Just Out: Black Contracts, Greymail: How to Make a CIA Trial Go Away:

Yes, the stock market was falling apart, but up on the seventh floor of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, you could almost hear the sighs of relief Monday thanks to another bit of news: Former top Agency official Kyle Dustin Foggo had quietly entered a guilty plea in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal courtroom. Henry Paulson still has his job cut out trying to rescue the banking system, but Langley's spymasters had just been spared the imminent prospect of having some of the nation's most sensitive secrets spilled in what promised to be one of the more revelatory and cinematic trials of the Bush era. [...]

Go read. A few years ago, I first broke several CIA-related aspects of the wider Cunningham case: the name of the Wilkes' front company to get the secret CIA contracts in a magazine piece, the covert plane network discussions between Foggo and Wilkes in a less formal way here on the blog, Foggo's connection to Wilkes and the CIA water contract at the Prospect's blog back in November 2005, just after Cunningham's guilty plea, a magazine piece that raised potential counterintelligence questions about the case. Thinking back, I had some extraordinarily unpleasant conversations with a CIA spokesman who screamed that I was wrong, that he had marched to Foggo's office and none of what I was saying was true (and I think only the I-was-wrong part was on the record), and they couldn't find any Wilkes' company that had gotten a CIA contract, etc. etc. And then suddenly, they stopped screaming. And I believe it was I who informed at least the public affairs folks that Archer Logistics was a Wilkes' front company, through Wilkes' nephew Joel Combs, and it must have registered as a hit on some database. Then suddenly it was polite ordinary civil discourse that they don't ordinarily comment on who does or does not get CIA contracts. But the tone was utterly different. And this was way back in December 2005, several months before federal investigators raided Foggo's CIA offices in relation to the wider Cunningham probe. (The Foggo indictment confirms much of what I was asking them about and reporting back in 2005).

And when they screamed at journalists when Porter Goss resigned as CIA director in May 2006 just as Foggo's office was raided by federal investigators that Goss' resignation had absolutely, positively nothing to do with Foggo and Goss's ill-advised decision to appoint Foggo to the number three job in the first place against the warnings of others, I was (and remain) convinced that that was baloney, and was amazed that so many major media went with the CIA's utterly facile explanation. 'Who are you going to believe, me or your lyin' eyes,' kind of extraordinary. Under Goss's hands off management style, Foggo effectively ran the CIA day to day during Goss's tenure. The CIA's Foggo problem was Goss's problem and Goss's fault.

More here.

Was wondering what the Fed could do without Congressional approval. Bloomberg reports: pump 600 billion into the global financial system.

The US Navy and the Somali Pirates. Noah Shachtman:

So if the Pentagon decides to take out the Faina pirates, how's it going to go down? Four words: Djibouti (where U.S. Special Operations Command has a base north of Somalia), helicopters, Navy SEALs.

Indeed, one of Faina's captured crewmen, in an interview with a Russian news Website, practically pleaded for the Navy commandos to come to his aid, the AP reports: "At the end, when the reporter asks whether he sees a way out, [the crewman] replies: 'You are so clever that you are understanding everything' and switches to Russian, saying 'kotiki, kotiki, kotiki' — part of the word for 'seals' — an apparent reference to the possibility of an operation by special amphibious forces to rescue the hostages."

CREW files ethics complaint against Kit Bond. Background to complaint here.

David Brooks:

House Republicans led the way and will get most of the blame. It has been interesting to watch them on their single-minded mission to destroy the Republican Party. Not long ago, they led an anti-immigration crusade that drove away Hispanic support. Then, too, they listened to the loudest and angriest voices in their party, oblivious to the complicated anxieties that lurk in most American minds.

Now they have once again confused talk radio with reality. If this economy slides, they will go down in history as the Smoot-Hawleys of the 21st century. With this vote, they’ve taken responsibility for this economy, and they will be held accountable. The short-term blows will fall on John McCain, the long-term stress on the existence of the G.O.P. as we know it.

Shana Tova. Healthy, happy new year.

KC Star: DOJ IG attorney firing report implicates Kit Bond (R-Missouri) in Todd Graves' firing:

This week got off to a very bad start for U.S. Sen. Kit Bond and his staff.

The U.S. Justice Department's inspector general concluded in a report that interference from Bond's office got Todd Graves removed as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Though circumstances remain a bit muddled, the inspector concludes that Bond's legal counsel called a White House lawyer several times in 2005 seeking to have Graves removed as this area's top federal prosecutor.

In the fall of 2004, a Bond staffer had called Todd Graves and asked him to persuade his brother, U.S. Congressman Sam Graves, to get rid of his chief of staff. That would be Jeff Roe, now a political consultant in Kansas City.

Todd Graves declined to get involved in his brother's office affairs. The inspector links that refusal to pressure from Bond's office for a change in the U.S. attorney's office.

The money quote from the inspector general's report:

We find it extremely troubling that the impetus for Graves's removal as U.S. Attorney appears to have stemmed from U.S. Attorney Graves's decision not to respond to a Bond staff member's demand to get involved in personnel decisions in Representative Sam Graves's congressional office.

And another: To allow members of Congress or their staff to obtain the removal of U.S. Attorneys for political reasons, as apparently occurred here, severely undermines the independence and non-partisan tradition of the Department of Justice.

WP: Freedom's Watch spending ramps up.

This interesting too:

Democrats have sought to make Adelson an issue in their response to Freedom's Watch's activities and, in Alabama's 2nd district, got a boost from the state Christian Coalition today.

"Sheldon Adelson does not share our values as Alabamans, and Freedom's Watch's underhanded attack ads do nothing but cheapen the political discourse in this state," said Dr. Randy Brinson, president of the Alabama Christian Coalition. "Where Adelson has placed his treasure makes it quite clear where his heart is: in gambling and in backing the regime in China that persecutes Christians."

Sarah Palin endorses Hamas' democratic aspirations in Gaza strip. Actually, this is kind of funny.

NYT: Bailout rejected.

A Hill staffer writes that the Democratic leadership "both recognized that this was an incredibly tough vote for a lot of members, and they thought they had a real promise from the Republicans to deliver enough votes to put together a win. They weren't imposing party discipline because they thought they had enough Dems plus enough Repubs to get a win. They delivered their votes, and the Republicans did not deliver theirs."

NPR: House Republicans vote against measure 2 to 1.

San Diego Union-Tribune: Former CIA official Kyle "Dusty" Foggo pleads guilty in Cunningham-related bribery affair. More: Will get three years.

Post:

Although Foggo, 53, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud conspiracy, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the 27 other counts against him and to recommend a sentence of no more than 37 months in prison. U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris, after accepting Foggo's plea, took the unusual step of telling Foggo that his lawyers "have done a good job for you in this case." Under federal law, Foggo could receive a prison term as high as 20 years when he is sentenced Jan. 8.

Prosecutors and Foggo's lawyers declined to comment. Defense lawyers had said they planned to expose sensitive intelligence programs and undercover operations as part of Foggo's defense. It was not immediately clear whether that threat, which the government had been fighting, was related to Foggo's plea. His trial had been scheduled for Nov. 3.

More from Marcy Wheeler.

NYT: Olmert says Israel should pull out of West Bank:

In an unusually frank and soul-searching interview granted after he resigned to fight corruption charges — he remains interim prime minister until a new government is sworn in — Mr. Olmert discarded longstanding Israeli defense doctrine and called for radical new thinking in words that are sure to stir controversy as his expected successor, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, tries to build a coalition.

“What I am saying to you now has not been said by any Israeli leader before me,” Mr. Olmert told Yediot Aharonot newspaper in the interview to mark the Jewish new year that runs from Monday night till Wednesday night. “The time has come to say these things.”

He said traditional Israeli defense strategists had learned nothing from past experiences and seemed stuck in the considerations of the 1948 Independence War.

“With them, it is all about tanks and land and controlling territories and controlled territories and this hilltop and that hilltop,” he said. “All these things are worthless.”

He added, “Who thinks seriously that if we sit on another hilltop, on another hundred meters, that this is what will make the difference for the State of Israel’s basic security?”

Over the last year, Mr. Olmert has publicly castigated himself for his earlier right-wing views and he did so again in this interview. On Jerusalem, for example, he said, “I am the first who wanted to enforce Israeli sovereignty on the entire city. I admit it. I am not trying to justify retroactively what I did for 35 years. For a large portion of these years, I was unwilling to look at reality in all its depth.”

He said that maintaining sovereignty over an undivided Jerusalem, Israel’s official policy, would involve bringing 270,000 Palestinians inside Israel’s security barrier. It would mean an ongoing risk of terrorist attacks against civilians like those carried out earlier this year by Jerusalem Palestinian residents with a bulldozer and earth mover.

“A decision has to be made,” he said. “This decision is difficult, terrible, a decision that contradicts our natural instincts, our innermost desires, our collective memories, the prayers of the Jewish people for 2,000 years.”

LAT: "Palin treads carefully between fundamentalist beliefs and public policy."

LAT: "... Obama was seen as more 'presidential' by 46% of the debate watchers, compared with 33% for McCain. The difference is even more pronounced among debate watchers who were not firmly committed to a candidate: 44% said they believed Obama looked more presidential, whereas 16% gave McCain the advantage. The Arizona senator also has lost ground on several measures of voter confidence, including trust. After the debate, 43% of registered voters who saw the event said Obama had more 'honesty and integrity,' compared with 34% for McCain. A week ago, the same voters were evenly divided, with 40% saying McCain was more honest and 40% giving the nod to Obama. Voters in general are also less confident than they were a week ago that McCain will strengthen the economy, achieve success in Iraq and care about voters like themselves. [...] McCain last week abruptly announced he would suspend his campaign ... A day later, after being accused of disrupting the delicate talks, McCain reversed course and flew to Mississippi for the debate. The maneuver was view unfavorably by 46% of debate watchers, who said they believed McCain was 'playing politics'; 38% said McCain was 'acting for the good of the country.'"

NYT: Doubts arise in account of "terror" attack in western China.

WP: "Former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales will not be referred to a federal grand jury for his role in the 2006 firings of nine U.S. attorneys, but a long-awaited report to be released Monday will recommend that a prosecutor continue to probe the involvement of lawmakers and White House officials in the episode, according to two people familiar with the case. ... Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey is likely to announce he will name a career prosecutor from within the Justice Department to address the open questions, ensuring that the politically charged issue will extend into the next administration, the sources said."

Fareed Zakaria: "Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. There is an ongoing military operation in Iraq that still costs $10 billion a month, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is not going well and is not easily fixed. Iran, Russia and Venezuela present tough strategic challenges. ... Obviously these are very serious challenges and constraints. In these times, for John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true."

USA Today/Gallup: "A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows 46% of people who watched Friday night's presidential debate say Democrat Barack Obama did a better job than Republican John McCain; 34% said McCain did better. Obama scored even better -- 52%-35% -- when debate-watchers were asked which candidate offered the best proposals for change to solve the country's problems. ... Three in 10 said their opinion of Obama became more favorable after seeing the debate, compared to 14% who said less favorable and 54% who said it didn't make much difference. More than one-third of viewers, or 37%, said they had less confidence in McCain to fix economic problems after seeing the debate; 23% said more. For Obama, the survey results were 34% more confidence, 26% less. Neither candidate broke away on national security and foreign policy. About a third of viewers said they had more confidence in each man on that front after the debate, and slightly less in each case said they had less confidence."

NYT on McCain's gambling:

Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings.

A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party’s evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain. [...]

Interviews and records show that lobbyists and political operatives in Mr. McCain’s inner circle played a behind-the-scenes role in bringing Mr. Abramoff’s misdeeds to Mr. McCain’s attention — and then cashed in on the resulting investigation. The senator’s longtime chief political strategist, for example, was paid $100,000...

For much of his adult life, Mr. McCain has gambled as often as once a month, friends and associates said, traveling to Las Vegas for weekend betting marathons. Former senior campaign officials said they worried about Mr. McCain’s patronage of casinos, given the power he wields over the industry. ...

More from Ken Silverstein: "A number of McCain’s cronies, several whom were mentioned in the Times story, have ties to another gambling behemoth: Gtech, which is heavily involved in state lotteries and online gaming," Charlie Black's BKSH, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, GOP operative Scott Reed, among them, Silverstein notes.

Alessandra Stanley: "Mr. Obama was not particularly warm or amusing; at times he was stiff and almost pedantic. But all he had to do was look presidential, and that was not such a stretch. Mr. McCain had the harder task of persuading leery voters that he can lead the future because he is so much part of the past. He tried to remind viewers of his greater experience and heroic combat career, while also casting himself as a maverick outsider ready to storm the barricades. Mr. McCain wanted to be the true revolutionary in the room, but his is the Reagan revolution, and for a lot of people right now, it doesn’t look like morning in America."

CBS poll of undecided voters.

Times (UK): Russia to build missile defense shield and renew nuclear deterrence. NYT: Russia to provide Venezuela $1 billion military loan for arms purchases.

Peter Stone: "J. Steven Griles, the former No. 2 official at Interior who recently finished serving a 10-month jail sentence for obstruction of justice in the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal, has very quietly returned to K Street life. Sources say that Griles is affiliated with the firm Thomas Advisors, which is run by veteran oil lobbyist Thomas Medaglia III. Medaglia's recent clients include Consol Energy and Mirant Corp."

Politico:

According to one GOP lawmaker, some House Republicans are saying privately that they’d rather “let the markets crash” than sign on to a massive bailout.

“For the sake of the altar of the free market system, do you accept a Great Depression?” the member asked.

Kevin Drum: Pass the bill.

"Putting Country Last." I plugged it in an update below, but go read John Judis' TNR piece. As a colleague notes, John is among the most restrained and sober political journalists around and he never engages in the kind of gratuitous name-calling of so much opinion journalism/blogging that is less deeply reported or observed.

Bailup Blowup. More from my Hill friend:

Let's be clear about what happened. I heard David Wessel on NPR talking about typical congressional gridlock. That is not it at all. The most conservative faction of Republicans - the faction whose extreme ideology helped get us here and that dominates the party - blew up the deal at the last moment, with the help of their equally irresponsible presidential candidate. I thought Pelosi was in for a nasty surprise when she tried to take the plan to a vote with the Dem caucus. But Dem opponents had no seat at the table in crafting the plan, and have made their dissatisfaction well known. The conservatives have captured the Republican party and were represented in the negotiations. Yet they waited until the last moment and then blew it up. In the name of a ridiculous sketchy alternative that doubles down on their discredited "ideas". It would be like Dennis Kucinich - or Abbie Hoffman - running the show. The Republican Study Group (Hensarling, Cantor, Ryan, the lot of em) are clowns. They had a seat at the table and they conducted themselves in the most irresponsible manner possible. Let their beloved market give them all the credit that is due them.

