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Gallup: "The political landscape could be improving for Barack Obama in the waning days of the campaign. Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Oct. 28-30 shows him with an eight percentage point lead over John McCain among traditional likely voters -- 51% to 43% -- his largest margin to date using this historical Gallup Poll voter model."
ABC: Palin upset first amendment doesn't protect her desire to make people think what she wants them to think. Audio from Jonathan Schwarz.
CNN: Former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein, member of the Off the Record club, endorses Obama.
AP: Rabin's assassin says influenced by Sharon:
Yitzhak Rabin's assassin, in his first interviews since the 1995 killing, said he shot the Israeli prime minister because Ariel Sharon and other hawkish ex-generals warned Rabin's land-for-peace deal with the Palestinians would bring disaster.
Yigal Amir fatally shot Rabin at the end of a peace rally in Tel Aviv on Nov. 4, 1995. He considered Rabin a traitor for signing the 1993 Oslo peace accord with the Palestinians, agreeing to return land Israel had captured in wars.
Amir told Israel's Channel 10 TV he was spurred into action by comments from Sharon, Rehavam Zeevi and Rafael Eitan. At the time of the killing, all three were leading right-wing politicians with long, distinguished military careers.
Asked who had an impact on his decision to kill Rabin, Amir replied: ''Sharon, Raful, Gandhi, all of the people who understand the military and said this agreement would bring a disaster.'' He referred to Eitan and Zeevi by their respective nicknames, Raful and Gandhi.
ABC: Petraeus wants to visit Syria, Bush admin says no.
Update: Apparently, Syria expert Joshua Landis had this first. "The following 'Exclusive' ABC story is not so exclusive. Syria Comment has been writing since August 2008 that Petraeus tried to go to Damascus in the fall of 2007, but was refused permission by the Vice President. It wasn’t the president."
WP:
The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.
The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift existing constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.
The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift existing constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.
Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.
Politico: Those Georgetown cocktail parties? Oh, never mind:
That Georgetown had its zenith in the Kennedy era and rebounded a bit when Reagan was president. Glamorous, well-heeled couples — politicians, journalists, government appointees and embassy folks — would go from party to party, swirling around the five hostesses who ruled the day.
Today, Joynt said, “Nobody has the money, nobody has the time, everybody has kids.”
Sen. John McCain has made no evident headway in separating himself from President Bush in the final days of the campaign, and that connection continues to be a drag on his candidacy.
According to the new Washington Post-ABC News daily tracking poll, Bush remains deeply unpopular, with a majority expressing strong disapproval for the job he's doing as president. His approval rating now stands at 24 percent, just a point off his career low of 23 percent reached about three weeks ago, and still hovering near the all-time low in polling back to 1938.
Half of likely voters in the poll said McCain would mainly lead the country in the same direction as Bush, a figure that has held at about that level for nearly the entire campaign; 47 percent said he would lead in a new direction. It's an association that cuts straight to the vote: Barack Obama's support reaches 90 percent among those who believe McCain would continue in Bush's direction, and more than three-quarters of such voters see McCain as a risky choice.
NYT: "A growing number of voters have concluded that Senator John McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is not qualified to be vice president, weighing down the Republican ticket in the last days of the campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. All told, 59 percent of voters surveyed said that Ms. Palin was not prepared for the job, up 9 percentage points since the beginning of the month. Nearly a third of voters polled said that the vice-presidential selection would be a major factor influencing their vote for president, and those voters broadly favored Senator Barack Obama. In a possible indication that the choice of Ms. Palin has hurt Mr. McCain’s image, voters said that they had much more confidence in Mr. Obama to pick qualified people to serve in his administration than they did in Mr. McCain."
Harper's Ken Silverstein recently reported on Kazeminy allegedly paying Coleman's Nieman Marcus' clothing bill.The CEO of a major marine technology company is alleging that he was pressured by a friend and associate of Norm Coleman to secretly funnel tens of thousands of dollars to the Senator's family.
Paul McKim, the founder and CEO of Deep Marine Technology, alleges in a civil suit that Nasser Kazeminy -- a longtime Republican donor, friend of Coleman, and DMT shareholder -- directed the company to send $75,000 to the Senator and his wife.
The transaction, which occurred in 2007, allegedly went as follows: DMT would make payments for services to Kazeminy's Hays Company, even though no services would be rendered. Since Norm Coleman's wife Laurie worked at Hays, that money would be given to her in the form of 'salary.' ...
All told, the court filings allege that three payments of $25,000 were sent through Hays Company to the Colemans from May 2007 through September 2007. Two of those came without McKim's approval because Kazeminy went around him. A fourth payment was "in the process of being made" before being stopped by McKim, the suit alleges.
Sen. Coleman was initially asked about these findings on Wednesday, when two investigative reporters from the Minneapolis Star Tribune cornered him at a campaign rally. He ducked their questions. On Thursday, Coleman's campaign manager Cullen Sheehan was asked about the issue during a press conference, He claimed that "the lawsuit was withdrawn," and said he had no further details to offer. "I just know there was a lawsuit filed and it was withdrawn."
Casey T. Wallace, the attorney representing McKim, confirmed the withdrawal and said he would have more comment later in the day. A person familiar with the case, however, emphasized that while the complaint may have been withdrawn, the charges contained within it were still valid.
"It doesn't affect that," said the official. "By withdrawing the complaint and withdrawing the petition, we are not saying now that our allegations are false."
Requests for comment from McKim and the Coleman campaign went un-returned. But lawyers familiar with Senate ethics law say that if the complaint turns out to be true, Coleman could be in hot water, possibly facing a trial and potentially jail time. ....
Update from Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
The lawsuit, based on a sworn statement by McKim, alleges the money intended for Coleman was sent last year in three $25,000 installments to the Hays Companies of Minneapolis, the insurance brokerage that employs Coleman's wife, Laurie. The suit alleges that Kazeminy created the arrangement to provide financial assistance to the senator -- not to obtain insurance services -- by disguising the payments as legitimate business transactions between Deep Marine and Hays. The suit alleges that McKim refused to approve the fourth payment to Hays, against the direction of Kazeminy.
Charlotte Observer: Elizabeth Dole should pull "egregious" ad or get out of the race.
The Dole campaign stepped across a broad line, portraying Hagan as not Christian and suggesting she does not believe in God. The Dole ad shows a picture of Hagan while a woman's voice, not Hagan's, intones, “There is no God.”
This is indecent. It is the modern-day version of the “white hands” ad, a lie born of Dole's desperation in a race in which she has trailed for weeks. It is also a deliberate attempt by Dole's campaign not just to distort the truth, but to shatter Hagan's admirable record as an elder for more than a decade in Greensboro's First Presbyterian Church, as a Sunday School teacher and a volunteer in her church's fundraising campaigns, worship services and community service programs.
