Gregory asks what are McCain's new big ideas? Jindall...uhm...doesn't offer any! "The...the...the...uhm...platitudes!"
[Via ThinkProgress, watch this dolt, who will not be Vice-President of anything.]
The top McCainiacs seem to have this problem:
Oooh. Karl Rove called Kaine a governor of meager accomplishment last week, and this week, Tim Kaine kicks Karl Rove all around the town square, citing all sorts of accolades for Virginia that have happened under his watch. And what has Rove wrought exactly?
Gregory puts both men on the hot seat, vis a vis abortion. Jindal says that McCain will be a pro-life administration. Kaine says the Obama administration will seek to reduce abortions without criminalizing women and doctors for their decisions.
Panel Time! Josh Green, Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd.
Mitchell praises McCain's performance, which seems to have been "crisp and clean" because McCain never says anything but a range of sixteen or so phrases that he's memorized. She does allow that McCain might have been privy to the questions, but I feel like material evidence on that regard is scant. The better explanation is that McCain reckoned that his flashcards would win the day and he was right.
David Gregory is spitting conventional wisdom like "Nuance isn't good for the Democrats." and "Didn't McCain sound tough on Russia?" The lack of nuance, though, can be dangerous for the country. A policy isn't better because it fits on a bumper sticker. I mean, "Arizona Cardinals Fan" fits on a bumper sticker.
Thank you, Andrea Mitchell, who says nuance could be a better approach, that the tough talk really only gets you a political soundbyte. Ironically, you sort of want a less nuanced explanation.
Todd says that the McCain campaign has swagger. I can see why they feel that way. But I'll tell you who isn't swaggering at the McCain camp: whoever's in charge of coordinating the McCain ground game and the overall GOTV effort.
Finally, the reason for this season is Joshua Green, who's "The Front Runner's Fall" tells the story of the Clinton campaign. It's worth the read, especially for the Penn memo that more or less suggests that the venal/Rove strain in the Clintonites is indeed strong - in fact, much stronger rooted than it is yet in the McCain camp! I personally did not find even once sentence that surprised me in the least. It's funny, to me, all the articles last week that amounted to "Why We Covered the Edwards Affair the Way We Did." Well, similar stories deserve to be penned about how the Clinton campaign got covered.
Green highlights the cross-purposes of the Clinton advisors, how there would be one message one day, another the next. I still remember Clinton ending one debate with a strong and thoughtful statement of purpose, and then 12 hours later, she was bellowing "SHAME ON YOU" for Obama running quotidian campaign flyers in Ohio. It was all very disconcerting, and embarrassing.
Veepstakes, Schmeepstakes. Really? Good, sweet, Jeebus. What if it's none of these people? Do we need a rehash of the up and downsides? Josh Green on Kaine: NOTHING YOU HAVEN'T HEARD BEFORE. Mitchell thinks it's Biden, and that he'd destroy any GOP choice in a debate--though I'm sure we'd play an expectations game there too! "Mitt Romney didn't know anything? But he only lost two pints of blood to Biden! A MCCAIN WIN!" Todd predicts safe choices.
OKAY. Before we go, some "program notes." Next week, this Liveblog comes to you "live" from Denver...and I'm going to do my best...part of the advantage TiVo provides is that I can expand on things, and I probably won't have it! We'll see how it goes.
We'll have at least one, perhaps two, vlogs from Ana Marie Cox and I this week. Remember, if you have a question for us, feel free to ask by sending an email.
Finally, if you are a fan of Jezebel.com (and you should be!), I will be joining their excellent blogger Megan Carpentier this coming Thursday and Friday for Crappy Hour - a daily feature where Megan and a guest chat about the issues of the day. Here's an example. Please look for that!
Thanks for all the dining suggestions and the Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead Set On Covering The Democratic National Convention.
I want to end today by offering my thanks to Jerome Corsi, white-supremacist Swift Boat turd heel un-American wouldn't-piss-on-ya-if-you-were-on-fire foamy chancre on the ass of subhumanity extraordinaire. You want to talk about voter enthusiasm? Well, Mr. Corsi, the thought of casting vote against everything you stand for doesn't just make me feel enthusiastic, it makes me feel ten feet taller, and I get the coppery taste of the gladiator in my mouth. So thank you, pig.
United States swimming phenom Michael Phelps continued his Beijing gold rush tonight, earning the gold medal on the back of a world-record-setting outing in the final of the men's 200-meter individual medley. However, the ensuing medal ceremony was marred when Phelps failed to heed the directive of presidential contender John McCain, that "we are" now "all Georgians."
Phelps gave these instructions little heed at the ceremony, where he appeared to salute the United States' own flag, while "The Star Spangled Banner" played on the loudspeaker, instead of "Tavisupleba," the Georgian national anthem. This raised many questions. Why won't Michael Phelps use his powerful "dolphin kick" to circumvent the Russian naval blockade in the Black Sea?
Recognizing that Phelps had failed to learn The Lesson Of Munich, Hungarian silver medalist Laszlo Cseh left the ceremony and immediately annexed the Sudetenland.
Well, like just about everything else that dribbles out of Corsi's cakehole, you can take those apologies and discount them entirely, because this Sunday, he is set to make an appearance on the well-named "The Political Cesspool" - which, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is "an overtly racist, anti-Semitic radio show hosted by self-avowed white nationalist James Edwards." In the past, the show has welcomed some marquee names in the hate movement, including "Christian Identity pastor Pete Peters, Holocaust denier Mark Weber and former Klan boss David Duke."
UPDATE: Sam Stein reports that he has received an email from Winston Smith, confirming Corsi's appearance on the show. Smith's email reads as follows: "Dr. Corsi's first appearance on our broadcast was very well received. On Sunday's show he'll be talking about his new book about Barak [sic] Hussein Obama. It'll be a fascinating converstaion [sic], and we hope you'll listen in."
August 20, 2008 04:35 PM