Pretty incredible read:

“We’re in a serious economic crisis,” Mr. Bush told reporters as the meeting began shortly before 4 p.m. in the Cabinet Room, adding, “My hope is we can reach an agreement very shortly.”

But once the doors closed, the smooth-talking House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, surprised many in the room by declaring that his caucus could not support the plan to allow the government to buy distressed mortgage assets from ailing financial companies.

Mr. Boehner pressed an alternative that involved a smaller role for the government, and Mr. McCain, whose support of the deal is critical if fellow Republicans are to sign on, declined to take a stand.

The talks broke up in angry recriminations, according to accounts provided by a participant and others who were briefed on the session, and were followed by dueling news conferences and interviews rife with partisan finger-pointing.

In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.

“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”

Mr. Paulson sighed. “I know. I know.”

It's an extraordinary and disturbing spectacle that's going on now, with this White House unable to convince even and especially its own party to rescue what they argue is essentially the country's financial liquidity. All these years of gratuitous demagoguery, ideological rigidity, ultra-partisanship, secrecy, cronyism, lying, attacks on dissent and the media and immigrants and calling concerns about torture and domestic spying treasonous, it all just comes down to total bankruptcy and weakness and pleas to any and all in the end to please help. Extend them the reasonableness, the decency, the good will that in the almost fascistic overreach of their high power days they never considered extending, they sneered at. They presided over the destruction of so much they touched, sometimes on a cataclysmic scale; and now they are weak and have made this country weaker and more vulnerable before its adversaries to a degree unimaginable a decade ago. Such deeply, deeply irresponsible men.

Update: More from John Judis: "Putting Country Last."

Interesting Ha'aretz profile of Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

As my Hill friend said yesterday, the bailout seems to be in more trouble than some earlier reports indicated. Here's his latest take.

WP: "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has made a crackdown on gift-giving to state officials a centerpiece of her ethics reform agenda, has accepted gifts valued at $25,367 from industry executives, municipalities and a cultural center whose board includes officials from some of the largest mining interests in the state, a review of state records shows."

WP: Colbert briefly suspends his show, in line with McCain.

MJ: IAEA's Syrian contact assassinated, ElBaradei tells closed door meeting in Vienna.

The Guardian's Jonathan Steele: "Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites but was told by President George W Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian."

BBC: Israeli academic critic of settlement expansion wounded in bomb attack, police suspect ultra nationalist Israelis responsible. "Reports say police investigators found posters in Mr Sternhell's neighbourhood offering a reward of $320,000 to anyone who kills a member of Peace Now, an Israeli group that campaigns against settlement building to which the academic belongs. Mr Sternhell, a Holocaust survivor, is best known for his work on the history of fascism."

More here and here: "Professor Ze'ev Sternhell, the victim of a pipe bomb attack at his home on Thursday, warned that 'if this act was not committed by a deranged person but by someone who represents a political view, then this is the beginning of the disintegration of democracy.'"

Miami Herald:

An Army prosecutor has resigned from the Guantanamo war court in a crisis of conscience over plans to try a young Afghan accused of throwing a grenade rather than settle the case out of court, according to an affidavit filed with the court Wednesday.

Army Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, a reservist from the Pittsburgh area, becomes the fourth known prosecutor to quit the Pentagon's controversial military commissions, which the Bush administration set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

A former chief war crimes prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, quit last year, saying he had been pressured to rush trials ahead of the national elections and to sacrifice transparency.

Now, the showdown has taken place in the case of an alleged Afghan foot soldier, Mohammed Jawad, who has garnered little attention, and was expected back before Army Judge Stephen Henley on Thursday for pre-trial hearings. Jawad, about 23, is accused of attempted murder for allegedly throwing a grenade in a Kabul bazaar in December 2002, wounding two U.S. soldiers and their translator.

But the case has taken on increasing significance inside the Defense Department. Testimony at the war court indicated that Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, former legal advisor at the war court, currently an operations chief, had a particular interest in the case, and cast it as one that could "capture the imagination of the American people."

Then, the trial judge ordered a top-level review of the case and the exclusion of Hartmann as legal advisor -- after Army Brig. Gen. Gregory Zanetti, the deputy commander of the prison camps, described Hartmann as employing a "spray and pray" strategy of charging war court cases.

Now Vandeveld has written a four-page sworn declaration in which he says there is a risk of the case going to trial without the defense obtaining all "potentially exculpatory evidence."

"In my view," he wrote, "evidence we have an obligation as prosecutors and officers of the court has not been made available to the defense." ....

Must read.

Update: A reader notes that Anthony Lewis' 25 September 2008 NYRB "Official American Sadism" article: "described at length the trials and tribulations of Mohammed Jawad during his 6-year ordeal at the hands of his American captors. Detailed are the various tortures visited upon Jawad, many occurring AFTER he tried to commit suicide. These practices were brought to light by his defense counsel, Maj. David Frakt, USAF-R, during pre-trial hearings earlier this summer. From Lewis's article: 'Officers at Guantanamo said they did not believe {Jawad} had any valuable intelligence information, and he was not even questioned during the 'frequent flyer program (a technique wherein Jawad - every three hours - was shackled and removed to another cell...112 times in 14 days). 'The most likely scenario', Major Frakt said, 'is that they simply decided to torture Mr. Jawad for sport, to teach him a lesson, perhaps to make an example of him to others.'"

MJ: Obama's intelligence brain-trust:

... But even though matters such as politicized intelligence, torture, domestic surveillance, and preventing terror attacks are among the most controversial issues of the Bush legacy, intelligence has remained largely a stealth topic in the presidential campaign.

Intelligence advisers to Obama say the topic's relative absence may actually be appropriate: "This is not an issue for the campaign," says one former White House official now advising Obama. Adds a former senior CIA operations officer who is also a member of the campaign's intelligence working group: "The only way we can correct it is to have a bipartisan, national interest audit of what it's currently doing, figure out what works, and make the best recommendations and implement them. And you don't want to see this pitfall the election."

Aside from Brennan, the campaign's intelligence working group (which is coordinated by former National Security Council official Rand Beers) spans a range of national security professionals who have served in senior leadership, operational and legal positions in the National Security Council, CIA, and defense intelligence agencies, including many who served both Republican and Democratic administrations. Among them: Former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin, former senior CIA operations officers Art Brown and Jack DeVine, retired Ltn. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, retired Ltn. Gen. and former head of the Defense Human Intelligence Service Donald Kerrick, former CIA lawyer and special advisor to the CIA director Kenneth Levitt, former CIA general counsel Jeff Smith, former CIA Near East division chief Robert Richer, and former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. Former CIA lawyer and Clinton-era NSC official Mary McCarthy has stepped back from her previous role coordinating the group due to private sector work demands. One participant described the group's priorities for a prospective Obama administration to me this way: "The intelligence community is a complete mess. Intelligence reform—try to fix it. Improve morale. CIA is dysfunctional. Rectify a lot of stuff that was done by executive order in secrecy, and bring more transparency. Better protection of civil liberties. Improve oversight of CIA on these activities."

Meanwhile, national security experts in the McCain camp characterize their candidate as a Washington veteran who doesn't need a working group to advise him on the issues. "John has been in town for three plus decades," says Gary Schmitt, a former executive director of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board who occasionally contributes advice to the McCain campaign. "McCain is his own guy and he has been his own guy. McCain can pick up the phone and call [former deputy secretary of state] Rich Armitage whenever he wants."

But some of Obama's intelligence advisors say their experience with the recent administration has shown that leaders who think they already know it all can lead to disaster. "Old man Bush was a great guy," says one veteran intelligence officer now supporting Obama, who requested anonymity. "He was truly interested and sensitive to intelligence. But this Bush administration has done terrible damage to the intelligence business. They have operated a perpetual campaign, treated intelligence as a political tool, and never fully appreciated why it must be non-partisan and objective and can't be tampered with." ...

Some press reports that Senate Dems have reached a deal with Paulsen, that could be announced Thursday.

A Hill friend says, "Look, we will see, it will be very interesting. One of two things is possible, but not both: either 1) the leadership knows what it is doing, and has some reason to be confident that their plan will pass (they've done whip counts etc) .... OR 2) the leadership has disastrously failed to understand where the caucus stands, despite getting chewed out by rank and file members, they just don't realize that members are really and truly going to vote against it. And that will be an all around disaster. One can hope they know something I do not, and there will be no disaster." Can vulnerable incumbents vote for it?

NYT: Concern that one million who lost homes in foreclosure in past two years may lose vote.

Politico: In interview with Katie Couric, Palin can't name any examples of McCain backing more regulation in his 26 year Senate career.

NYT: " Senior White House officials played a central role in deliberations in the spring of 2002 about whether the Central Intelligence Agency could legally use harsh interrogation techniques while questioning an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah, according to newly released documents. In meetings during that period, the officials debated specific interrogation methods that the C.I.A. had proposed to use on Qaeda operatives held at secret C.I.A. prisons overseas, the documents show. The meetings were led by Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, and attended by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top administration officials."

New NBC/WSJ poll: Doubts about Palin: "The new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll will be released at 6:30 pm ET, but here's an early look at one set of numbers: Forty-nine percent say that Palin is unqualified to be president if the need arises, compared with 40 percent who say she's qualified. By contrast, 64 percent believe Biden is qualified to be president, versus just 21 percent who disagree."

Mike Tomasky: "Think about the kind of mind that's required to even think up something like this. I could never think up something like this. Most average people, of whatever political persuasion, could never do it. Some pundits are talking about desperation and Hail Mary passes and so on, but that doesn't really begin to describe the deviousness at work here. This is like a man who gets caught cheating on his wife and then, with his back against the wall and with confrontation looming, goes out and intentionally wrecks the car, contriving to break a few ribs and get rushed to the hospital, all to delay the inevitable conflict and in the cynical knowledge that, in front of the doctors and until the wounds are bound, the wife will be forced to offer sympathy."

IPS: Group behind controversial DVD ID'd.

A Hill friend tells me the bailout is in fatal trouble with Congressional rank and file.

Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor at Mother Jones: On Iraq's northern front, echoes of Georgia?

Pro Publica's Eric Umansky interviews the WP's Barton Gellman about his Cheney investigation:

There are a few lines in the book saying national security staff on the White House, and tell me if I’m correct here, were having their email bcc’d to the vice president’s staff.

That is correct. It was not just emails either. It was for certain sensitive documents. They travel by hand on paper and not electronically.

If somebody on the national security council staff wrote a memo to say Condi Rice when she was the national security advisor, the procedure was, it would be sent to her, she had an executive secretary and an administrative assistant and it would also go to the deputy national security advisor. What you didn’t know was that it was going to be copied automatically to Cheney’s office. Same for emails, they were blind copied.

Now if you sent an individual email to an individual, that didn’t go to Cheney, but a lot of the business is done with little working groups.

People were on the mailing list secretly is what it amounts to.

Right, there was an open mailing list and then there was a blind mailing list. Now, it didn’t go the other way. If someone wrote an email inside the vice president’s office to someone else or to a working group it did not ever get to the NSC staff. [...]

To what degree has Cheney’s vision of executive power opened a Pandora’s box? Is it difficult to roll back? McCain and Obama have been reasonably vague in terms of their visions for executive power. To what degree does it influence future administrations?

These things do ebb and flow. Cheney saw himself as restoring executive authority. I think it might be more accurate to say he was asserting executive supremacy. He has laid in place a lot of nuggets sort of buried around the federal register and in executive orders and regulations and procedures that a future president could use to do as Cheney thinks the future president should do, which is to act on his own. That is to say the executive is indivisible, is unitary, and it is none of Congress’s or the judiciary’s business how the president executes law.

I doubt, whoever the next president is, that that person is going to spend a lot of time and effort and energy to root out and to eliminate these new claims of power because first of all people don’t usually do that when they are sitting in a chair and say, “Well, you know, I think I like a little less power please.”

And even if they don’t think it is something they will ever want to use, why devote staff resources and possibly political capital to undoing something that to you is a very secondary matter. I have a feeling these nuggets will be there for a while.

But, part of Cheney’s legacy is that he over reached and got pushed back. The Supreme Court said, for the first time, that the president needs permission from Congress to have military tribunals, for example. Even though Congress turned right around and said, “well okay, you go right ahead,” that doesn’t mean that the presidency is not constrained by this.

So ironically, precedents of limitations of power have been set.

Yeah, precedents have been set that are not good for the presidency or for the unilateral declaration of executive power. Sometimes Cheney’s tactical victories led to strategic defeats.

The LAT's Steve Lopez in Wasilla introduces the concept of "young Earth" creationism: "Munger, who writes the Progressive Alaska blog, told me Palin is not just a creationist, but a 'young Earth' creationist who believes that man and dinosaurs once shared the planet, and that the world will end in her lifetime. Palin-tology, you might call it."

Reuters: "North Korea has expelled U.N. monitors from its plutonium-making nuclear plant, officials said on Wednesday, accelerating moves to restart the basis of an atom bomb project it had renounced under a disarmament-for-aid deal. The Stalinist state had said on Friday it was working to reactivate the sprawling Yongbyon reactor complex, which it had been dismantling since last November under a disarmament-for-aid deal with five powers that has gone awry. Olli Heinonen, the International Atomic Energy Agency's head of non-proliferation safeguards, revealed the major setback in a special briefing to a closed meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors in Vienna. 'There are no more seals and surveillance equipment in place at the (plutonium) reprocessing facility,' IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said, referring to the most proliferation-sensitive installation at Yongbyon."

New WP/ABC News poll:

Turmoil in the financial industry and growing pessimism about the economy have altered the shape of the presidential race, giving Democratic nominee Barack Obama the first clear lead of the general-election campaign over Republican John McCain, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News national poll.

Just 9 percent of those surveyed rated the economy as good or excellent, the first time that number has been in single digits since the days just before the 1992 election. Just 14 percent said the country is heading in the right direction, equaling the record low on that question in polls dating back to 1973.

More voters trust Obama to deal with the economy, and he currently has a big edge as the candidate who is more in tune with the economic problems Americans now face. He also has a double-digit advantage on handling the current problems on Wall Street, and as a result, there has been a rise in his overall support. The poll found that, among likely voters, Obama now leads McCain by 52 percent to 43 percent. Two weeks ago, in the days immediately following the Republican National Convention, the race was essentially even, with McCain at 49 percent and Obama at 47 percent.

The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen also notes this, which is striking when you think that at one point McCain was running on the concept of straight talk and more broadly, honor: "The poll asked respondents which candidate is 'more honest and trustworthy.' Obama enjoys a healthy, double-digit lead, 47% to 36%. Just as importantly, this is a recent development. When voters were asked this same question about candidate honesty in mid-July, Obama and McCain were about tied (Obama had a three-point lead). The same poll asked the same question in August, and again, they were about tied (Obama led by just one point). Shortly after the Republican convention, McCain was perceived as more trustworthy by six points. And now, that trend has completely reversed, and Obama leads by 11 points on honesty and trustworthiness."