Political campaigns in this state are often hard-fought, with bitter, overwrought accusations that stretch the truth, embellish the facts and attempt to confuse voters. Hagan has hit Dole hard. Dole has hit Hagan hard. That is par for the course.
This ad is something else, an attack on a Christian woman's faith against all evidence to the contrary. It is wrong. It may well backfire on Dole.
It has no place in N.C. politics. Unless she admits this egregious, shameful mistake and acts appropriately, Elizabeth Dole has no place in N.C. politics, either.
The Hill projects the next Senate committee leaderships. Anticipates Sen. Dianne Feinstein will become head of Senate Intelligence committee.
CNN, via Atrios:
Wolf Blitzer: And this just coming into the "Situation Room," the Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin now speaking out openly about her intentions in 2012 if, if she and John McCain were to lose this contest next Tuesday. In an interview with ABC News, Sarah Palin is now saying, she would be interested in remaining a serious national political figure, going ahead to 2012. She was asked what happens in 2012 if you lose on Tuesday, would you simply go back to Alaska? Elizabeth Vargas of ABC News asked her and Palin said this, and I will read it to you verbatim according to an ABC News transcript: "Absolutely not," Sarah Palin says. "I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that ... that would ... bring this whole ... I'm not doin' this for naught," and that is a direct quote from Sarah Palin. Clearly, leaving open the possibility that she would be interested in leading the Republican Party in 2012 if she and John McCain were to lose this presidential contest right now. Let's go to Dana Bash. She has been covering the McCain campaign reaction from the rather blunt statement from Sarah Palin that she would in fact be interested in leading the Republican Party going forward after Tuesday if they lose?
Dana Bash: I just got off of the phone, Wolf, with a senior McCain adviser and I read this person the quote and I think it is fair to say that this person was speechless. There was a long pause and I just heard a "huh" on the other end of the phone.
AP analysis: "Barack Obama has pulled ahead in enough states to win the 270 electoral votes he needs to gain the White House -- and with states to spare -- according to an Associated Press analysis that shows he is now moving beyond typical Democratic territory to challenge John McCain on historically GOP turf. Even if McCain sweeps the six states that are too close to call, he still seemingly won't have enough votes to prevail, according to the analysis, which is based on polls, the candidates' TV spending patterns and interviews with Democratic and Republican strategists. McCain does have a path to victory but it's a steep climb: He needs a sudden shift in voter sentiment that gives him all six toss-up states plus one or two others that now lean toward Obama. ... Though sounding confident, Obama is still campaigning hard. 'Don't believe for a second this election is over,' he tells backers. 'We have to work like our future depends on it in this last week, because it does.'"
After caning incident, Paul Begala says it's time for Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) to retire. "When a self-proclaimed champion of human rights tolerates the beating of his political opponents, you know it's time to retire."
WP: Palin stumps with the McCain/Palin campaign's new Mid East advisor, Joe the Plumber.
"Under the Influence." Check out my friend Bara Vaida's new lobbying blog at National Journal.
AP: Obama tied or ahead in 8 key battleground states:
....The polling shows Obama holding solid leads in Ohio (7 percentage points), Nevada (12 points), Colorado (9) and Virginia (7), all red states won by Bush that collectively offer 47 electoral votes. Sweeping those four — or putting together the right combination of two or three — would almost certainly make Obama president.
It takes 270 electoral votes to win the White House. Obama can earn 252 by merely reclaiming states won by John Kerry in 2004. There are only two Kerry states still in contention — Pennsylvania with 21 votes and New Hampshire with four — and AP-GfK polls show Obama leading both by double digits.
Ohio alone has 20 electoral votes. Nevada has 5, Colorado 9 and Virginia 13.
In addition, Obama is tied with McCain in North Carolina and Florida, according to the AP-GfK polling, two vote-rich states Bush carried in 2004. Obama is throwing his time and money into the Sunshine State, which has 27 votes, part of a strategy to create many routes to victory and push toward a landslide of 300 or more electoral votes. North Carolina has 15 votes.
Independent polling suggests that New Mexico and Iowa, two traditionally GOP states, are out of reach for McCain. Other red states may be creeping away from him and into contention, including Montana.
The bottom line: McCain must overtake Obama in the many red states where he is trailing or tied — a tall order. Or he needs to gain some breathing room by winning Pennsylvania, where he trails by 12 percentage points, according to the AP-GfK poll. ...
Chicago Tribune: Taiwanese donations to McCain?
Is this one of the businessmen suing Adelson? Yes, it seems....A Taiwanese firm with a nearly identical name as Hao's new California company, Asian American Entertainment Ltd., is also headed by a Shi Sheng Hao. That firm has been embroiled in a lengthy legal battle in Las Vegas over a soured partnership in an application for a casino license in Macau, the former Portuguese colony now part of China.
A court filing in that case described Hao's firm as a business affiliate of the China Industrial Development Bank, a finance arm of the Taiwanese government. Hao is listed as a resident of Taiwan in corporate papers filed in the case.
It is not clear whether the Shi Sheng Hao in the lawsuit and the California ventures is the same Shi Sheng Hao using the Roselle address. But public records point to numerous coincidences, including corporations with similar names and an overlap of investors. Some political donations from the Roselle address also refer to Hao by a nickname, Marshall, the same nickname given for Hao in the Las Vegas court action.
Federal records indicate a pattern of large and coordinated donations from Hao, relatives and associates. Collectively, eight of them gave a total of $130,000 to the RNC in late September to early October of last year.
AP: Judge tosses detainee confession citing torture
A U.S. military judge barred the Pentagon Tuesday from using a Guantanamo prisoner's confession to Afghan authorities as trial evidence, saying it was obtained through torture.
Army Col. Stephen Henley said Mohammed Jawad's statements ''were obtained by physical intimidation and threats of death which, under the circumstances, constitute torture.''
Jawad's defense attorney, Air Force Maj. David Frakt, told The Associated Press that the ruling removes ''the lynchpin of the government's case.''
Guantanamo's chief prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, said he recognized how the judge made his decision and needed to study the ruling before making more comments.
Marketwatch: Lowest consumer confidence in 41-year history that Conference Board has tracked attitudes. "These same surly people will be heading to the polls in one week, and they'll probably be carrying torches and pitchforks. The two previous lows in consumer confidence also came during election years, said David Ader, a bond strategist for RBS Greenwich Capital. In 1980, voters threw out Jimmy Carter. In 1992, voters threw out George H.W. Bush. Voters can't throw out his son this year because he's term-limited, but it looks like they'll take out their anger on the Republican Party instead."
AP: US Intel budget $47.5 billion, up $4 billion since previous budget year.
Pew: McCain support continues downward spiral. "A breakdown of voting intentions by demographic groups shows that since mid- September, McCain’s support has declined significantly across most voting blocs. Currently, McCain holds a statistically significant advantage only among white evangelical Protestants (aside from Republicans). In addition, Obama runs nearly even with McCain in the so-called red states, all of which George W. Bush won in 2004."