Palin and Henry K.:

Ms. Palin wrapped up the day with Mr. Kissinger, where Mr. Biegun said the two discussed China, Iran and Russia, among other things. As photographers were led in to take pictures of them, Mr. Kissinger could be heard saying that he gave someone — just who was unintelligible — “a lot of credit for what he did in Georgia,” according to the reporter who was allowed to watch.

“Good, good,” Ms. Palin said. “And you’ll give me more insight on that, also, huh? Good.”

The photographers were ushered out. When Ms. Palin emerged from the building, a news producer asked her how it went, and she mouthed the words, “It was great.”

Politico:

There was a time when Dick Cheney could turn back a Republican revolt on Capitol Hill.

That time is gone.

The vice president traveled to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to silence a chorus of GOP complaints about Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700 billion plan. But House Republicans who walked into a closed-door meeting with Cheney steaming over the plan walked out just as angry, and they described what happened in between as both “a bloodbath” and “an unmitigated disaster.”

Texas Rep. Joe Barton took the unusual step of telling reporters gathered outside the Cannon Caucus Room that he had confronted Cheney “respectfully” about his concerns — a level of dissent Republicans once considered heresy under the Bush administration.

Another lawmaker present — who spoke on the condition of anonymity — said that Cheney, White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and economic policy adviser Keith Hennessey “were in worse shape when they left than when they came in.”

I am not sure when this photo is from, but my goodness, he has aged, he looks a decade older.

Roll Call: McCain campaign manager Rick Davis lobby firm on Freddie Mac payroll for $15k a month, since 2005, until last month. More from the NYT:

The disclosure undercuts a statement by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years. ...

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.

Mr. Davis took a leave from Davis & Manafortfor the presidential campaign, but as a partner and equity-holder continues to benefit from its income. No one at Davis & Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.

AP:

A high-ranking Iranian air force officer facing charges of trying to export U.S. missile parts to Iran was released from custody after a Thai court denied his extradition.

Jamshid Ghassemi, 57, was released after a Thai appellate court upheld rejection of the U.S. extradition request, U.S. authorities were told by Thai officials last week.

"We were disappointed with the Thai court's decision," said Cynthia Brown, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. "We believe that the law and facts supported the extradition of Mr. Ghassemi to the United States."

The episode comes as the U.S. is seeking to extradite alleged Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout, dubbed "The Merchant of Death," on charges of conspiring to kill Americans. A U.S. agent testified in a Thai court Monday that Bout is one of the world's biggest arms dealers.

It also comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Tehran as Iran pursues a nuclear program in defiance of U.S. and international demands.

Ghassemi was charged in October 2006 by a federal grand jury in San Diego with conspiring to buy 12 accelerometers. The model of the Honeywell International Inc. devices he allegedly sought are for missile guidance and banned for export without permission from the State Department.

The complaint says Ghassemi wired $70,000 from a bank in Romania to San Diego to pay for the devices, which were to be sent to Bucharest. He was arrested in Bangkok in November 2006 and faced up to 45 years prison if convicted of weapons export and money laundering charges.

A spokesman for the Thai Foreign Ministry, Tharit Charungvat, said the court's ruling should be respected.

"The decision was reached after a due court process during which every party involved was given a chance to present their cases," he said. "There was an appeal process which gave both sides another chance to present their evidence."

Court documents are not public in Thailand, but a defense affidavit in Thailand obtained by The Associated Press makes several arguments for Ghassemi's release, all of them challenged by U.S. authorities.

Ghassemi's Thai attorney said that the U.S. filed extradition documents too late, that Ghassemi would be tortured in the U.S. to reveal military secrets, and that the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Thailand exempts "military" offenses.

The case is unusual because the devices are far more sophisticated than typical arms trafficking cases involving Iran, which typically involve parts to replace its aging fleet of jets that the U.S. supplied before shah's fall in 1979, according to U.S. law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

One U.S. official said Ghassemi was a significant player because the technology he sought was so sophisticated.

"They are extremely sensitive items. That's why they're so tightly controlled," the official said.

U.S. officials said the parts were likely intended for Iran's Shahab short- and medium-range missiles.

The case is also striking because Ghassemi was a high-ranking military officer in Iran, U.S. authorities said. [...]

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began investigating after an agency source said he met Ghassemi about five times in Tehran to discuss buying aircraft parts for Iran and suggested shipping them from the U.S. through Dubai, South Africa or South Korea, U.S. authorities said. They said Ghassemi told the source he could pocket at least $400,000 in six months. ....

Worth reading: John Nagl on lessons for Afghanistan from Iraq.

Politico:

Journalists, displeased with Sarah Palin’s efforts to restrict their access to her, are threatening not to cover her events surrounding the United Nations conference here unless they're allowed more access.

The unfolding boycott is the latest development in a rocky relationship between Palin’s handlers and the press, in which the campaign has sought to tightly control her interactions with the media.

The campaign had originally indicated that the print reporters following her campaign would be among the small group of journalists allowed to attend the so-called “pool sprays” before Palin’s meetings with dignitaries on the sidelines of the U.N. meetings.

The sprays are basically glorified photo opportunities during which journalists can snap photos and film footage and – if they’re lucky – shout a question or two at Palin and her company before she adjourns for private meetings. On Tuesday, those meetings were to include Afghan President Karzai and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

But the imbroglio began developing Tuesday morning when Palin’s handlers informed the small print press contingent covering her campaign that the print reporter designated to cover the events, Elizabeth Holmes of the Wall Street Journal, would not be allowed to cover the sprays.

The campaign’s reasoning was that there were not going to be questions or statements at the sprays, so they were only appropriate for photographers and cameramen.

The campaign also at first moved to bar CNN, the television network designated for pool duty, from sending its editorial producer – basically a hybrid print/video journalist – though the campaign budged when the network threatened to withhold its cameras as well.

With this Update: "UPDATE: After shutting the print pooler, Holmes, out of the spray before Palin’s meeting with Afghan President Karzai—'rudely,' according to Holmes—the campaign relented and agreed to let her cover the sprays before Palin’s next two meetings, with Colombian President Uribe and Kissinger. Updated story forthcoming."

AP: Iraqi lawmaker may be sentenced to death for attending Israeli counterterrorism conference last week. Previously, in 2004, Mithal Al-Alusi "was expelled from Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress for his earlier visit to Israel, also for a terrorism conference."

George Will: "So, is not McCain's party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale. Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary. That non sequitur might be politically necessary, but remember that government control of capital is government control of capitalism. Does McCain have qualms about this, or only quarrels?"

Politico's Ben Smith: "Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called 'liars.' They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record. But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy."

WP: All Bush's men and women steering the McCain/Palin campaign:

... Others, including some sympathetic Republicans, have begun to quietly question whether McCain and Palin are well served by strategists so firmly anchored in the Bush establishment when the candidates are presenting themselves as a "team of mavericks" and agents of change. One Republican with long-standing ties to the Bush administration described the situation as a paradox in which Palin is especially vulnerable.

"If the McCain campaign is trying to prop up Palin as its change agent, and its inoculation against the 'third Bush term' rap, then why on earth is she surrounded by a cast of Bush advisers?" said the Republican loyalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Since she's been selected, every single one of the senior aides that she's brought on board had prominent roles in Bush's White House or on his campaigns, or both."

While Schmidt has imposed a degree of discipline on the campaign that did not exist during McCain's dark hours in the primary season -- and Palin seems to have taken to that structure -- other strategists with reputations for independent thinking who once surrounded McCain have been sidelined. John Weaver, who used to serve as McCain's top political adviser, is among them. He said McCain's reliance on Bush vets is logical.

"If you're going to fill a campaign out with experienced people, the last two general elections were won by someone named Bush," Weaver said. "Where else would they have come from?"

The ranks of the McCain-Palin team are now full of those veterans. Nicolle Wallace, Mark Wallace's wife, was communications director at the White House and is now offering senior-level communications expertise to both McCain and Palin (and joined Palin on her Alaska trip). Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who served as chief economist for Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, is now McCain's domestic policy adviser (and accompanied Palin to Alaska as well). Bush confidant Mark McKinnon stopped formally advising McCain once Obama became the Democratic nominee -- but he, too, is continuing to advise the group and crafted Cindy McCain's convention speech. A former Bush speechwriter, Matthew Scully, wrote Palin's convention speech.

Worth reading: John McQuaid at The American Prospect on the demise of the Washington news bureau. More.

Military Times' Sean Naylor:

Pakistani military forces flew repeated helicopter missions into Afghanistan to resupply the Taliban during a fierce battle in June 2007, according to a Marine lieutenant colonel, who says his information is based on multiple U.S. and Afghan intelligence reports.

The revelation by Lt. Col. Chris Nash, who commanded an embedded training team in eastern Afghanistan from June 2007 to March 2008, adds a new twist to the controversy over a U.S. special operations raid into Pakistan Sept. 3.

Pakistani officials strongly protested that raid, with a statement issued by the foreign ministry calling it a “gross violation of Pakistan’s territory.”

But fewer than 15 months earlier, Pakistani forces were flying cross-border missions in the other direction to resupply a “base camp” in Nangarhar Province occupied by fighters from the Taliban, al-Qaida and the Hezb-i-Islami faction led by Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Nash told Army Times in a Sept. 17 telephone interview.

He had previously alluded to the episode in a PowerPoint briefing he had prepared to help coalition forces headed to Afghanistan. The briefing, titled “Observations and Opinions IRT Operations in Afghanistan by a Former ETT OIC” and dated August 2008, has circulated widely in military circles. Military Times obtained a copy.

Nash said his embedded training team, ETT 2-5, and their allies from the Afghan Border Police’s 1st Brigade fought “a significant fight” in late June 2007 in the Agam Tengay and Wazir Tengay valleys in the Tora Bora mountains of southern Nangarhar — the same region in which al-Qaida forces fought a retreat into Pakistan from prepared defenses in the winter of 2001-2002.

“I had six [Marine] guys on a hill,” Nash said. “They weren’t surrounded, but in the traditional sense they might have been.”

At a critical point in the battle, the Pakistanis flew several resupply missions to a Taliban base about 15 to 20 kilometers inside Afghanistan, Nash said. None of the Marines witnessed the helicopter flights during the four days they were there, he said in a Sept. 19 e-mail. Rather, the supply flights had been reported to them by Afghan soldiers and local civilians in the village of Tangay Kholl.

Summarizing the reports, he said, “A helo flew in the valley, went over to where we knew there was a base camp, landed [and] 15 minutes later took off,” adding that this happened “three different times.”

The Afghan government’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, had sources in the camp who confirmed that the helicopters were on a resupply mission, according to Nash.

“From NDS sources that we had in the opposing camp, [we know] they were offloading supplies,” he said. ...

LAT: Alaskans angered that Palin is off-limits. "'Why did the McCain campaign take over the governor's office?' the Anchorage Daily News demanded in an editorial Saturday. 'Is it too much to ask that Alaska's governor speak for herself, directly to Alaskans, about her actions as Alaska's governor?'"

NYT: "China’s milk scandal worsened again Sunday as the government announced that the number of infants hospitalized after consuming contaminated baby formula had risen to nearly 13,000, more than double the previous tally."

NYT: "Senator John McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say."

WP: "Tucked in a Tehran Neighborhood, One Man's Temple of Modern Art."

WP: Olmert steps down as premier of Israel.

Reuters: South Africa's Mbeki steps down.

AP: Olmert to resign today.

NYT: Stealth transition teams.

Federal judge rules that Cheney must preserve VP records for posterity. He claims the office of the vice presidency is not part of the executive branch.

Newsweek's Mark Hosenball: Palin's pipeline to nowhere.

NYT: Truck bomb kills 40 at Islamabad Marriott.

St. Petersburg (Fla) Times' political editor Adam C. Smith:

Five weeks ago, the St. Petersburg Times convened a group of Tampa Bay voters who were undecided about the presidential election. Their strong distrust of Barack Obama suggested it was a group ripe for John McCain to win over.

Not anymore. The group has swung dramatically, if unenthusiastically, toward Democrat Obama. Most of them this week cited the same reason: Sarah Palin.

"The one thing that frightens me more than anything else are the ideologues. We've seen too many," said 80-year-old Air Force veteran Donn Spegal, a lifelong Republican from St. Petersburg, who sees McCain's new running mate as the kind of "wedge issue" social conservative that has made him disenchanted with his party.

"I'm truly offended by Palin,'' said Republican Philinia Lehr, 37, of Largo, a full-time mother with a nursing degree who voted for George Bush in 2004. ...

Nate Silver: "The fact is that Obama is in a stronger position now than he was immediately before the conventions." Meantime, I am taking part in this Politics "Online 100" daily polling panel, run by PoliticsHome, and including Arianna Huffington, Karl Rove, Joe Klein, Joe Trippi, Mike Allen, Mark Halperin, Mark Blumenthal, Dana Milbank, Jonah Goldberg, John Fund, Jake Tapper, Chuck Todd, Marc Ambinder and Andrew Sullivan. Not sure panel members' political junky status makes the results that much more meaningful.

JTA: Palin disinvited from Iran rally. Earlier, Hillary Clinton had rescinded her acceptance to speak at the rally after she learned Palin had been invited.

WP: "Putnam Investments has closed a $12.3 billion money-market fund to limit losses to its investors, the large mutual fund company said today. The highly unusual announcement is the latest sign that tremendous financial pressures are now threatening even some of the safest kinds of investments."

Interesting Nate Silver analysis of trends in the presidential race, as the dust settles, including this: "McCain's other problem is that Sarah Palin may no longer be an asset to the ticket; in fact, she may be a liability. Averaging the candidates' favorability scores across four recent polls -- as one should always try and do when looking at favorability numbers since they can vary greatly depending on question wording -- Palin now has the worst net scores among the four principals in the race ... Palin's average favorability score is now a +7 -- about 10 points behind Joe Biden's numbers. Perhaps more importantly, these numbers are 10-15 points behind where Palin's numbers were just a week or so ago. If voters come in not knowing very much about a candidate -- and the more they see of the candidate, the less they like of the candidate -- this is a major concern."

Ha'aretz take on Tzipi Livni Kadima primary victory. And polls didn't predict how close it would be.

MJ: Federal action against Iranian procurement network suggests deadly Iraq IED components of US origin.

CBS: "Obama leads McCain 54 percent to 38 percent among all women. He holds a two point edge among white women, a 21 percentage point swing in Obama's direction from one week ago. ... [Palin's] favorable rating among women has fallen 11 points in the past week."

This NYT take on same CBS/NYT poll interesting too:

Despite an intense effort to distance himself from the way his party has done business in Washington, Senator John McCain is seen by voters as far less likely to bring change to Washington than Senator Barack Obama. He is widely viewed as a “typical Republican” who would continue or expand President Bush’s policies, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Polls taken after the Republican convention suggested that Mr. McCain had enjoyed a surge of support — particularly among white women after his selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate — but the latest poll indicates “the Palin effect” was, at least so far, a limited burst of interest. The contest appeared to be roughly where it was before the two conventions and before the vice-presidential selections: Mr. Obama had the support of 48 percent of registered voters, compared with 43 percent for Mr. McCain, a difference within the poll’s margin of sampling error, and statistically unchanged from the tally in the last New York Times/CBS News poll, in mid-August.

AP: "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has canceled an appearance at a New York rally next week after organizers blindsided her by inviting Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, aides to the senator said Tuesday. Several American Jewish groups plan a major rally outside the United Nations on Sept. 22 to protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

Update: Totally unrelated joke someone sent 'round today:

This reminds me of the story of the Yeshiva University rowing team. They were practicing in secret, and couldn't figure out why their times were so lousy. So they sent a spy to Cambridge to watch the Harvard crew practice.

The spy came back looking grim. "Those tricky, tricky bastards! They've got eight people rowing, and only one yelling."

This from Gail Collins to David Brooks interesting:

...When I hear Palin talk I remember a lot of state politicians I’ve run into over the years who are often very smart, but who see everything in terms of their particular turf. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton had never been elected to anything outside their states, but they had a national vision by the time they ran for president. And all those months of campaigning around the country stretched that understanding that whatever happened in Georgia or Arkansas might not really be relevant to what happened in Washington.

But all Palin’s got is Alaska. Energy is supposed to be her key issue, but her energy policy is about more drilling in Alaska. Her reform instincts are all about fighting the Republican Party in Alaska, which is unique unto itself. And like George W. Bush, she’s been forged in a state where the Legislature is rather bipartisan. Which creates a totally inaccurate vision of how one could operate in Washington.

Sarah Palin: Alaskan solutions to American problems.

Politico: Republican Jewish Coalition sponsored anti-Obama poll.

A Washington lawyer reader sends this:

Gabriel Nathan Schwartz was a Colorado Delegate to the Republican National Convention. During the convention, Schwarz, 29, wasn't shy about talking to the media. ... In an interview filmed the afternoon of Sept. 3 and posted on the Web site LinkTV.org, Schwartz was candid about how he envisioned change under a McCain presidency. "Less taxes and more war," he said, smiling. He said the U.S. should "bomb the hell" out of Iran because the country threatens Israel.

Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources. "We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money," he said. "We deserve reimbursement."

A few hours after giving that interview, Schwartz took a hooker back to his hotel room, where she drugged him and stole more than $120,000 in cash and jewelry.

In case you're wondering what anyone would be doing with $120k in cash and jewelry at a hotel, Schwartz said the haul was closer to $60,000, and was mostly accounted for by his own jewels: "The haul included a $30,000 watch, a $20,000 ring, a necklace valued at $5,000, earrings priced at $4,000 and a Prada belt valued at $1,000, police said."

Mullen in Pakistan. NYT: "The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, America’s top military official, made a hastily arranged visit to Pakistan on Tuesday for talks about recent incursions by American commandos based in neighboring Afghanistan. [...] His visit to Pakistan — his fifth as chairman of the joint chiefs — was added after he had left Washington, according to an American military official. The American Embassy in Islamabad had specifically requested Admiral Mullen’s presence to personally brief Pakistan’s civil and military leadership on the American military’s activities along the border, the official said."

MJ: A Republican strategist's take on the race. Palin helped significantly in the short term, but McCain may have peaked too early; the Bradley effect is real, but in the end, new voters will come through for Obama.

Worth reading: Todd Gitlin on "The wars of John McCain."

Bradley Burston: "Even my Israeli cab driver, a non-American through and through, knew more about the Bush Doctrine than Sarah Palin. And that is cause for serious concern. ... This is what is truly frightening about Sarah Palin. There is something in the smugness, the faith-based rigidity, the dismissiveness, that suggests that once again, we may have a national leader who knows better how to divide than to rule."

Ha'aretz: Five former U.S. Secretaries of State urge talks with Iran.

WSJ's Washington Wire: Pathological? or is the problem with the speech writers?

Abu Muqawama is back, looking at Andrew Bacevich's Atlantic piece on the Petraeus doctrine.

Steve LeVine: Kazakh Oil: Russian brinksmanship could imperil flow of oil and money from Caspian to Europe.

David Brooks: "Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness."

Paul Krugman on MSNBC: Phil Gramm as Treasury Secretary is just the guy to put America into another Great Depression. EJ Dionne: Whose elitism problem now? Jackie Calmes: John McCain struck a populist tone Monday, but his record suggests an embrace of deregulation.

Former acting attorney general James Comey's resignation letter to Bush over NSA domestic spying showdown with Cheney. "Over the last two weeks, I have encountered just such an apocalyptic situation, where I and the Department have been asked to be part of something that is fundamentally wrong."

More: "All hell was breaking loose at Justice."

Unexpectedly, Ashcroft roused himself. Previous accounts have said he backed his deputy. He did far more than that. Ashcroft told the president's men he never should have certified the program in the first place.

"You drew the circle so tight I couldn't get the advice that I needed," Ashcroft said, according to Comey. He knew things now, the attorney general said, that he should have been told before. Spent, he sank back in his bed. [...]

It has been widely reported that Bush executed the March 11 order with a blank space over the attorney general's signature line. That is not correct. For reasons both symbolic and practical, the vice president's lawyer could not tolerate an empty spot where a mutinous subordinate should have signed. Addington typed a substitute signature line: "Alberto R. Gonzales."

What Addington wrote for Bush that day was more transcendent than that. He drew up new language in which the president relied on his own authority to certify the program as lawful. Bush expressly overrode the Justice Department and any act of Congress or judicial decision that purported to constrain his power as commander in chief. Only Richard M. Nixon, in an interview after leaving the White House in disgrace, claimed authority so nearly unlimited.

The specter of future prosecutions hung over the program, now that Justice had ruled it illegal.

"Pardon was in the air," said one of the lawyers involved.

It was possible to construct a case, he said, in which those who planned and carried out the program were engaged in a criminal conspiracy. That would be tendentious, this lawyer believed, but with a change of government it could not be ruled out.

"I'm sure when we leave office we're all going to be hauled up before congressional committees and grand juries," Addington told one colleague in disgust. ...

NYT: In frantic day, Wall Street teeters. " ... Administration officials acknowledged this week that more bank failures are inevitable, and the main protection for depositors — the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — is likely to exhaust the reserves it has built over the years from bank insurance premiums." WSJ: "The American financial system was shaken to its core on Sunday. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. faced the prospect of liquidation, and Merrill Lynch & Co. was close to a deal to sell itself to Bank of America Corp."

FT: Wall Street banks fight for life.

More.

Politico's Ben Smith: "Sen. Barack Obama raised $66 million in the month of August, making it his best month ever and the best in American political history."

From his forthcoming book The Angler, the WP's Barton Gellman with the inside-the-room play by play on Cheney and Addington trying to intimidate the NSA and Justice Department over NSA domestic spying even though the lawyers had come to believe it had no legal basis.

Bloomberg: "McCain-Palin Crowd-Size Estimates Not Backed by Officials." MSNBC: Wheels come off 'straight talk' express.

WP: "Aides to Gov. Sarah Palin are scrambling to explain details of her only trip outside North America -- which, according to a new report, did not include Iraq, as the McCain-Palin campaign had initially claimed."

WP: Khan nuclear ring was more advanced than thought, UN says. "The IAEA said it was unable to determine the origin of some of the nuclear material found in Libya. The acknowledgment underscored concerns, long held among nuclear weapons experts, that parts of the network may continue to operate undetected."

Good WSJ piece on Gene Sharp, theorist on nonviolent revolution. Towards the end, the article describes a disagreement between Sharp and his chief funder, the latter, it seems, wanting to step up efforts to use Sharp's ideas as an instrument of, or at least far more closely aligned with, US government foreign policy goals. Sharp disagreed, at a cost of funding to his own institute. I wrote about Sharp and some of the wider network his work inspired back in 2001, and in the Globe here.

Campaign Realpolitik: A friend sends this excerpt from a Wash Post chat today with political reporter Chris Cillizza:

St. Louis: Since you're so "in the know," I was wondering if you've heard from Republicans -- off the record, of course -- that they're surprised by McCain's campaign. His traditionally Republican campaign is smart -- they win -- but it also seems so out of character for the old McCain we knew in 2000. What are Republican insiders thoughts on this change?

Chris Cillizza: Hmm, was that "in the know" comment a shot at me?

If so, well played.

Onto the question....

Republicans have always -- or at least for as long as the Fix memory lasts -- adopted a realpolitik approach to political campaigns.

That is, they use tactics that work -- whether or not they are "fair". Republicans are, typically, far less concerned about the approval of newspaper editorial boards and the so called "eastern media elite" than their Democratic counterparts, a fact that allows them almost total freedom when it comes to how they conduct their campaigns.

Democrats, on the other hand, always promise to play as down and dirty as Republicans but when the rubber hits the road tend to back off somewhat.

The one Democratic politician in recent memory who didn't follow that blueprint was Bill Clinton; it's no accident he is the last Democrat to win elected office.

In the frame of campaign politics, "fair" doesn't really matter. Effective and persuasive do.

I don't condone this but state it merely as fact.

The jury remains out on how the Obama campaign will approach the final seven weeks of the campaign.

He's right. In the frame of campaign politics, "fair" doesn't really matter. Effective and persuasive do.

LAT: "As part of an escalating offensive against extremist targets in Pakistan, the United States is deploying Predator aircraft equipped with sophisticated new surveillance systems that were instrumental in crippling the insurgency in Iraq, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials. The use of the specially equipped drones comes amid a fundamental shift in U.S. strategy in the area. After years of deferring to Pakistani authorities, the Bush administration is turning toward unilateral American military operations -- a gambit that could increase pressure on Islamic militants but risks alienating a country that has been a key counter-terrorism ally."

Center for Public Integrity: Newt Gingrich 527, funded by casino mogul and Freedom's Watch backer Sheldon Adelson, funds pro-McCain ads promoting "drill here, drill now."

James Fallows:

It is embarrassing to have to spell this out, but for the record let me explain why Gov. Palin's answer to the "Bush Doctrine" question -- the only part of the recent interview I have yet seen over here in China -- implies a disqualifying lack of preparation for the job.

Not the mundane job of vice president, of course, which many people could handle. Rather the job of potential Commander in Chief and most powerful individual on earth. [...]

What Sarah Palin revealed is that she has not been interested enough in world affairs to become minimally conversant with the issues. Many people in our great land might have difficulty defining the "Bush Doctrine" exactly. But not to recognize the name, as obviously was the case for Palin, indicates not a failure of last-minute cramming but a lack of attention to any foreign-policy discussion whatsoever in the last seven years. [...]

Go read.

The Stranger: Rx for Election Anxiety Disorder.

WP: "Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would 'defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.' The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion."

Update: More on "Palin, Iraq, and 9/11" from Colin Kahl at the Post.

Palin and the Bush Doctrine: Jon Chait and Atrios. I'm not sure what threshold of basic ideological "getting it" and competence Palin had to cross for people who are considering voting for her (I'm not talking about the decisive group of people who definitely are and the group of people who definitely are not), but not sure she flunked this for them. But was she good enough? The country has been conditioned for almost eight years to listen to Bush stumbling through public statements in a not very articulate way, and perhaps that lowered the bar a bit. And Cheney doesn't often bother to talk to the public. So perhaps she has something going for her in that regard: she's alert, she speaks in sentences, identified the threat from Islamic extremists, and it seems that she's capable of absorbing new material at least at a certain level. But she didn't demonstrate either any context for it all, or world view or consistency. She seemed like she had memorized most of her notes. Many people don't need her to operate at the level of a graduate seminar on the theories of containment and deterrence, although whether they would be nervous about her potentially having control over the nuclear button in a few months, we'll see.

Recent coverage of the Palin phenomenon has focused on the power of a kind of anti-intellectualism in American political life and the hunger for a kind of role model in the form of a high achieving "ordinary person" and hockey mom Palin represents. And no doubt there may be something in the way of resentment of ordinary people for the perceived values and privileges of the elites. But I also wonder, if the electorate did not find a comfort level in choosing Bush as president at some level in that Bush, while "folksy" and faithful, also came from a political dynasty and with a Yale and Harvard Business School education, however much he seemed to reject that Ivy League path. In other words, the electorate chose someone who was a kind of elite, even something in the way of an American aristocrat, packaging himself as folksy. And that Clinton, while coming from Arkansas and uniquely gifted at connecting and communicating with people, also clearly had a ferocious intellectual capacity, and a Yale law school degree and was a former Rhodes Scholar. The American electorate doesn't seem to warm to perceived elitist elites (say, Kerry), but they do seem to have a history of choosing highly intellectually high powered people who are capable at the same time of speaking to and relating to and connecting to ordinary people. Palin clearly has the ability to communicate with ordinary people and relate as one of them, and one would be foolish to doubt her intelligence, but I am genuinely not sure whether she has the demonstrated intellectual achievements or kitchen cabinet or legacy of highly trusted advisors in her circle or demonstrated track record in public life to reassure people at some subconscious level that she would be a capable leader of the free world should something happen to McCain. At the same time, while I guess most voters don't really know his resume, I am not sure Obama's demonstrated intellectual capacities and achievements (Harvard, Harvard Law Review) don't help him at some fundamental level as much as recent coverage of the Palin phenomenon would imply that the American electorate will only vote for people who went to community college and hunt wild game because they prefer to pick someone like them. In other words, I don't think that the American electorate has proved to be nearly as anti-intellectual and hostile to elites in practice as is being ascribed to them in recent weeks.

Worth Reading: Joe Klein on Sarah Palin's myth of America:

...The Republican Party's subliminal message seems stronger than ever this year because of the nature of the Democratic nominee for President. Barack Obama could not exist in the small-town America that Reagan fantasized. He's the product of what used to be called miscegenation, a scenario that may still be more terrifying than a teen daughter's pregnancy in many American households. Furthermore, he has thrived in the culture and economy that displaced Main Street America — an economy where people no longer work in factories or make things with their hands, but where lawyers and traders prosper unduly. (Of course, this is the economy the Republican Party has promoted — but facts are powerless in the face of a potent mythology.) Obama is the precise opposite of Mountain Man Todd Palin: an entirely urban creature. He lives within the hilarious conundrum of being both too "cosmopolitan" and intellectual for Republican tastes — at least as Rudy Giuliani described it — while also being the sort of fellow suspected of getting ahead by affirmative action.

The Democrats have no myth to counter this powerful Republican fantasy. They had to spend their convention on the biographical defensive: Barack Obama really is "one of us," speaker after speaker insisted. Really. Democrats do have the facts in their favor. Polls show that Americans agree with them on the issues. The Bush Administration has been a disaster on many fronts. The McCain campaign has provided only the sketchiest policy proposals; it has spent most of its time trying to divert the national conversation away from matters of substance. But Americans like stories more than issues. Policy proposals are useful in the theater of presidential politics only inasmuch as they illuminate character: far more people are aware of the fact that Palin put the state jet on eBay than know that she imposed a windfall-profits tax on oil companies as governor and was a porkaholic as mayor of Wasilla.