McClatchy: "The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government doesn't agree to a new agreement on the status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations mandate for the American mission in Iraq. Many Iraqi politicians view the move as akin to political blackmail, a top Iraqi official told McClatchy Newspapers on Sunday."
WP:
The latest Washington Post/ABC News tracking poll -- using interviews conducted Thursday through Sunday -- shows Barack Obama leading John McCain 52 percent to 45 percent.
Almost every other internal measure in the survey also provides good news for Obama; the economy remains the dominant issue in the campaign and the Illinois senator holds a double-digit edge over McCain when voters were asked which of the two men they trusted more to handle it.
And yet, buried deep within the poll was evidence that if Obama is elected to the White House and Democrats strengthen their congressional majorities, they run some peril of pushing a too-liberal agenda and alienating the broad middle of the country -- many of whom still consider themselves moderates and conservatives.
In the Post survey, just 22 percent of the likely voter sample called themselves "liberals" while 38 percent self-identified as "moderates" and 37 percent as "conservatives."
Those numbers are essentially unchanged since the Post/ABC started nightly tracking in this race last weekend and are remarkably consistent over the last few years that the Post has asked the question.
The WP's Anne Applebaum: why McCain lost me: "The larger point, though, is that if I'm not voting for McCain -- and, after a long struggle, I've realized that I can't -- maybe it's worth explaining why, for I suspect there are other independent voters who feel the same. Particularly because it's not his campaign, disjointed though that has been, that finally repulses me: It's his rapidly deteriorating, increasingly anti-intellectual, no longer even recognizably conservative Republican Party. His problems are not technical; they do not have to do with ads, fundraising or tactics, as some have suggested. They are institutional; they have to do with his colleagues, advisers and supporters. ... If [Obama] wins, I can be sure that the mobs who cry 'terrorist' at the sound of Obama's name will be kept far, far away from the White House."
Richard Cohen ridicules the conservative magazine writers who cruised up to Alaska and championed Palin. "Especially in the Weekly Standard, Palin was acclaimed as a tribune of the people. As for her critics, they were dismissed as 'liberal media' types who were not, like conservative editors and TV commentators, one with the people. Kristol hit this theme hard, having somehow absorbed Wal-Mart sensitivities while living most of his life in either New York or Washington where, as I can personally attest, real Americans are encountered only when summoned to carry out home repairs. You can learn a lot this way. ... It is the height of chutzpah, you betcha, for a coterie of ideologues to accuse Palin's critics of political snobbery. It is also somewhat sad for a movement once built on the power of ideas -- I am speaking now of neoconservatism -- to simply swoon for a pretty face and pheromone-powered charisma. But it is, I confess, just plain fun to see all these expense-account six-packers be so wrong."
Meantime, the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes and Kristol are reportedly blaming Palin's extravagant wardrobe expense on Nicole Wallace, the McCain staffer and former Bush administration official whose spouse heads a new anti Iran group. Is Standard blogger turned McCain campaign blogger Michael Goldfarb the Standard's campaign mole? whispering the secret skinny that Wallace is only a real American poseur who defiled Palin's Wal-Mart cred? A shame to see these folks turn their wrath on each other.
WP: Defense lawyers to get access to secret Guantanamo Camp 7. "In a separate filing in a habeas corpus proceeding, Abu Zubaida's attorneys said their client has had 116 seizures since his transfer to Guantanamo. According to court papers, Abu Zubaida also told Margulies that he was injected with Haldol, normally used to treat psychosis. The use of the drug in correctional settings is controversial because of its strong side effects and the history of its use in the Soviet Union to control dissidents sent to psychiatric hospitals."
NYT: Officials Say U.S. Killed an Iraqi in Raid in Syria.
I wrote about the figure targeted, Abu Ghadiya, whose real name is is Badran Turki Hishan Al Mazidih, and US efforts to get Syria to turn him over, several months ago. More:
More here.Back in May, I reported that the US government was using stepped up channels to try to persuade Syria to turn over to Iraq a top alleged Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia figure, Abu Ghadiya, whose real name is Badran Turki Hishan Al Mazidih. A group assembled at the US government's request "concluded," I wrote, "'that the US needed to send a message requesting Damascus' assistance on Abu Ghadiyah. But it should not be seen by Damascus as an American message.' Ideas were floated to ask the Turks, or the French to play the intermediary. 'A request will be made to the Iraqis to ask the Syrians for Abu Ghadiya's extradition.'"
Apparently, Syria did not come through. Tonight, the New York Times reports that the figure targeted in the US raid in Syria this past weekend was indeed Abu Ghadiya, and that he was killed in the operation. ...
Update: More from Wired's Noah Shachtman and Daniel Levy.
WBTV3/US attorney's office Memphis: Two men charged for making threats against Obama, plotting killing spree of schoolchildren. More from the AP.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) had a reputation for his work on the Congressional human rights caucus, but he comes up more than a bit short on that front here.
NYT: Second guessing Palin pick:
Mr. McCain may still win the election. Still, anticipating that he will fall short, the pre-postmortems have already begun, both inside and outside his campaign headquarters. And without question, the biggest one is whether he would have been in a better position today had he not chosen Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running-mate.
The answer, in the view of many Republicans and Democrats, is almost certainly yes.
In choosing Ms. Palin, Mr. McCain and his advisers set aside the traditional criteria for picking a running-mate — such as choosing someone who could deliver a battleground state — in favor of selecting someone who could upend the story line of the campaign. ...
Former Bush administration Iran envoy Nick Burns in Newsweek: We should talk to our enemies:
All of these cold-war presidents embraced a foreign-policy maxim memorialized by one of the toughest and most experienced leaders of our time, Israel's Yitzhak Rabin, who defended his discussions with Yasir Arafat by declaring, "You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with very unsavory enemies." Why should the United States approach the world any differently now? Especially now? As Americans learned all too dramatically on 9/11 and again during the financial crisis this autumn, we inhabit a rapidly integrating planet where dangers can strike at any time and from great distances. And when others—China, India, Brazil—are rising to share power in the world with us, America needs to spend more time, not less, talking and listening to friends and foes alike.
The real truth Americans need to embrace is that nearly all of the most urgent global challenges—the quaking financial markets, climate change, terrorism—cannot be resolved by America's acting alone in the world. Rather than retreat into isolationism, as we have often done in our history, or go it alone as the unilateralists advocated disastrously in the past decade, we need to commit ourselves to a national strategy of smart engagement with the rest of the world. Simply put, we need all the friends we can get. And we need to think more creatively about how to blunt the power of opponents through smart diplomacy, not just the force of arms.
National Journal's Charlie Cook:
For a political analyst, the normal posture this time of year is much like a baseball umpire's: hunched over, peering carefully as the ball approaches the plate, watching for whether it breaks left or right, whether it's coming in high or low. But, these days, we analysts are more like outfielders, watching in awe as a ball seems on a trajectory to not only clear the fence but very likely land in the upper deck.
By every metric, Barack Obama's presidential campaign appears headed for the upper deck. Polls (both national and state-by-state), organization, money, and momentum are all running strongly in Obama's favor. At this point, one wonders whether Obama's winning margin could be greater than Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton's 5.6-point win over President George H.W. Bush in 1992, more than Bush's 7.7-point win over Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988, or more than Clinton's 8.5-point win over Sen. Bob Dole in 1996. Even higher on the landslide roster is California Gov. Ronald Reagan's 9.7-point victory over President Carter in 1980 and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's 10.9-point win over Adlai Stevenson in 1952.
Certainly, the 2008 presidential contest could reverse direction and result in victory for John McCain. But at this point, he would have to be the beneficiary of something quite dramatic for that to happen.
As this campaign has shifted from a surprise-around-every-corner situation to one more akin to watching concrete set, many observers have begun playing "What if?" If McCain had picked someone other than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, would he now be higher in the polls? If the senator from Arizona had waged this battle more as John McCain 1.0, the 2000-vintage candidate who was more of a maverick and less of a partisan than the 2008 version, could he have succeeded because he was less tied to his Republican Party and less joined at the hip with President Bush?
These are interesting questions, but they avoid one unmistakable fact: This is a toxic political environment for Republicans. That's why they will probably lose at least seven seats in the Senate and at least 20 in the House. Having former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former eBay CEO Meg Whitman or even Mother Teresa as McCain's running mate would not have changed that. And, with Bush's job-approval rating in a recent Gallup Poll at 25 percent, my National Journal colleague Ronald Brownstein has noted that McCain would need the support of one-third of all voters who disapprove of Bush's performance in order to reach 50 percent in a general election. With Republican Party identification down from parity four years ago to a 10-point deficit, this race would have been incredibly hard for the Republican nominee no matter what.
Although this contest was very competitive over the summer and could have gone either way before the stock market crashed and the credit markets seized up, arguably it has become virtually unwinnable for McCain. ...
WP:
While top-of-the-ticket rivals John McCain and Barack Obama both remain broadly popular heading into Election Day, public perceptions of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin have fallen dramatically since she emerged on the national political scene at the GOP convention.
A majority of likely voters in a new Washington Post-ABC News national poll now have unfavorable views of the Alaska governor, most still doubt her presidential qualifications and there is an even split on whether she "gets it," a perception that had been a key component of her initial appeal. ...
Obama is up by a large margin among women, 57 to 41 percent in the new Post-ABC tracking poll. The senator from Illinois just about ties McCain among white women -- 48 percent back Obama, 49 percent McCain -- a group that President Bush won by 11 points four years ago and one that had shifted significantly toward the GOP this year after the Palin pick. ...
The declines in Palin's ratings have been even more substantial among the very voters Republicans aimed to woo. The percentage of white women viewing her favorably dropped 21 points since early September; among independent women, it fell 24 points.
More broadly, the intensity of negative feelings about Palin is also notable: Forty percent of voters have "strongly unfavorable" views, more than double the post-convention number. Nearly half of independent women now see her in a very negative light, a nearly threefold increase.
The shift in Palin's ratings come with a pronounced spike in the percentage of voters who see her as lacking the experience it takes to be a good president. Voters were about evenly divided on that question a month and a half ago, but toward the end of September a clear majority said she was not qualified. In the new poll, 58 percent said she is insufficiently experienced. ...
LAT: Gitmo tribunals overseer under investigation. Thomas Hartmann, an Air Force brigadier general, is accused of improperly influencing prosecutions:
A Pentagon official overseeing the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals is the subject of two investigations into his conduct, including one wide-ranging ethics examination into whether he abused his power and improperly influenced the prosecutions of enemy combatants.
An internal Air Force investigation into the activities of Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann appears to be the more significant of the two probes because it was launched only after a preliminary inquiry found sufficient grounds to move forward, military officials said.
The Air Force is reviewing allegations that Hartmann bullied prosecutors, logistics officials and others at Guantanamo -- resulting in cases going to trial that were not ready and the prosecution of at least one individual on charges that were unwarranted -- and assertions that he advocated using coerced evidence despite prosecutors' objections.
It also is looking into allegations that Hartmann made intentionally misleading statements, both in public and during the Guantanamo tribunal proceedings, in an effort to downplay the direct role that he played in the overall prosecution effort and in several cases, according to interviews with military lawyers.
A second investigation, being conducted by the Department of Defense's Office of the Inspector General, was sparked by the complaints of at least two military officials about Hartmann's allegedly abusive and retaliatory behavior toward them within the Office of Military Commissions. That office oversees the prosecutors and defense lawyers in the terrorism trials taking place at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The investigations will further undermine the credibility of the tribunals just as some of the most high-profile cases -- including the trial of five men alleged to have helped plot Sept. 11 -- are getting underway, according to some military defense lawyers at Guantanamo, former prosecutors who have quit in protest and human rights officials. ...
Three Guantanamo judges since May have barred Hartmann from serving as legal advisor in their cases, after supporting at least a portion of defense claims that he exerted "unlawful influence." ...
NYT's Charlie Savage:
The Bush administration has informed Congress that it is bypassing a law intended to forbid political interference with reports to lawmakers by the Department of Homeland Security.
The August 2007 law requires the agency’s chief privacy officer to report each year about Homeland Security activities that affect privacy, and requires that the reports be submitted directly to Congress “without any prior comment or amendment” by superiors at the department or the White House.
But newly disclosed documents show that the Justice Department issued a legal opinion last January questioning the basis for that restriction, and that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, later advised Congress that the administration would not “apply this provision strictly” because it infringed on the president’s powers.
Several members of Congress reacted with outrage to the administration’s claim, which was detailed in a memorandum posted this week on the Web site of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department.
No doubt there are many reasons for McCain foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann to be cranky and frustrated. Among them, reports today he is paid less than Sarah Palin's make-up artist.
Marc Ambinder: Whispers of Palin v McCain Part II:
There's a faction within the McCain campaign has begun to whisper about Gov. Sarah Palin to reporters. The faction includes staff members and advisers who consult with staff members. It does not seem to include any members of the senior staff, although the definition of the senior staff here is a bit elastic.
This faction has come to believe that Palin, perhaps unwittingly subconsciously or otherwise, has begun to play Sen. McCain off of the base, consistently and deliberately departed from the campaign's message of the day in ways that damage McCain. ...
LAT's Charles Piller: "Palin appointed friends and donors to key posts in Alaska, records show. 100-plus jobs went to campaign donors or their relatives, sometimes without apparent regard to qualifications. Several donors got state-subsidized loans for business ventures of dubious public value."