So Obama faces an uphill struggle between now and Nov. 4. .. His story of a boy whose father came from Kenya and mother from Kansas takes place in an America not yet mythologized, a country that is struggling to be born — a multiracial country whose greatest cultural and economic strength is its diversity. It is the country where our children already live and that our parents will never really know, a country with a much greater potential for justice and creativity — and perhaps even prosperity — than the sepia-tinted version of Main Street America. But that vision is not sellable right now to a critical mass of Americans. They live in a place, not unlike C. Vann Woodward's South, where myths are more potent than the hope of getting past the dour realities they face each day.

I'm not sure we yet know that in this basic future vs. the past template Klein lays out, that the power of the idea of America's future isn't as compelling for some meaningful constituency of the American electorate than is the myth of the past.

AP truthsquads McCain: "Republican presidential nominee John McCain, a self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is maverick, keeps saying his running mate, Sarah Palin, killed the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere when, in fact, she pulled her support only after the project became a political embarrassment. He accuses Democrat Barack Obama of calling Palin a pig, which did not happen. He says Obama would raise nearly everyone's taxes, when independent groups say 80 percent of families would get tax cuts instead."

ABC: Preview of Gibson/Palin interview:

On the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, Gov. Sarah Palin took a hard-line approach on national security and said that war with Russia may be necessary if that nation invades another country.

In her first of three interviews with ABC News's Charles Gibson and the only interview since being picked by Sen. John McCain as his Republican vice presidential nominee, Palin categorized the Russian invasion of Georgia as "unacceptable" and warned of the threats from Islamic terrorists and a nuclear Iran.

The Governor advocated the accession of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.

When asked by Gibson if under the NATO treaty, the U.S. would have to go to war if Russia again invaded Georgia, Palin responded: "Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

"And we've got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable," she told ABC News' Charles Gibson in an exclusive interview.

Watch Charles Gibson's exclusive interviews with Gov. Sarah Palin beginning tonight on "World News" and "Nightline." Charles Gibson will do three interviews with Palin today and tomorrow. More Friday on "Good Morning America " at 7 a.m. ET," "World News" and on "20/20," which will broadcast a one-hour special edition at 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT.

Palin advocated the accession of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, meaning that if attacked again in the future, the United States would be bound to go to war.

"I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help," she said.

Here are excerpts of her interview.

More here.

Grist graphs what increased offshore drilling would yield.

Worth reading: MJ Rosenberg and Richard Cohen on mourning the country we lost seven years ago. Cohen: "And in the seventh year after the fall, the dust and debris of the towers cleared. And it became plain at last what had been wrought — but not how the damage would be undone."

The compulsively readable Nate Silver: What's the Matter With Michigan? His blog is here.

Karl Rove: Obama can't win against Palin.

Update: Bill Clinton: "Obama will win and win handily."

Hmm. Palin quoted a writer in her "small town" national convention speech who got kicked out of the journal of the John Birch Society for being too anti-Semitic.

It's made for a New Yorker cartoon. When you get kicked out of the John Birch society for being too intolerant, where do you go?

A colleague notes that the Pegler quote used by Palin is referenced in a book by Pat Buchanan.

He also notes that the Republican Jewish Coalition is holding a seminar next Monday in suburban Virginia on pitching Palin to the Jews: "It will be the shortest seminar ever."

Update: More from Joe Klein, Daniel Levy and Ben Smith.

Update II: JTA reports that the person responsible for inserting Pegler is speechwriter Matt Scully: "We’ve asked to talk to Scully about why he chose to include the Pegler quote, if only anonymously attributed. In the meantime, the McCain camp says it’s 'unbelievably ridiculous' to think the quote suggests Palin has any sympathy for Pegler’s views, racist or otherwise."

Colin Kahl on Woodward, the surge, and false idols at the washingtonpost.com:

As a result of Bob Woodward's new book, "The War Within", a narrative is emerging that paints President Bush as a valiant hero who stood up to his Generals and insisted on the surge. In doing so, Bush fans argue, the president's "extraordinary decision" snatched victory from the jaws of ignominious defeat. As my Center for a New American Security colleague Derek Chollet suggests, it is possible that Woodward is simply being spun by the White House.

But even if Woodward's account is right, Bush hardly comes off as a hero. ...

Politico: GOP foreign policy experts cool on Palin.

About that Interior Department IG report, why did the Justice Department decline to prosecute? A Washington lawyer reader writes:

Every article I've read so far about the Interior Department sex-for-oil scandal reports that Gregory W. Smith "had inappropriate sexual relationships with two subordinates" or some such bland description of what actually happened.

This is the OIG report's description of what happened:

We interviewed yet another [Royalty in Kind] RIK employee who stated that in approximately 2005, Smith "insisted" that she ride in his car from one business establishment to another, and she agreed.

This employee stated that Smith "took the long way" between the two businesses, and during the drive, he asked to go to her nearby home, but she refused. "He wanted to have sex; I said no, " she recalled. Smith then asked if she would have oral sex with him, but she told him she did not want to. She said Smith then "basically forced [her] head into his lap," and she performed oral sex on him while he drove the car slowly. She said that she resisted Smith when he pulled her head into his lap, but Smith did not relent and continued to pull her head down. She said Smith was "real persistent" but not violent and she did not feel as though she had been sexually assaulted by Smith. She stated that it was difficult for her to have sex with Smith because he supervised her and RIK, but she "felt like [she] could get fired," so she did what Smith wanted. She said she was "scared" that if she did not do what Smith wanted her to do, it could possibly affect her employment. She said this was the only time she had ever had sex with Smith.

(OIG Report at page 20.)

That is not an "inappropriate sexual relationship" - that is a federal employee sexually assaulting a subordinate while on federal government business and it’s a felony. Whether the victim felt she was sexually assaulted or not is irrelevant. Sexual assault victims frequently make such statements - it’s a defense mechanism to deny what happened to them.

Only Fredo's Justice Department would decline to prosecute such a case.

Gail Collins worth reading.

NYT: "President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials. The classified orders signal a watershed for the Bush administration after nearly seven years of trying to work with Pakistan to combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and after months of high-level stalemate about how to challenge the militants’ increasingly secure base in Pakistan’s tribal areas. [...] The new orders were issued after months of debate inside the Bush administration about whether to authorize a ground campaign inside Pakistan. The debate, first reported by The New York Times in late June, at times pitted some officials at the State Department against parts of the Pentagon that advocated aggressive action against Qaeda and Taliban targets inside the tribal areas. Details about last week’s commando operation have emerged that indicate the mission was more intrusive than had previously been known. According to two American officials briefed on the raid, it involved more than two dozen members of the Navy Seals who spent several hours on the ground and killed about two dozen suspected Qaeda fighters in what now appeared to have been a planned attack against militants who had been conducting attacks against an American forward operating base across the border in Afghanistan."

Ghost ads.

Lipstick-Gate a manufactured crisis? I know, it's hard to believe, but Kevin Drum lays out the evidence. Here's more.

Update: NRO's Ramesh Ponnuru: "But the Republicans are coming across as whiny grievance-mongers. Don't they realize that this harping on ambiguous slights is what people hate about political correctness? It was bad enough when liberals were trying to destroy Palin. Now Republicans are trashing her brand. They're undermining the basis of her appeal as a different, tougher kind of female politician. Today has been worse than wasted."

More lipstick but not only from Obama's Letterman appearance.

NYT: Iraq cancels six no-bid oil service contracts to western bigs.

The Emperor's New Clothes. Fox: McCain embraces the staged rally.

More:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain cut short his first public appearance without running-mate Sarah Palin after chanting supporters of Democratic rival Barack Obama interrupted his speech.

After lunching with a roundtable of women at Philadelphia’s Down Home Diner, McCain shook hands with supporters and strode up to a podium to deliver a statement. But as he spoke, chants of “Obama, Obama, Obama” filled the room.

Reporters craned forward trying to hear the Arizona senator. Unfortunately for McCain — and possibly overlooked by aides who planned the event — a section of the diner opened up to a market where a crowd had gathered behind a cordon.

A large contingent of Obama supporters showed up, mixed with some who had bumper stickers reading “Democrats for McCain”.

“It’s time to leave the talk behind and start shaking up Washington and fixing our economy, taking care of the problems facing our families. We’re going to give a tax cut to every family with a child,” he said.

His words were barely audible.

Politico: CBS gets YouTube to remove misleading McCain webad featuring Couric. Newsweek: Factcheck.org also not amused.

WP: A Department of Interior IG report that people may actually read: "Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties engaged in illicit sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with and received numerous gifts from them, federal investigators said Wednesday. The alleged transgressions involve 13 Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington. Their alleged improprieties include rigging contracts, working part-time as private oil consultants, and having sexual relationships with _ and accepting golf and ski trips and dinners from _ oil company employees, according to three reports released Wednesday by the Interior Department's inspector general. The investigations reveal a 'culture of substance abuse and promiscuity' by a small group of individuals 'wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards,' wrote Inspector General Earl E. Devaney. [...] Devaney said the former head of the Denver Royalty-in-Kind office, Gregory W. Smith, used illegal drugs and had sex with subordinates. The report said Smith also steered government contracts to a consulting business that was employing him part-time."

Update: More from Pro Publica's Paul Kiel, with links to the three-part IG report. (And it's worth remembering that it was a program at the Mineral Management Service that originally let convicted briber Duke Cunningham associate Mitchell Wade through the USG contracting world door too, back in 2002.)

Update: Reading the IG report, a reader writes: "I can't wait to hear the Justice Department's explanation for why they declined to prosecute [Gregory W. Smith] for, oh, about three dozen different felonies ... Instead of going to jail for twenty years, he was allowed to retire."

AP: "The Bush administration on Wednesday slapped financial sanctions on a major Iranian shipping line and its affiliates for allegedly helping to transfer military-related arms and cargo. The departments of State and Treasury announced the action against the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, also known as IRISL, and 18 of its affiliates for providing logistical services to Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, which controls Iran's ballistic missile research, development and production activities. The action means that any bank accounts or other financial assets belonging to the company that are found in the United States are frozen. Americans also are forbidden from doing business with the company and its affiliates." Interesting related developments noted here.

WP:

An intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president on future global risks envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy.

The report, previewed in a speech by Thomas Fingar, the U.S. intelligence community's top analyst, also concludes that the one key area of continued U.S. superiority -- military power -- will "be the least significant" asset in the increasingly competitive world of the future, because "nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional force."
[...]

In the new intelligence forecast, it is not just the United States that loses clout. Fingar predicts plummeting influence for the United Nations, the World Bank and a host of other international organizations that have helped maintain political and economic stability since World War II. It is unclear what new institutions can fill the void, he said.

In the years ahead, Washington will no longer be in a position to dictate what new global structures will look like. Nor will any other country, Fingar said. "There is no nobody in a position . . . to take the lead and institute the changes that almost certainly must be made in the international system," he said.

The predicted shift toward a less U.S.-centric world will come at a time when the planet is facing a growing environmental crisis, caused largely by climate change, Fingar said. By 2025, droughts, food shortages and scarcity of fresh water will plague large swaths of the globe, from northern China to the Horn of Africa.

For poorer countries, climate change "could be the straw that breaks the camel's back," Fingar said, while the United States will face "Dust Bowl" conditions in the parched Southwest. He said U.S. intelligence agencies accepted the consensual scientific view of global warming, including the conclusion that it is too late to avert significant disruption over the next two decades. The conclusions are in line with an intelligence assessment produced this summer that characterized global warming as a serious security threat for the coming decades.

Floods and droughts will trigger mass migrations and political upheaval in many parts of the developing world. But among industrialized states, declining birthrates will create new economic stresses as populations become grayer. In China, Japan and Europe, the ratio of working adults to seniors "begins to approach one to three," he said.

The United States will fare better than many other industrial powers, in part because it is relatively more open to immigration. Newcomers will inject into the U.S. economy a vitality that will be absent in much of Europe and Japan -- countries that are "on a good day, highly chauvinistic," he said. [...]

Nearly absent from Fingar's survey was the topic of terrorism. Since the last such report, the intelligence community has projected a declining role for al-Qaeda, which was deemed likely to become "increasingly decentralized, evolving into an eclectic array of groups, cells, and individuals." Inspired by al-Qaeda, "regionally based groups, and individuals labeled simply as jihadists -- united by a common hatred of moderate regimes and the West -- are likely to conduct terrorist attacks," the 2004 document said.

The new assessment saw a continued threat from Iran, however. Fingar predicted steady progress in the Islamic republic's attempts to create enriched uranium, the essential fuel used in nuclear weapons and commercial power reactors. For now, however, there is no evidence that Iran has resumed work on building a weapon, Fingar said, echoing last year's landmark National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which concluded that warhead-design work had halted in 2003. ...

Michigan Messenger: Lose your house, lose your right to vote?

NYT:

With just 57 days remaining in this long presidential race, Mr. Obama is going after Mr. McCain more aggressively than at any other point in the campaign, with a professorial tone giving way to one of prosecution. These days, he sounds more like those sharp-tongued commercials seen on television.

“Do you really believe John McCain is going to make a difference now?” Mr. Obama said, mentioning his rival’s name twice in the same breath, a pattern he repeated again and again. “John McCain doesn’t get it.”

His advisers said that combative edge was essential to blunt any progress Mr. McCain was making as he sought to encroach on Mr. Obama’s trademark message of change. Or perhaps it is in response to cries of alarm from Democrats who believe he is being too mild-mannered.

But Mr. Obama’s remarks are curiously reminiscent — right down to that mocking tone — to words he spoke nearly a year ago when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton suddenly tried to swipe the mantle of change and Mr. Obama demonstrated a fight that many Democrats had doubted he could muster.

Mr. Obama has been in this place before: finding the proper temperature to aggressively critique — or attack — his rival without tarnishing his own image of trying to remain above traditional politics. As he enters the final eight weeks of the race, advisers said, the lessons from the Democratic primaries are alive in his head. [...]

There were plentiful signs in recent days that the voters turning out to see Mr. Obama liked his forceful tone, with several audiences chanting along with him, “Eight is Enough! Eight is Enough!” which has become a rallying cry for changing Washington.

Newly invigorated, his presence and energy on stage resembled how he began to act last fall as his extended primary battle with Mrs. Clinton became fully engaged.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick offers some debate advice for Joe Biden.

Foreign Policy/Wired: Future Combat Systems flip flop.