McClatchy's Warren Strobel: "The Bush administration will announce in mid-November, after the presidential election, that it intends to establish the first U.S. diplomatic presence in Iran since the 1979-81 hostage crisis, according to senior Bush administration officials. The proposal for an "interests section," which falls short of a full U.S. Embassy , has been conveyed in private diplomatic messages to Tehran , and a search is under way to choose the American diplomat who'd head the post, the officials said."
SNL: George W. Bush endorses Palin and McCain too. "John was there for me 90% of the time. When you think of John McCain, think of me, George W. Bush. When you get in the voting booth, think of this face, a vote for John McCain is a vote for George Bush. You're welcome."
NBC's Aram Roston: New legal battle for prominent McCain fundraiser
A prominent fundraiser for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is facing a new legal challenge over a lucrative Pentagon contract that involved shipping oil to military forces in Iraq. A competing firm filed a federal suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act this week against the fundraiser, Harry Sargeant III, and his company, International Oil Trading Company. The suit accuses them of a "bribery scheme" to pay officials in the Kingdom of Jordan, in an effort to keep competing firms out. Sargeant and his company deny wrongdoing and say no bribes were paid.
Sargeant is the Finance Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, a key state in the upcoming presidential election. The federal lawsuit is the latest case to bring attention to him. NBC News first reported last May that Sargeant was awarded the Pentagon contract even though he was not the lowest bidder. NBC reported he was being sued in Florida state court by a former business partner who was the brother-in-law of the King of Jordan.
Perhaps it's all premature:Top Republican officials have let it be known they are distressed about McCain’s organization. Coordination between the McCain campaign and Republican National Committee, always uneven, is now nearly dysfunctional, with little high-level contact and intelligence-sharing between the two.
“There is no communication,” lamented one top Republican. “It drives you crazy.”
At his Northern Virginia headquarters, some McCain aides are already speaking of the campaign in the past tense. Morale, even among some of the heartiest and most loyal staffers, has plummeted. And many past and current McCain advisers are warring with each other over who led the candidate astray.
One well-connected Republican in the private sector was shocked to get calls and resumes in the past few days from what he said were senior McCain aides — a breach of custom for even the worst-off campaigns.
“It’s not an extraordinarily happy place to be right now,” said one senior McCain aide. “I’m not gonna lie. It’s just unfortunate.”
“If you really want to see what ‘going negative’ is in politics, just watch the back-stabbing and blame game that we’re starting to see,” said Mark McKinnon, the ad man who left the campaign after McCain wrapped up the GOP primary. “And there’s one common theme: Everyone who wasn’t part of the campaign could have done better.”
“The cake is baked,” agreed a former McCain strategist. “We’re entering the finger-pointing and positioning-for-history part of the campaign. It’s every man for himself now.”
A circular firing squad is among the most familiar political rituals of a campaign when things aren’t going well. But it is rare for campaign aides to be so openly participating in it well before Election Day. ...
Beyond the obvious reputation-burnishing — much of it by professional operatives whose financial livelihoods depend on ensuring that they are not blamed for a bad campaign — there is a more substantive dimension. Barring a big McCain comeback, and a turnabout in numerous congressional races where the party is in trouble, the GOP is on the brink of a soul-searching debate about what to do to reclaim power. Much of that debate will hinge on appraisals of what McCain could have done differently.
Offered a chance to respond to the suggestion that the McCain campaign is awash in defeatism, a McCain official delivered a decidedly measured appraisal: “We have a real chance in Pennsylvania. We are in trouble in Colorado, Nevada and Virginia. We have lost Iowa and New Mexico. We are OK in Missouri, Ohio and Florida. Our voter intensity is good, and we can match their buy dollar for dollar starting today till the election. It’s a long shot, but it’s worth fighting for.”
Boston Globe: Massachusetts' former Republican governor Bill Weld to endorse Obama.
NYT:
Ratio doesn't seem to be making this argument very compelling.Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?
Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser; not Nicolle Wallace, his senior communications staff member. It was Amy Strozzi, who was identified by the Washington Post this week as Gov. Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night.
Ms. Strozzi, who was nominated for an Emmy award for her makeup work on the television show “So You Think You Can Dance?”, was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone, according to the records. The campaign categorized Ms. Strozzi’s payment as “PERSONNEL SVC/EQUIPMENT.”
The payment on Oct. 10 made Ms. Strozzi the single highest-paid individual in the campaign for that two-week period. (There were more than two dozen companies that got larger payments than Ms. Strozzi). She easily beat out Mr. Scheunemann, who received $12,500 in the first half of October, and Ms. Wallace, who got $12,000.
Marc Ambinder: McCain v. Palin
There's a suspicion in some McCain loyalist precincts that Gov. Sarah Palin is beginning to play the Republican base against John McCain -- McCain won't let her campaign in Michigan...McCain won't let her bring up Jeremiah Wright... McCain doesn't like her terrorist pal talks....
Think ahead to 2010...2011...2012.
Palin is ambitious. Very ambitious.
And if she wants the job, she's easily the frontrunner to become THE voice of the angry Right in the Wilderness. She is a favorite of talk radio and Fox News conservatives, and speaks their language as only a true member of the club can. (Her recent Limbaugh interview was full of dog whistles that any Dittohead would recognize. Including her actual use of the word ditto.)
Times: Far-right Austrian leader sacked for revealing affair with the late Jorg Haider. "Outraged by the interviews, the party felt compelled yesterday to dismiss its leader amid reports of his alleged role in Haider’s tragic death. Local papers said that, on the night of his accident, Haider and Mr Petzner had a row at a magazine launch party. Haider left in a hurry and drove to a gay club in Klagenfurt, his home town, where he drank vodka with male escorts. The reports said that he was hardly able to walk to his car."
NYT: Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, linked to McCain campaign's top officers, alleged involved in British Tories donation inquiry.
Worth reading this piece on Deripaska and his financial ties to Bruce Jackson (a founder with McCain campaign foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq), Bob Dole, Rick Davis, and Davis' lobbying firm:
Worth remembering the WSJ report on the DOJ/FBI joint task force investigating Russian organized crime penetration of the US government:...Despite rampant Russophobia among Republicans, Deripaska turned to powerful GOP figures to solve his problem--especially to Republicans connected with McCain. In 2003 Deripaska hired former presidential candidate Bob Dole, who had nearly picked McCain as his running mate, and Dole's lobbying partner Bruce Jackson (also a McCain aide) to lobby the State Department to overturn the visa ban, according to Glenn Simpson and Mary Jacoby of the Wall Street Journal. Over the next few years Dole's firm, Alston & Bird, was paid more than $500,000 to push for Deripaska's visa.
Deripaska also reached out to a Washington-based intelligence firm, Diligence, chaired by GOP foreign policy hand Richard Burt, McCain's top foreign policy adviser in 2000 and an adviser in '08 (Burt left Diligence in 2007 to join Henry Kissinger's consulting firm). Deripaska's business partner in London, Nathaniel Rothschild, an heir to the English Rothschild fortune, bought a stake in Diligence, according to the New York Times and confirmed by a Rothschild spokesman. The firm offered Deripaska many useful services: corporate intelligence gathering, visa lobbying through considerable GOP connections and, crucially, help in obtaining a $150 million World Bank/European Bank for Reconstruction and Development loan for a Deripaska subsidiary, the Komi Aluminum Project. Getting the loan was useful in providing a layer of comfort to Western investors skittish about RusAl. So Diligence, now partly owned by Rothschild, provided a "due diligence" report to the World Bank, which the Bank then used to approve its loan to Deripaska.
Not surprisingly, the lobbying worked: in December 2005 Deripaska was issued a multientry US visa, according to the State Department. During his brief stay he signed his World Bank loan, spoke at a Carnegie Endowment meeting and attended a dinner for Harvard University's Belfer Center, where, thanks to a generous donation, he became a member of its international council.
However, Deripaska's trip did not end well. Under the visa's terms, he was forced to endure lengthy FBI questioning. According to the mining-industry newsletter Mineweb, the list of his enemies had grown from jilted former business partners to the heads of powerful US metals companies and government officials unhappy with RusAl's control of key Third World bauxite mines, which threatened beleaguered US aluminum giants. The interview went badly--according to people who know him, Deripaska had little patience for prying bureaucrats. When he left the country, the visa ban was reinstated. Once again Deripaska turned to powerful Republicans--this time, to McCain and campaign manager Davis, who arranged the January 2006 Davos introduction. The McCain campaign later claimed that "any contact between Mr. Deripaska and the senator was social and incidental," but afterward Deripaska thanked Davis for arranging "such an intimate setting." The Washington Post reported that Davis was "seeking to do business with the billionaire." Indeed, Deripaska's subsequent thank-you letter mentioned his possible investment in a metals company Davis represented through a hedge-fund client.
It's not hard to imagine Deripaska, an aluminum magnate, is a figure of interest to the probe (which reportedly has Curt Weldon in its crosshairs), along with Itera, Chernomyrdin, Gazprom, Mogilyevich, and others of that ilk. And it is interesting that so many people in McCain's braintrust have been on his payroll in one way or another. It's just a really interesting backdoor that Putin has to McCain, so officially hostile to Moscow. Deripaska strikes me as classic double agent type, clearly close with Putin, and burrowing in apparently with Putin's foes in the West, to whom he undoubtedly portrays himself as some kind of misunderstood freedom figher with an endless, open bankroll. I recently met a journalist who got asked to ghostwrite a sympathetic portrayal of someone who sure fits Deripaska's description who needed his reputation apparently burnished in the US, and after lots of hours of debriefing in a sauna, hours with the armed bodyguards, etc. got too spooked by the whole thing and walked away from the project, and indeed, is still so spooked by the hint of violence, he won't name exactly who it was. But I took it the money was hard to resist, his name wouldn't be on it, and that the offer came thru a white shoe Washington lobby firm. Which is all another recommendation for Ken Silverstein's book Turkmeniscam on the Washington lobbying industry.Rep. Weldon is embroiled in a federal corruption probe that contributed to his loss in the 2006 election. The Weldon inquiry is significant in part because it is an element of a broader U.S. Justice Department probe into what officials suspect are efforts by Russian-backed firms to gain influence or gather information in Washington. Prosecutors also are looking into Mr. Weldon's involvement with a Russian-owned natural-gas company with alleged ties to organized crime.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey in April said the government has reconvened its long-dormant federal Organized Crime Council to combat what he called a new "hybrid criminal problem" involving alliances between foreign intelligence agencies and criminal groups. In a speech before the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on April 23, Mr. Mukasey said law-enforcement officials have "grave concern" about "so-called 'iron triangles' of corrupt business leaders, corrupt government officials and organized criminals."
Mr. Mukasey cited Russia and other Eurasian nations as places where "organized criminals control significant positions in the global energy and strategic-materials markets. They are expanding their holdings in those sectors, which corrupts the normal functioning of these markets and may have a destabilizing effect on U.S. geopolitical interests."
The rise of world commodity prices has magnified the Justice Department's concerns.
Mike Allen: "The Republican establishment is beginning to express long-suppressed exasperation with the McCain pirate ship. In an early-morning phone call to Playbook, one of the most senior Republican strategists in the land warns the McCain campaign after reading the WashTimes interview: 'Lashing out at past Republican Congresses instead of Pelosi and Reid, and echoing your opponent's attacks on you instead of attacking your opponent, and spending 150,000 hard dollars on designer clothes when congressional Republicans are struggling for money, and when your senior campaign staff are blaming each other for the loss in The New York Times [Magazine] 10 days before the election, you’re not doing much to energize your supporters. The fact is, when you’re the party standard-bearer, you have an obligation to fight to the finish. I think they can still win. But if they don’t think that, they need to look at how Bob Dole finished out his campaign in 1996 and not try to take down as many Republicans with them as they can. Instead of campaigning in Electoral College states, Dole was campaigning in places he knew he didn’t have a chance to beat Clinton, but where he could energize key House and Senate races. I think you’ll find these sentiments shared by MANY of my fellow Republican strategists.'” McCain's comments blasting Bush to the Wash Times worth reading too.
Ted Goldman at TPMCafe's discussion of Ken Silverstein's newbook, Turkmeniscam: "I don't see lobbyists as another branch of government, I see them as a mirror-image of Congress, a free-lancing underbelly since perhaps 90 percent of lobbyists originally worked on the Hill. They're extensions of staff, with their own financially-induced points of view. So how do you level the playing field? Clearly, the first step is disclosure, but it has to be meaningful disclosure. ..."
NBC's Aram Roston: Gov. Palin sold one state plane, used another:
On the campaign trail, Gov. Palin has touted her credentials as a reformer by discussing how she sold off the state's other plane, a jet, and even listed it on eBay. Her predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski, had used that plane for travel.
But after Palin's sale of the state jet following her inauguration as governor, the document shows, she did not stop flying on state planes. Gov. Palin used her Public Safety department's prop plane for 110 hours, or 19 percent of its flight time, in 2007 and 2008. The Department of Corrections used it 28 percent of the time, and Alaska Wildlife troopers also used it 28 percent of the time. A spokesman for the McCain Palin campaign defended the flights, saying the governor needed to use the state Public Safety plane because of the remote geography of Alaska. "For the governor to perform her duty visiting rural communities the use of an aircraft was necessary," a campaign spokesman said.