Newsweek's Mark Hosenball reports from Alaska: "An Anchorage judge three-years ago, warned Sarah Palin and members of her family to stop "disparaging" the reputation of Alaska State Trooper Michael Wooten, who at the time was undergoing a bitter separation and divorce from Palin's sister, Molly. [...] Court records, obtained by NEWSWEEK, show that during the course of divorce hearings three years ago, Judge John Suddock heard testimony from an official of the Alaska State Troopers' union about how Sarah Palin—then a private citizen—and members of her family, including her father and daughter, lodged up to a dozen complaints, against Wooten, with the state police. The union official told the judge that he had never before been asked to appear as a divorce-case witness, that the union believed family complaints against Wooten were "not job-related," and that Wooten was being "harassed" by Palin and other family members."

Former CIA executive director Dusty Foggo, indicted in the wider former Congressman Duke Cunningham corruption probe, threatening to play dirty if he's brought to trial:

A former top CIA official accused of corruption and fraud is threatening to expose the identities of numerous agents and programs as part of his defense, prosecutors said.

In a court filing, prosecutors allege that former CIA executive director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo is trying to gum up the works of his trial, scheduled for November, by delving into classified information that is irrelevant to his case. Foggo is charged with 28 counts of wire and mail fraud, unlawful money transactions and making false statements.

Prosecutors say Foggo has threatened "to expose the cover of virtually every CIA employee with whom he interacted and to divulge to the world some of our country's most sensitive programs - even though this information has absolutely nothing to do with the charges he faces."

Prosecutors also allege his lawyers are seeking to introduce classified evidence to "portray Foggo as a hero engaged in actions necessary to protect the public from terrorist acts" to gain sympathy from jurors.

Foggo's efforts to disclose classified information are "a thinly disguised attempt to twist this straightforward case into a referendum on the global war on terror," wrote prosecutors Valerie Chu, Jason Forge and Phillip L.B. Halpern in a court motion filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria (web|news) .

The government wants U.S. District Judge James Cacheris to hold a closed hearing on whether the information is admissible at trial and if it is relevant to Foggo's case.

Mark MacDougall, Foggo's lawyer, declined comment Tuesday on the government's filing. Defense filings regarding the classified issues are under seal.

Presumably he or his attorneys think they can get the CIA to make a case to the judge that the threat to national security if he's put on trial would be so grave that his case should be made to go away quietly, or with some sort of settlement. I first reported on the CIA connections to the wider Cunningham probe through Foggo, including being the first to identify the company, Archer Logistics, that received a CIA contract thanks to Foggo that served as a cut out for Foggo's childhood friend defense contractor Brent Wilkes, already sentenced in the investigation. Later, I first reported that Wilkes was in discussions with the CIA to get a few hundred million dollar contract to provide an off-the-books airplane network whethe investigation broke:

And what were the forthcoming contracts for? According to a source, they were to create and run a secret plane network, for whatever needs the CIA has for secret fleets of planes. Presumably, that might include "extraordinary renditions," e.g. to fly terror suspects off the radar to locations for interrogation. "I Imagine that since their whole flying operation has been outed, it makes it tough to operate clandestine flights," the source explained. "I bet it would cost a bundle to set up a whole new operation that no one knew about ... How do they operate a secret fleet of aircraft now that everyone knows about the planes we have? If I were high up in the CIA, this would be a big priority for me, and I would need a solution outside the normal range of solutions."

Time's Karen Tumulty on the race for women's votes: "The women that pollsters are watching most closely this year are different in some ways from their "soccer mom" and "security mom" sisters of those earlier election cycles. For one thing, they are slightly older than soccer moms (in their 40s and 50s) and are juggling another set of problems — how to pay for college for their kids, and how to take care of their elderly parents. They are also less upscale. Lacking college degrees, they are more likely to be feeling the brunt of an array of economic problems that now includes high energy prices, rising unemployment, soaring health-care costs and housing foreclosures."

MJ: "Flat out lies, Alex?": Here we go again.

CNN: McCain must embrace Palin's beliefs, evangelicals say.

Smart new team pinchhitting for Phil Carter at the washingtonpost.com's IntelDump. Here's Colin Kahl on "Whither Al Qaeda in Iraq?"

NPR: Hillary Clinton in Florida today: "Asking the Republicans to clean up the mess they made is like asking the iceberg to save the Titanic."

The WP's Chris Cillizza: "Palin for President (2012)."

AP: "A Republican effort has failed to unseat the Alaska state senator overseeing the ethics investigation into whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power when she dismissed the state's public safety commissioner."

WP: White House sets aside US-Russia nuclear agreement.

Meantime, heard a BBC reporter on NPR out of Cuba saying that four Russian military planes are supplying hurricane Ike relief to Cuba. A poke at the US in the neighborhood?

These joint Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises planned for the Caribbean more so.

The NY Sun's Josh Gerstein reports on a new anti-Obama 527 group forming in California.

Convention Ratings. Nielsen has released online information about the recent national political conventions, it sends along in an email blast. Among the highlights:

*As they were in the TV ratings, Barack Obama and John McCain are essentially tied in online "buzz." Obama has a slight edge over McCain in the volume of bloggers who mentioned him during during the two respective conventions. Sarah Palin trailed the two major candidates slightly with an 80% index rating -- which was about three times as large as Joe Biden's.

*Web traffic to JohnMccain.com was up dramatically during the last week in August, but it was still only half of the traffic generated to BarackObama.com.

*Similarly, the McCain campaign stepped up its online advertising during the month of August but it still lags far behind the Obama campaign.

More here.

The KC Star/McClatchy reports on McCain's temper:

Families of POW-MIAs said they have seen McCain's wrath repeatedly. Some families charged that McCain hadn't been aggressive enough about pursuing their lost relatives and has been reluctant to release relevant documents. McCain himself was a prisoner of war for five and a half years during the Vietnam War.

In 1992, McCain sparred with Dolores Alfond, the chairwoman of the National Alliance of Families for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen and Women, at a Senate hearing. McCain's prosecutorlike questioning of Alfond - available on YouTube - left her in tears.

Four years later, at her group's Washington conference, about 25 members went to a Senate office building, hoping to meet with McCain. As they stood in the hall, McCain and an aide walked by.

Six people present have written statements describing what they saw. According to the accounts, McCain waved his hand to shoo away Jeannette Jenkins, whose cousin was last seen in South Vietnam in 1970, causing her to hit a wall.

As McCain continued walking, Jane Duke Gaylor, the mother of another missing serviceman, approached the senator. Gaylor, in a wheelchair equipped with portable oxygen, stretched her arms toward McCain.

"McCain stopped, glared at her, raised his left arm ready to strike her, composed himself and pushed the wheelchair away from him," according to Eleanor Apodaca, the sister of an Air Force captain missing since 1967.

A colleague notes that McCain had a reasonable position on the POW issue, advocating with Kerry and Clinton a normalization of relations with Vietnam after Vietnam had turned over all the information it said it had on POW/MIAs, but the lobby was infuriated, and focused their fury on McCain. Nevertheless, threatening to strike a wheelchair bound person, although ultimately restraining himself, was part of the pattern of temperament the report is trying to highlight.

Clark Hoyt: "By choosing a running mate unknown to most of the nation, and doing so just before the Republican National Convention, John McCain made it inevitable that there would be a frantic media vetting. It turns out that Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it, that she sent e-mail complaining about a lack of disciplinary action against a state trooper who was going through a messy custody battle with her sister, and that she never made a decision as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard, one of her qualifications cited by McCain. The drip-drip-drip of these stories seems like partisanship to Palin’s partisans. But they fill out the picture of who she is, and they represent a free press doing its job, investigating a candidate who might one day be the leader of the Free World."

Interesting Newsweek profile of Palin.

Just Out: Intel: How to Fix a Post-Bush Nation: Interviews with former CIA officials Milt Bearden, William Murray, Valerie Plame Wilson, and Paul Pillar.

Bearden: "The Bush legacy, in its most reduced and understandable form, will be that the limits of American democracy, and all its institutions, will have been exposed. We all know now, after eight years of Bush, that there are really no checks and balances built into our system when it comes to national security. If a president, however flawed, driven, or even deranged, decides on a military action, Congress really cannot stop it."

LAT: Palin's appeal to working-class women may be limited:

Republican delegates and activists in the convention hall delighted in Palin's jabs at the Illinois senator, such as when she poked fun at the columned backdrop for Obama's stadium acceptance speech or mocked him as intent on "turning back the waters and healing the planet."

For many women here watching closely, though, that portion of Palin's speech was all they needed to hear.

When Palin belittled Obama's history as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side -- suggesting he was a do-little activist while she, as the former mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, had "actual responsibilities" -- Sandy Ryan, 59, clicked the remote.

"That's enough of that. I switched over to 'House Hunters,' " she said with some disgust over dessert with a group of women from the senior housing complex she manages.

One of a dwindling number of coveted undecideds, Ryan gets a firsthand view of retirees forced to choose between food and medication. She is not convinced Obama has the experience to be president, but Palin only reinforced her concern that McCain would mean four more years of divisiveness and gridlock.

Patty Tobal, a 63-year-old retired nurse and lifelong feminist, shut off the TV set and went to bed. The promise of a woman on the ticket had piqued her curiosity, but she found Palin's sarcasm offensive and her priorities out of touch.

"We don't need any more fighting in Washington," Tobal said while having her hair done at a little shop on Route 40, where the customers go longer between appointments in these hard times. "Women are not for women just because they are women. We are intelligent enough to make a conscious decision." [...]

"I think Palin is a fake. She will run the economy into the ground," Glisan said after catching glimpses of the vice presidential nominee's speech between emergency calls.

"I have to kill myself every day at work to earn enough to pay for gas to get there. I think Obama is sincere. I think we need a change."

Mark Leibovich:

At the last Republican National Convention, in New York City, Mr. McCain hosted 50-or-so media A-listers to a 68th-birthday party for himself at La Goulue on Madison Avenue. The guest list included network anchors, network news executives, Sunday talk show hosts and a lot of other media types who all qualify as Kind of a Big Deal. Mr. McCain proposed a hearty and gracious toast to his guests that night, raising his glass to “my base.”

Four years later, Mr. McCain has presided over the most media-hostile convention in recent memory (though he did not partake himself in his acceptance speech Thursday night). His campaign seems to have made a decision to run against “media bias” to burnish the candidate and running mates’ reformer credentials.

Kevin Drum on torches and pitchforks.

BBC: Polish intelligence agents tell of CIA jails. More.

LAT: Chalabi survives assassination attempt.

Newsweek: McCain allies tries to derail Alaska probe of Palin. Obstruction of justice?

David Frum: Why bother?

Politico reports from Alaska on Palin's management style.

This whole analysis of an ABC poll is interesting, but especially this: "At the same time, the story in the ideological center is different: Among moderates, Biden registers as a net 15-point positive for Obama. In the same group, Palin shows no effect on support for McCain." (.pdf)

Palin won't do any of the Sunday talk shows. Biden will be on MTP.

It's not hard to predict that the campaign very smartly is going to have her appearing in places supportive of her, and not let her talk to the press much, except in very select/controlled circumstances. For the most part, the public won't notice this. They'll see tv pics of her meeting with wildly excited crowds, and giving speeches where she continues to say she said thanks but no thanks to bridge to nowhere, and no one is there to challenge her on that point, and they won't notice that it's not an interview with Brian Williams. On September 11, she'll be viewed in Alaska sending her son off to Iraq. And public is not going to notice press howling that campaign is not giving them much access to her, and it's not hard to believe the campaign will hand out as favors promises of interviews with her to those on their best behavior.

Update: Similar take from Jack Shafer: "Instead of letting Palin talk directly and frequently to the press, the McCain campaign will dress her in bunting and rush her from one controlled setting the next—small towns, firebases in Iraq and Afghanistan, 'town halls,' important funerals, church conventions, and American Legion halls (essentially George W. Bush's current itinerary). There she'll play the role of Spiro Agnew to McCain's Nixon, dismissing reporters' tough questions as effete, impudent, sacrilegious, snobby, intrusive, unpatriotic, hostile, disrespectful, chauvinistic, 'East Coast,' unfair, unbalanced, liberal, biased, trivial, hypothetical, elitist, and as partisan attempts to lasso her with a 'gotcha.' Beating the press always attracts votes, but rarely enough to turn an election. Palin could find herself winning the battle for her running mate but losing the war."

Update: Confirmed.

Republican strategist Mike Murphy: "Today, after Gov. Palin’s much applauded speech, my doubts remain. Again, it’s not that I don’t find her appealing. ... What I don’t like is the effect I think Palin will ultimately have on the ticket. With all her charm, she is still a pick aimed squarely at the Republican base. In a high turnout Presidential year, I am not worried about turning out the base. I’m worried about everybody else we need to win and I fear that among those voters, Sarah Palin will be a dud. ... Instead, I think she’ll ultimately be a polarizer. After last night’s smash, Republicans are in deep love. Nothing thrills ‘em like a good 'us vs. them' speech. But I’d guess that most Democrats had the opposite reaction. In a year where the Democrat generic numbers are 10+ points better than the Republican, I don’t like the math of a strategy that just polarized the election along party base lines. Among the vital sliver of voters in the middle, I think Palin’s rock solid social conservatism will be a turn off. And while voters may value vision over experience, Palin’s inexperience is a weakness, denying McCain an argument that has been helping him against Obama."

LAT: "News organizations say criticism of their reporting is a Republican political tactic." But like urban warfare, one the troops have gotten a lot of experience dealing with the past few years.

Paul Krugman:

The Republican Party, now more than ever, is firmly in the hands of the angry right, which has always been much bigger, much more influential and much angrier than its counterpart on the other side. ...What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you’re supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it’s better than you. Or to put it another way, the G.O.P. is still the party of Nixon. [...]

When Mr. Bush turned out not to be that smart after all, and his presidency crashed and burned, the angry right ... became, if anything, even angrier. Humiliation will do that. Can Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin really ride Nixonian resentment into an upset election victory in what should be an overwhelmingly Democratic year? The answer is a definite maybe.

John Nagl, Colin Kahl and Shawn Brimley in the NYT: "With the Bush administration now working out an agreement on having American troops out by 2012, understanding how this withdrawal will proceed is vital. Basra is as an example of what an exit strategy might look like — and of the dangers of getting it wrong."

Everyone's seen this Wasilla resident's letter about Palin, but if not, worth reading, and Anchorage Daily News has confirmed its author's identity and authenticity.

David Sanger: Foreign policy factions unsure of who will prevail.

Harold Meyerson in the Post: Guess who's the two-nation party now?

As the Republican convention goes into its final evening, the GOP has resurrected every culture war-whoop, every booboisie resentment, every Nixonian snarl against the educated elites, the city dwellers, the liberal media and the Hollywood dilettantes that has been the party’s meat ever since the Vietnam War (or, even before then, since Joe McCarthy). This year’s Democrats, by contrast, are trying to draw economic distinctions between the parties, but no one can plausibly argue that they are demonizing the rich as Republicans are demonizing the liberals. (For one thing, there are too many rich Democrats, and virtually no liberal Republicans.)