The WP's fashion critic Robin Givhan: After $150,000 makeover, Sarah Palin has an image problem:
More from NYT: "Republicans expressed fear that weeks of tailoring Ms. Palin as an average 'hockey mom' would fray amid revelations that the Republican Party outfitted her with expensive clothing from high-end stores." More: "To be scrupulously nonpartisan, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., her Democratic counterpart, seems to have a deep wardrobe of ties."How do you sell someone as a no-frills hockey mom who sold the state plane and fired the official cook and hunted her own moose meat, and then try to explain wardrobing her in clothes from Neiman Marcus -- a store occasionally referred to by aggrieved, frugal shoppers as Needless Markup? How do you, in barely two months, lavish her with fashion swag worthy of a starlet and valued at more than her annual governor's salary of $125,000?
This is not careless image management.
This is ill-advised and ill-informed.
Or, to use this election cycle's phrase of choice: This is some seriously bad judgment.
One assumes that her campaign is populated by some of the brightest minds and they have spent an inordinate amount of time obsessing over mind-numbing details, right down to whether the candidate would stand or sit during the debate and who gets to hover behind her for photo ops....
Miami Herald: Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) earmarked $2 million in federal funds to a company that sold spy equipment to the Venezuelan secret police.
Chris Cillizza: "With only 13 days left before the November election, the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee is coming to grips with its dire circumstances -- making a series of advertising decisions in the last 48 hours to cut off incumbents who they believe can't win. Since Monday, the NRCC has dropped advertising all together in Florida's 24th district, Minnesota's 6th district and Colorado's 4th district. All three seats are held by Republican incumbents who have badly damaged their own political prospects. Faced with an unbelievably bad political environment and a HUGE fundraising disparity, House Republicans appear to have cut their ties with these three -- the leading edge of what could be a series of de-funding decisions of incumbents by House and Senate strategists. ... Even as the NRCC cuts loose incumbents, it is launching new ads in 12 districts -- all but two of which are currently held by Republican members."
Commenting on a new joint interview with John McCain and Sarah Palin, NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd described the Republican ticket as lacking cohesion, chemistry, and (he hinted) trust.
"There was a tenseness," Todd told MSNBC's Chris Matthews. "I couldn't see chemistry between John McCain and Sarah Palin. I felt as if we grabbed two people and said 'here, sit next to each other, we are going to conduct an interview.' They are not comfortable with each other yet."
Todd, who was remarking on the interview conducted by NBC's Brian Williams (he was in the room), speculated that the candidates had come to the realization that "they are losing" the campaign, and guessed that McCain may have begun to hold his vice presidential choice responsible for his dwindling White House chances.
"When you see the two of them together, the chemistry is just not there. You do wonder, is John McCain starting to blame her for things? Blaming himself? Is she blaming him?" asked the widely regarded NBC newsman. "And maybe they don't feel they can win right now, so they are missing that intensity. That was the thing that struck me more than anything. You almost wonder why they wanted the two of them sitting next to each other."
Boumediene. NYT:
More here.Also on Tuesday, the Justice Department changed course in another Guantánamo case, this one involving six Algerian detainees who had been living in Bosnia when they were turned over to American forces in 2002.
In military hearings over the years, the Pentagon had argued that the men were tied to a Sarajevo embassy bomb plot, although a court in Bosnia said at the time that there was not enough evidence to hold the men.
The men were at the center of a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June that said Guantánamo detainees have a constitutional right to contest their detention in federal habeas corpus suits. That ruling, Boumediene v. Bush, was named for one of the men, Lakhdar Boumediene.
The case of the six men is now scheduled for a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington as soon as next week. Those hearings are to be the first in which the administration is to provide a court with a full explanation of its reasons for holding detainees.
In a cryptic filing made public on Tuesday, the Justice Department said that in a classified filing it had withdrawn “reliance on certain assertions.”
Robert C. Kirsch, a lawyer for the six men, said he could not discuss the classified filing. But he said that in an unclassified conversation, Justice Department lawyers had told him that after more than six years, the government did not plan to introduce any evidence about the embassy bomb plot.
“The government,” Mr. Kirsch said, “is finally being forced to look at whether it has or does not have evidence to justify holding these men.”
A friend writes:
So this is from the Times story on the detainees:
"Robert C. Kirsch, a lawyer for the six men, said he could not discuss the classified filing. But he said that in an unclassified conversation, Justice Department lawyers had told him that after more than six years, the government did not plan to introduce any evidence about the embassy bomb plot."
And then compare the 2002 SOTU: "Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy."
So they were not working with but rather forcing the Bosnian government, and now the government has dropped entirely the substantive basis for Bush's statement, i.e. that they were plotting to go after the embassy.
So much for hockey mom and Joe six-pack, huh? Palin's $150k RNC-funded wardrobe costs more per day than many people's monthly mortgage payments.
McCain spokesperson Tracey Schmitt is unfazed by the $75,000 Nieman Marcus bill, the $50,000 Saks bill, the $5,000 September cosmetics and hair bill, and the assorted other few thousand dollar small change at a Macy's and Barney's here and there: "With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it's remarkable that we're spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses." Hey, it was Schmitt's campaign colleague Rick Davis who said as far as the McCain campaign is concerned, "this election is not about issues." It's not unreasonable to note that one hundred fifty thousand dollars spent on Palin's wardrobe in six weeks suggests something of a disconnect between who Sarah Palin says she is (ordinary small town hockey mom who will come to Washington to fight the entrenched interests) and what she is (here's my Visa bill, can you take care of it?). Seriously, did the RNC put the Saks buyer on retainer? I'm having a hard time getting my head around 150 $1000 clothing item purchases in fewer than 60 days. More from me, Marc Ambinder. Josh Green has a stunner, although I would find it more plausible that it was Larson's firm that the luxury buying was funnelled through by the RNC. Otherwise, as Green says, the man has a bright future on the fashion channel. More personal shoppers. Larson accounts for $130k of the RNC's Palin wardrobe spending-- so far.
Pew:
And further down, those polled specifically don't seem to like McCain's campaign:Barack Obama’s lead over John McCain has steadily increased since mid-September, when the race was essentially even. Shortly after the first presidential debate on Sept. 26, Obama moved to a 49% to 42% lead; that margin inched up to 50% to 40% in a poll taken just after the second debate. Currently, Obama enjoys his widest margin yet over McCain among registered voters, at 52% to 38%. When the sample of voters is narrowed to those most likely to vote, Obama leads by 53% to 39%.
Obama’s strong showing in the current poll reflects greater confidence in the Democratic candidate personally. ... Obama’s gains notwithstanding, a widespread loss of confidence in McCain appears to be the most significant factor in the race at this point. Many more voters express doubts about McCain’s judgment than about Obama’s: 41% see McCain as “having poor judgment,” while just 29% say that this trait describes Obama. Fewer voters also view McCain as inspiring than did so in mid-September (37% now, 43% then). By contrast, 71% of voters continue to think of Obama as inspiring.