Republicans like to think they are still the heirs of Ronald Reagan, but the tone of their convention has been more Nixonian than Reaganesque. Nixon’s genius was always his ability to excite working- and middle-class rage against liberal cultural elites, and this remains the default Republican uber-theme to this day. We hadn’t heard that much of it before the convention, but Sarah Palin proved herself a master of maternalized Nixonism in her speech last night.

More.

Observation: Isn't there a weird schizophrenia to the scripted convention: all the recycled culture wars stuff from last night delivered by Palin, vs. McCain tonight trying to project qualities of being reasonable and seasoned and post-partisan? It doesn't feel like the same ticket.

Sarah Palin's convention speech message is that at some fundamental level, she's all about dividing the country along old culture lines and resentments. McCain's is that at some fundamental level, that's not what he's about. Cognitive dissonance.

Already noted but, from the WP, "As the country rapidly diversifies, Republicans are presenting a convention that is almost entirely white. Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black, the lowest number since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies began tracking diversity at political conventions 40 years ago. Each night, the overwhelmingly white audience watches a series of white politicians step to the lectern -- a visual reminder that no black Republican has served as a governor, U.S. senator or U.S. House member in the past six years. ... The lack of diversity is out of sync with the demographic changes in the United States. The Census Bureau reported last month that racial and ethnic minorities will make up a majority of the country's population by 2042 -- almost a decade earlier than what the bureau predicted just four years ago. Two-thirds of Americans are non-Hispanic whites, 12.4 percent are black and 14.8 percent are Hispanic, according to 2006 census numbers."

I only heard the video tribute to Cindy McCain on the radio. But, neglecting to mention in some tactful way at all that when she and McCain met and fell in love, he was married to the woman who had waited for him while he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam -- after all, the POW experience being the theme of the convention and his candidacy? I understand the glossing over of Cindy McCain's father's line of work. ... That total and obvious omission seemed particularly dishonest.

AP: Abramoff sentenced to four years. "Abramoff, who fought back tears as he declared himself a broken man, appeared crestfallen as the judge handed down a sentence lengthier than prosecutors had sought. [...] Already two years into a prison term from a separate case in Florida, Abramoff, 49, will have spent about six years in prison by the time he is released, far longer than he and his attorneys expected for a man who became the key FBI witness in his own corruption case. With Abramoff's help, the Justice Department has won corruption convictions against former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles and several top Capitol Hill aides. Because of that cooperation, prosecutors were reserved in their comments to the court. Rather than regaling the court with a summary of the misdeeds and the seriousness of the corruption, the Justice Department said little in court while urging leniency. [...] Abramoff could appeal the sentence because Justice Department infighting is partly responsible for the lengthy prison term. Prosecutors in Washington had hoped to combine the casino case and the corruption case into one plea deal. But Florida prosecutors refused to give up their piece, as did Washington prosecutors, so the deal was split in two."

Jonathan Stein: "Barack Obama has raised around $8 million since Sarah Palin's speech last night."

Dow plunge.

Worth reading: Jim Sleeper on "What Palin Offers -- and What It Would Cost."

Palin and the West. A colleague in McCain's home state writes:

Reaction to Palin here on the right is carefully enthusiastic but uncertain because their coalition is divided in so many ways between secular (mostly business and libertarians) and religious (the Southern Baptists and Mormons who control the GOP precincts and thus the Legislature). If there are winners I'd say it's another part of the coalition--the emerging Pentacostals, who have had their own TV networks in the West for about 15 years now (they rarely speak in tongues but you can spot them through their "get rich through faith" theology). Abortion and gay-hating are still their emblems. (In AZ they gather around Rep Trent Franks). Closely aligned with them are the newly "respectable" militias and rural motorcycle clubs who appeared out of nowhere at the height of the Mexican-bashing during the immigration hysteria.

This is so Western--you have a complicated sociology on the right, but the one unmistakable thing, I think, is that conservatism is contracting geographically to the Old South and late frontier states (Alaska, Texas, Arizona, etc.) and in class, going rapidly and dramatically downscale from the lower middle class to displaced and unskilled workers and even deeper. Things are really bad for many poor white neighborhoods in the West, where there are precious few social supports, rotten schools; jobs in the rural areas have dried up. It's like the minority ghettios of the '90s, with meth insread of crack. I don't think Obama can reach these people and they aren't going away. There's a role reversal: They see successful black folks and Latinos on TV and no representation of their own lives. They only ever see that on the free, over-the-air UHF religious stations.

Until last night....

Former House Appropriations committee senior staffer Scott Lilly: "Sarah Palin, John McCain, and Earmarks."

On Palin: strong speech, very well delivered, impressive. She sounded a little shaky on the new foreign policy stuff - Iran, Venezuela, etc. which she really just circled around on the theme of energy independence, but I assume she'll be a quick study, and she has a real self-assuredness and intelligence and authentic charm. But she didn't own the foreign policy stuff like she owns her lines about "Bridge to Nowhere." Only problem, which maybe the crowd doesn't care about, on bridge to nowhere, cutting pork: it's not true! $27 million in new earmarks for Wasilla, her letter from this calendar year requesting $200 million in earmarks from good ole boy network in chief Ted Stevens. All the Rovean divide America along wedge stuff in play as if they ever went away, although she deliberately avoided any direct mention of her far-right life views that might have alienated moderates. The code was working people v elites, small town vs urban cosmpoles. And of course, no mention of Bush or Cheney or who's been ruling the roost the past eight years.

Interesting: Andrew Sullivan: "10.50 pm. I have to say that the affect is of someone running for high school president." Not sure, genuinely, if a majority of Americans will be comfortable seeing her with all her evident assuredness as VP to a 72 year old man, e.g. a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Surely others noticed Giuliani provoking or responding to something really ugly in the crowd? A dark menacing strain, of what came off as hatred (of Obama? of Democrats?). They wanted him to go for blood, and they sensed he had the power and meanness and willingness to deliver. Ugliest episode of the night and crowd looked pretty ugly. Quite something for the former mayor of New York City to suggest Obama has been dismissive of Palin's mayoral experience because he did not consider her town "cosmopolitan enough," Giuliani emphasized. 36 African Americans in the whole convention center, someone there tells me, 1% of the crowd. Seemed more like the party for Christian whites than ever. It's hard to know what independents see when they watch that speech and crowd from TV, if that's the America they want to belong to; but that vision of America present at that convention hall during that speech did not seem to inspire or uplift: crowd was too nationalist, too all-white, too uninclusive, too full of menace, hatred, anger, like a nasty soccer crowd itching to throw their beer bottles. The ugliness subsided for the most part when Giuliani left the podium. He turned it on, and he turned it off. (A colleague writes of Rudy's speech, "As Molly Ivins said of Pat Buchanan 1992 convention speech, 'I liked it better in the original German.'") And the crowd really wanted more: more attacks on Obama.

Palin showed that she can comfortably deliver those. And I think she helped convey an overall sense of the ticket as the scrappy underdog, fighting for the real people who have been tested by experience but who feel sneered at by the chattering classes (subtext: they think they're better than you. He thinks he's better than you.). The night didn't offer much in the way of inspiration or hope or vision (nothing forward looking, indeed, it really did seem like a party stuck in the past), nothing specific on economics except the push for "drill here, drill now" and derision of taxes that any thoughtful person could have confidence in. She was asking people to vote their class and culture values. It was a well delivered speech. And I think she's a formidable candidate. But one never felt a stirring of hope or excitement for what our country could be, and never felt that her rhetoric about reform or change was real. It seemed like a gimmick, a bumper sticker confidently delivered by a real pro. I also thought she handled her family well, and that her family managed to sit through it all looking pleasant and neither self conscious or strained or uncomfortable, unlike Cindy McCain who looked pretty tense while smiling (and often could be seen mouthing on cue whatever insult invoked by the crowd against her husband's opponents).

Update: Obama reaction, from spokesman Bill Burton, via National Journal: "The speech that Governor Palin gave was well delivered, but it was written by George Bush’s speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we’ve heard from George Bush for the last eight years. If Governor Palin and John McCain want to define ‘change’ as voting with George Bush 90 percent of the time, that’s their choice, but we don’t think the American people are ready to take a 10 percent chance on change.” More factcheck.

Update II: More reax: Seth Colter Walls on the focus groups:

In two different focus groups of Clinton-supporting Nevada women -- married and unmarried -- conducted immediately after Gov. Sarah Palin's Wednesday night speech to the Republican National Convention, a few common reactions quickly took shape.

First, women in both groups were impressed with Palin's speaking ability and poise. But they were hardly convinced that she was qualified to be vice president, or that she truly represented the "change" they were looking for, especially in light of what was deemed an overly harsh "sarcasm" pervading her address.

The (mostly) anonymous proceedings were webcast live to reporters, who were told in a press release that the Nevada focus groups would include "some former Hillary Clinton supporters who are now undecided or are weak supporters of Barack Obama or John McCain." No party identification was made available, though the approximately two dozen women were reportedly between 30 and 60 years old.

In the "married" group, when one attendee kicked off the discussion by saying "she's a good speaker, and a crowd pleaser," the rest of the room articulated their agreement. "I didn't expect to be as impressed as I was," said another respondent. But then another woman added: "Once she started mudslinging, I thought, it's the same old crap as other politicians. McCain used her to get the women's vote. And she's using McCain."

"Thank you," another woman responded. "That really upset me; there was no need for that. It was snippy."

The unmarried group also voiced similar objections to the harsh, partisan edge of Palin's remarks. "I'm not impressed with her at all as a person," one said, citing her "finger pointing" and general sarcasm after the group had generally agreed that she was a talented public speaker.

Still not all focus group members thought Palin came off too harsh. "She didn't seem very aggressive to me at all," said one unmarried participant.

But in both groups, narrow majorities said they held a more negative view of Palin after her speech. "She comes off pretty cutthroat," said one.

CNN saying it's not working in Minnesota, which is moving further and further into Obama's camp (Sept 3): Obama (D) 53%, McCain (R) 41%.

Nate Silver: "A great speech -- for both bases."

Update III: View from across the pond. A colleague who spent a lot of time living in the US writes from Israel, "From here, this woman seems extremely socially conservative. I’m sure there are plenty of women in America who see that sort of thinking as an insult. I heard McCain met the woman once very briefly so on the face of it, it provides some insight into how he view decision-making. Looks pretty cavalier. Thinking here is that it doesn’t look like McCain will fill a whole term and the idea that someone (who only got a passport last year!) is just a heartbeat from the presidency is pretty frightening. I can’t know for sure, but it looks like there is still a great residual of George Bush left in the electorate and here they’ve just brought on a new Molly Brown they can throw back a beer with. America. What a show."

More from Newsweek: "Ultimately, however, I suspect that the shelf life of tonight's speech will be brief. It was short on specifics substance-free. It was largely negative--and while sarcasm works in the moment, it tends to curdle as time goes by. And many of its assaults on Obama's record were misleading. That said, none of these complaints will affect the all-important narrative. Before tonight, Sarah Palin was a cipher to most Americans--more a collage of talking points, headlines, biographical details, rumors, speculation and opposition research than a real person. But now voters know something about her, firsthand: that she confronted her opponents head-on--even if the opposition was in part a "sexist" press corps that exists only in the fevered minds of McCain's strategists--and triumphed, as it were, over adversity. For them, clearing that bar is a credential of its own."

James Fallows: "Sarah Palin, at least tonight, did not seem interested in bringing anyone new into the fold. A speech that was great in the convention hall. We'll see how it affects the electoral lineup."

WP: "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the running mate for GOP presidential candidate John McCain, wrote e-mails that harshly criticized Alaska state troopers for failing to fire her former brother-in-law and ridiculed an internal affairs investigation into his conduct. The e-mails were shown to The Washington Post by a former public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, who was fired by Palin in July. Monegan has given copies of the e-mails to state ethics investigators to support his contention that he was dismissed for failing to fire Trooper Mike Wooten, who at the time was feuding with Palin's family."

Palin's pastor and the Jews for Jesus. I am not sure Lieberman can help. It's hard to understand why McCain would have done this to himself. He was winning more potential Jewish votes than any Republican presidential candidate in a long while. But I think he's blown it. Says one Iranian American Jewish activist contact who supported McCain of the Palin pick (even before the JfJ info): "This shows he has BAD judgment. He really wanted Lieberman until the last minute and just picked her once he was told that the Lieberman pick was difficult. He could have gone with a safe choice and did not need this. He wanted voters to know that they can cast a historic vote by voting for Palin just like those who vote for Obama. There were better female Republican choices." Palin will give a great speech and the base loves her. But what makes them love her are core convictions and positions that make her unacceptable for the people McCain needed to get over the top.

Joe Klein: "There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is 'a task from God.' The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme."

Former KBR CEO Jack Stanley pleads guilty in Nigerian bribery case, agrees to cooperate. (KBR became part of Halliburton in 1998 when Halliburton bought Dresser, which owned 50% of KBR. Jack Stanley, as CEO of KBR, reported directly to Cheney from 1998 until Cheney left to run for vice president. DOJ plea press announcement says bribery scheme took place from 1994 to 2000.)

TPM: Thanks to a live microphone, you can now hear what Republican strategist Mike Murphy and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan really think of McCain's pick of Palin. (....Murphy: "It's not going to work" ... Noonan: "It's over." .... [Host Chuck Todd]: ... "Is she the most qualified woman they could have picked?" Noonan: "Most qualified? No. I think they went for this - excuse me - political bullshit - about narrative. ..." Murphy: "You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism. And this is cynical. ....") Ouch!

(Presumably, Steve Schmidt will blame the media. But doesn't look like he's convinced even elite members of the party commentariat that McCain's team did its homework in picking Palin. And who's he got to blame for that?)

Update: More explication from Peggy Noonan, pretty interesting.

New Emily's List/Garin-Hart-Yang poll shows that among 800 women surveyed, Obama/Biden ticket has an 11-percentage point lead (52% to 41%) over McCain-Palin ticket.

Newsweek: Bushies coming to Palin's aid. "The proliferation of former Bush White House aides in the Palin team may strike some as ironic—and could even provide some fodder for the Democrats—given the McCain camp’s efforts to distance itself from the unpopular president." More.

Palin and the Wasilla Librarian. NYT:

Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.

Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

In 1996, Ms. Palin suggested to the local paper, The Frontiersman, that the conversations about banning books were “rhetorical.”

Ms. Emmons was not the only employee to leave. During her campaign, Ms. Palin appealed to voters who felt that city employees under Mr. Stein, who was not from Wasilla and had earned a degree in public administration at the University of Oregon, had been unresponsive and rigid regarding a new comprehensive development plan. In turn, some city employees expressed support for Mr. Stein in a campaign advertisement.

Once in office, Ms. Palin asked many of Mr. Stein’s backers to resign — something virtually unheard of in Wasilla in past elections. The public works director, city planner, museum director and others were forced out. The police chief, Irl Stambaugh, was later fired outright.

Mr. Stambaugh lost a wrongful termination lawsuit against Ms. Palin. He did not respond to a request for an interview.

Ms. Palin also upended the town’s traditional ways with a surprise edict: No employee was to talk to the news media without her permission.

Posted by Laura at 10:13 AM

The Forward: Michelle Obama's cousin is leading black rabbi, at Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in southwest Chicago.

Joshua Green, on The "Eagleton Scenario."

The closest historical precedent to Palin, he says, is Dan Quayle. “The vice presidents that were the two biggest surprises were Senator Quayle and Governor Palin, and for much the same reason,” he says. “President [George H.W.] Bush insisted on secrecy in an effort to create the biggest impact with the announcement.” But the campaign botched the rollout and didn’t properly prepare Quayle, Goldstein says, citing James Baker’s recent memoir, Work Hard, Study...and Keep Out of Politics!

Indeed, Baker’s description of the lessons he learned from the Quayle announcement seems eerily prescient:

“The best way to handle a proposed vice presidential nominee who has not been tested in national or big-state politics or high appointive office—and I have the obvious benefit of hindsight—is to float the name a few weeks before the convention and let the games begin. By opening gavel, the candidate will have run the gauntlet of press scrutiny or opposition research, or have dropped out. This approach wouldn’t necessarily work in a contested convention, and, unfortunately, it eliminates the drama of dropping the name at the convention. But it would pretty well guarantee that the news from the convention would not be dominated by questions about the vice presidential selection.”

Baker declined an interview request.

Politico: Palin pick turns off Jewish swing voters (but hit with Jews for Jesus).

“There is almost always an inverse proportion between a candidate's popularity among conservative Christians and secular Jews,” said Jeff Ballabon, a Republican lobbyist long active in Jewish politics who supports McCain.

An illustration of that gap came just two weeks ago, when Palin’s church, the Wasilla Bible Church, gave its pulpit over to a figure viewed with deep hostility by many Jewish organizations: David Brickner, the founder of Jews for Jesus.

Palin’s pastor, Larry Kroon, introduced Brickner on Aug. 17, according to a transcript of the sermon on the church’s website.

“He’s a leader of Jews for Jesus, a ministry that is out on the leading edge in a pressing, demanding area of witnessing and evangelism,” Kroon said. [...]

Brickner also described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God's "judgment of unbelief" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity. ...

Palin was in church that day, Kroon said, though he cautioned against attributing Brickner’s views to her.

So writ large, in order to secure the vote of evangelicals and the base, McCain has potentially sacrificed the vote of independents.

Update: Oy. There's more.

Lindsey Graham unintentionally sticks it to his friend. WP:

Graham, who lobbied hard for McCain to choose their mutual friend Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) as his running mate, said Palin would be able to handle foreign relations in McCain's absence as long as she relied on his staff.

It's like a season of 24. It is a season of 24.

More from the LAT on Palin being prepped for primetime. More.

Jack Shafer on Hurricane Palin:

Thanks to McCain's miscue, everything the press touches about Palin turns into a scoop: her earmark flip-flops, her political inexperience, her Alaska Independence Party connection, her views on teaching "creationism," her book-banning phase, plus the "troopergate" scandal, her husband's ancient DUI, and her pregnant teenage daughter. And the press rampage has only just begun. ...

The press is merely doing on short notice what the McCain campaign's vetting team should have done between March—when he clinched the nomination—and now: properly vetting his vice-presidential candidate. Does Palin have what it takes to serve as president? Do any Tom Eagleton- or Spiro Agnew-type skeletons lounge in her closet?

More.

Sound familiar? McCain operatives trying to lock down information on Palin, the WSJ reports:

The McCain campaign scrambled to take control of the public debate over vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin, canceling her public appearances and teaming her with high-powered Republican operatives as she prepared for a speech Wednesday night that will be her first, and perhaps most important, chance to define herself to the American public.

....In Minnesota she has stayed out of the public eye, a contrast with Democratic vice-presidential pick Sen. Joe Biden, who milled about the convention in Denver last week. Gov. Palin refused media interviews and canceled plans to appear at the Republican National Coalition for Life Tuesday.

....In Alaska, the McCain campaign has tried to control the flow of information as liberal bloggers and the media mine her past. A team of public-relations aides has settled into the state and asked Gov. Palin's friends and family to avoid speaking to the media.

This from a longtime resident of Palin's town worth reading too.

WP's Dan Balz: McCain camp didn't interview Palin until days before pick:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was not subjected to a lengthy in-person background interview with the head of Sen. John McCain's vice presidential vetting team until last Wednesday in Arizona, the day before McCain asked her to be his running mate, and she did not disclose the fact that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant until that meeting, two knowledgeable McCain officials acknowledged Tuesday.

Palin was one of two finalists in the vice presidential sweepstakes who were interviewed last week by former White House counsel Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., just days before McCain introduced her to the nation as his choice. The other finalist was Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. One of the officials said Culvahouse was chasing down last-minute information about Pawlenty at the request of the campaign as late as last Thursday, the day McCain offered the job to Palin and she accepted.

The new details of the selection process provide a fuller picture of how and when McCain made his decision. Despite the late interview of the little-known Palin, senior McCain advisers said Tuesday night that she was chosen only after a lengthy and deliberative process that included the same background investigation given to others on McCain's shortlist and considerable debate among the candidate's inner circle about all his choices.

McCain did not speak face to face with Palin until Thursday morning, at his retreat in Sedona, Ariz. He also talked to her by telephone the previous Sunday. McCain had spoken with all of the others on his shortlist over the course of a selection process that went on for several months, but he was least familiar personally with the person he finally chose.

WP: "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live."

NYT: McCain cancels Larry King interview because of tough Campbell Brown questioning of his spokesman yesterday.

"Enquirer Exclusive":

Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin attempted to quietly have her daughter Bristol get married before news of her pregnancy leaked out, the NATIONAL ENQUIRER is reporting exclusively in its new issue.

Palin planned for the wedding to take place right after the Republican National Convention and then she was going to announce the pregnancy.

But Bristol, 17, refused to go along with the plan and that sparked a mother-daughter showdown over the failed coverup. ...

Twin Peaks.

AP: Levi Johnston heading to convention.

David Frum: "Should John McCain lose in November, Sarah Palin has just pole-vaulted into frontrunner status for 2012. Should Mr. McCain win, her grip on the next Republican nomination will become a lock. So this is the future of the Republican party you are looking at: a future in which national security has bumped down the list of priorities behind abortion politics, gender politics, and energy politics. Ms. Palin is a bold pick, and probably a shrewd one. It's not nearly so clear that she is a responsible pick, or a wise one." (Via Greg Sargent).

Worth watching: CNN's Campbell Brown interviewing McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds yesterday on why Palin qualified to be commander in chief should something happen to Senator McCain.

ABC: Palin cancels on Phyllis Schlafly RNC life event:

Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly is taking the McCain campaign to task for notifying her at the last-minute that Sarah Palin will be a no-show on Tuesday when the Republican National Coalition for Life holds an event honoring the Alaska governor.

"I think this is clearly somebody in the McCain campaign who doesn't understand where the votes are coming from," Schlafly told ABC News. "They only told me this at 10 o'clock last night and it was a call from somebody down-the-line in the McCain campaign."

"The pro-lifers who paid $95 to come to this event because of Sarah Palin are going to be very unhappy," she added.

Schlafly is expecting 800 people, most of whom are delegates to the Republican National Convention, to attend Tuesday's reception at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in St. Paul, Minn. The event runs from 4:00 - 6:00 pm CT.

The purpose of the event is to honor Palin for being a political figure who "not only talks-the-talk, but walks-the-walk" when it comes to putting "life first."

Debbie Joslin, a Republican National Committeewoman from Alaska, will accept the "pro-life award" on behalf of Palin

Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella said McCain's running mate will not be attending the event because she is "preparing for her speech at the convention."

Richard Cohen: "John McCain's selection of Palin, which I first viewed with horror, could now be seen in a different light. Based on various television interviews over the Labor Day weekend -- and a careful reading of the transcripts -- it is possible that this is McCain's attempt to make fools of his fellow Republicans. He has succeeded beyond all expectations."

Gallup: Obama hits 50.

Quote of the Day, from Roger Simon in the Politico: "Now if the campaign could just manage to arrange Bristol’s marriage on stage at the convention, it might generate some much-needed positive buzz and a good photo op."

Radar: "The Enquirer has seemingly been on the pregnancy case all weekend, going so far as to ID [Levi] Johnston and get comment from his parents. Rather than let the tabloid break the story, however, McCain's campaign decided to force Palin into releasing the details."

So much for the campaign's insinuation carried by most major media orgs that they had made the announcement to put to rest vicious Internet rumors. The story was about to be broken by national press carried in every grocery store checkout line. Indeed, NPR said today Reuters actually broke the story before McCain campaign forced the Palins to release a statement.

WP: "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town of 6,700 residents while she was its mayor, according to an analysis by an independent government watchdog group." As governor, "In February, Palin's office sent Sen. Stevens a 70-page memo outlining almost $200 million worth of new funding requests for Alaska."

David Brooks: Buyers' remorse. Palin great, but McCain should have picked experienced technocrat.

So according to the Post, Bristol Palin doesn't live with her parents, but with an aunt in Anchorage. "Bristol Palin attended high school in Wasilla, where her mother grew up. But it was widely reported by town residents that while the Palins continued to live on Lucille Lake in Wasilla, she had moved to the home of an aunt in Anchorage and was attending high school there." What's up there?

More from the NY Daily News:

Mark Okeson, the assistant principal at Wasilla High School, told the Chicago Tribune that Bristol started her junior year last fall, in the town where Sarah Palin grew up.

He said Bristol inexplicably transferred to an Anchorage high school midyear, leaving Levi behind.

"I never heard the story why," he said.

*(Correction: Wasilla is 43 miles from Anchorage.)

NYT:

Although the McCain campaign said that Mr. McCain had known about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy before he asked her mother to join him on the ticket and that he did not consider it disqualifying, top aides were vague on Monday about how and when he had learned of the pregnancy, and from whom.

While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.

At the least, Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain’s running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described. [...]

Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, said in an e-mail message that Ms. Palin had been interviewed by Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., a veteran Washington lawyer in charge of the vice-presidential vetting process for Mr. McCain, as well as by other lawyers who worked for Mr. Culvahouse. Mr. Salter did not respond to an e-mail message asking if Ms. Palin had told Mr. Culvahouse and his lawyers that her daughter was pregnant.

More from the AP on the pre-announce review. "Palin then was sent a personal data questionnaire with 70 "very intrusive" questions, Culvahouse said. She also was asked to submit a number of years of federal and state tax returns. The campaign also checked her credit. Culvahouse then conducted a nearly three-hour interview. He said the first thing Palin volunteered was that her daughter was pregnant, and she also quickly disclosed her husband's two-decade-old DUI arrest."

ABC: Israel Radio Biden report false.

Politico: Jewish Republicans try to read Palin tea leaves.

Marc Ambinder: "This year, the intense secrecy with which McCain advisor A.B. Culvahouse completed his vetting of Sarah Palin preserved the surprise. And ultimately, McCain aides say they're sure that the rewards will be worth the risks. But as the Palin pick turns 72 hours old, McCain's campaign is learning as much about her from the media and from Democrats as they are from what minimal political preparation they had." Update: Republican lawyers reportedly currently in Alaska to vet Palin. Politico: McCain camp enlists Tucker Eskew to aid Palin.

AP: "More than 1,000 angry mourners turned the funeral for a journalist critical of Russia's government into a demonstration Monday, accusing police of lying when they said he was accidentally shot by an officer. Magomed Yevloyev died Sunday after a police car picked him up from an airport in Ingushetia province in Russia's volatile North Caucasus and then dumped him on the road with a gunshot wound in his head."

National Journal: GOP Insiders Wanted Anti-Obama Convention

An overwhelming majority of National Journal’s Republican Political Insiders were eager for much of the GOP convention to be spent attacking the Democrats.

Asked how much of the Republican convention’s program should be “devoted to tearing down Barack Obama and the Democratic brand,” 55 percent of Insiders said “about half” and 16 percent said “more than half.” Another 16 percent replied “about a third.” Eight percent said “about a quarter.” And 5 percent answered “hardly any.”

In response to the question, asked before the convention’s schedule was revamped because of Hurricane Gustav, one of the 75 participants said, “This election is about Barack Obama. McCain has to define him as unfit to lead -- and do it quickly.”

Another remarked, “There’s no rebuilding the GOP brand between now and Election Day. We need to bring [Democrats] down to our level.”

WP: Palin was director of Sen. Ted Stevens' 527 Group.

Update: Kate Klonick/NBC: Palin hires private attorney in so-called Troopergate.

Obama says Palin family off limits. NYT:

Mr. Obama, in his first remarks on the matter, raised his voiced when asked whether his campaign or other Democratic operatives were working to advance rumors surrounding the Palin family.

“Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be,” Mr. Obama snapped. “And if I ever thought there was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they’d be fired, OK?”

Mr. Obama said the pregnancy “has no relevance to Governor Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president.” He added that, “my mother had me when she was 18. How family deals with issues and teen-age children – that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics.”

“So,” he added, “I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories.”

More from Time. Alaska Daily News reports today that it asked Palin spokesman Saturday if Bristol Palin pregnant:

The Daily News had asked Palin's governor's-office press secretary, Bill McAllister, on Saturday if Bristol was pregnant.

"I don't know. I have no evidence that Bristol's pregnant," he said at the time.

Hmm. Doesn't this suggest that the McCain campaign may have had reason to think a media org was about to break this story, and that might have prompted it to announce it first -- while saying they were announcing it only to put to rest rumors on the Internet?

With Alaska Daily News reporting it was already asking Palin spokesman on Saturday directly if Palin pregnant, and Time reporting that it already knew and everybody in Wasilla considered it an "open secret," it seems plausible that the campaign knew a media org was about to report on BP's pregnancy. And that is in fact what prompted timing of their announcement- which overshadowed everything else coming out of first day of GOP convention except Gustav.

WP: Iraq and China sign $3 billion oil contract.

WP: " A leading opposition figure in Russia's volatile Ingushetia province was shot and killed Sunday after being detained by police, authorities said. His colleagues issued a call for protests in response, and human rights groups demanded an investigation. Magomed Yevloyev, a businessman and the owner of a Web site that angered Kremlin-backed local leaders with its coverage of official corruption and police abuse, suffered a gunshot wound to his head while in a police car taking him to a station for interrogation, a spokesman for the Russian prosecutor's office told the Interfax news agency. ... The local government issued a statement saying that Yevloyev was shot after trying to seize a weapon from one of the police officers holding him. But a lawyer for Yevloyev ridiculed the explanation and said police dumped Yevloyev on a road after shooting him."