And new WSJ/NBC poll gives Obama 10-point lead.McCain may also be getting hurt by opinions of his campaign. A large majority of voters (64%) give McCain a grade of C or lower for his efforts to convince people to vote for him; only about a third (34%) gives McCain a grade of A or B for his campaign efforts. These grades are lower than those accorded to George Bush during his two successful campaigns and are nearly as low as the grades for Dole’s campaign in 1996 (29% A or B).
Obama, by contrast, receives the highest grades for a campaign dating to 1992. Nearly two-thirds of voters (65%) grade Obama’s efforts at convincing people to vote for him at A or B; about a third (32%) give Obama’s campaign a grade of C or lower.
A steadily growing number of voters say that McCain has been too personally critical of Obama: 56% say that now, up from 42% in mid-September. By contrast, just 26% say that Obama has been too personally critical of McCain, which is largely unchanged from mid-September (28%).
The AP reports on Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham. "The 85-year-old former bank executive is said to be 'gravely ill' after falling and breaking her hip, and some reports suggest she might not live to see the results of the Nov. 4 election. Whatever happens, she's already lived long enough to see her 'Barry' achieve what she'd wanted for him, her brother says." More from Ta-Nehisi Coates.
The WP: The Republican party's identity crisis:
... At its height, the GOP coalition brought together economic, social and national security conservatives. At different times, the glue that held these disparate conservatives together was anti-communist or anti-government sentiments or, more recently, the commitment to waging war against terrorism.
The bedrock elements of the coalition were a belief in smaller government, low taxes and a strong defense. But the party's greatest success came with the arrival, in the 1980s and 1990s, of a newly active cadre of social conservatives who promoted a values agenda and provided ground troops that helped the party win turnout battles in close elections.
Today, all three pieces of the coalition are under strain. Under President Bush, economic conservatives first witnessed the most significant rise in federal spending since the Great Society and, in the past month, government intervention in the private sector on a scale unprecedented since the Great Depression. ...
Social conservatives have seen their influence diminish. ...
The selection of Sarah Palin as McCain's vice presidential running mate provided a shot of enthusiasm to social conservatives -- exactly what McCain needed at the time -- but her declining numbers among the wider electorate has generated a backlash within the party over the wisdom of choosing her. If McCain loses, Palin could become a symbol of the divisions within the GOP's coalition.
The split between the party's neocons and so-called foreign policy realists has been raging for several years over the prosecution and management of the war in Iraq and Bush's overall foreign policy agenda. That's an argument likely to continue into the future, whether McCain is elected or not.
But what is more astonishing is what happened on Sunday and Monday, when representatives of both sides of that debate -- Colin Powell, representing the realists and Kenneth Adelman, a leading neocon -- both announced they would be voting for Obama.
That both could end up breaking with their party, abandoning McCain and siding with the less experienced Obama, shows not only that national security issues count for far less in this election than they did four years ago, but also that the Republicans may lack a foreign policy consensus that can help bind their coalition as anticommunism and antiterrorism have. ...
NYT: US drops cases against five Gitmo detainees, after prosecutor quits. "After the decision was announced, Col. Lawrence J. Morris, the chief military prosecutor, said that supervising lawyers in his office had asked Ms. Crawford to withdraw the charges. He said all five would be resubmitted after a review of their files, which had been handled by a prosecutor who left the office after questioning the judicial fairness at Guantanamo."
Jesus. Maybe the FBI reads as slowly as I do. They're allegedly investigating leaks from Suskind's last book, the Cheney one.
Interesting Ed Rothstein review of Irene Nemirovsky exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
Good grief. It's hard to believe, I know, but the NY Observer reports that the Obamas did not apparently order lobster and Iranian caviar from Waldorf Astoria room service as has been widely reported.
Update: NY Post, which originally reported the item, apologizes: "We regret the mistake, and our former source is going to regret it, too."
Harpers' Ken Silverstein discusses his new book on lobbying for dictators, Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship:
The country was led until a few years ago by President-for-Life Saparmyrat Niyazov, who outlawed all political opposition, renamed the months of the year (April was renamed for his dear mom), and erected lots of giant golden statues all over Turkmenistan to honor his wisdom and benevolence. Niyazov died in late-2006 and was replaced by his personal dentist, in an election in which only members of the ruling party were allowed to compete and the victor won about 90 percent of the vote.
Not long afterwards, I approached a number of leading Washington lobbying firms to ask if they'd be interested in promoting and whitewashing the "newly elected" Turkmen regime. Several of the firms were keen to take on the job. Cassidy & Associates and APCO Worldwide were especially anxious to handle the account, asking the Maldon Group to pay fees of up to $1.5 million a year - and more if some annoying human rights group started issuing critical reports about Turkmenistan's Stalinist government.
The lobbyists laid out their game plans for me during face-to-face meetings I had at their downtown Washington offices. They promised they could set up meetings for visiting Turkmen officials on the Hill and with administration officials, arrange junkets to the country for congressional delegations, and influence the media (the plan here included writing in-house op-ed pieces, recruiting friendly academics or think tankers to sign them, and planting the finished products in American newspapers).
They also promised they could stage bogus events in Washington that would look independent but which would be largely controlled by the lobbyists, on behalf of the Turkmen regime. And of course they bragged about their access on Capitol Hill and the executive branch, where, the lobbyists said, they had countless contacts....
WP: "A federal appeals court Monday blocked the release of 17 Chinese Muslims into the United States from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until it can hear further legal arguments in the case. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stayed a federal judge's order releasing the men, and it ordered oral arguments in the government's appeal, to be heard Nov. 24."
Endorsements. As I just wrote a colleague/reader, the only time I remember seeing Ken Adelman, was at a Steve Clemons-hosted New America Foundation event this past May with British FM David Miliband and a bunch of young British Council or some such group of young leaders that Adelman was co-hosting. The entourage looked pretty internationalist. And this was after a Vanity Fair or otherwise denunciation by him and several other neoconservatives of his old pal Rumsfeld after the 2006 midterms. So, I guess I am not shocked. Life is too short to spend it defending the virtues of Sarah Palin as VP pick if he doesn't believe in it, etc.
NYT: "As voters have gotten to know Senator Barack Obama, they have warmed up to him, with more than half, 53 percent, now saying they have a favorable impression of him and 33 percent saying they have an unfavorable view. But as voters have gotten to know Senator John McCain, they have not warmed, with only 36 percent of voters saying they view him favorably while 45 percent view him unfavorably. Even voters who are planning to vote for Mr. McCain say their enthusiasm has waned. In New York Times and CBS News polls conducted with the same respondents before the first presidential debate and again after the last debate, Mr. McCain made no progress in appealing to voters on a personal level, and he and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, had alienated some voters." This worth noting too: "Mr. Obama’s favorability is the highest for a presidential candidate running for a first term in the last 28 years of Times/CBS polls. Mrs. Palin’s negative rating is the highest for a vice-presidential candidate as measured by The Times and CBS News. Even Dan Quayle, with whom Mrs. Palin is often compared because of her age and inexperience on the national scene, was not viewed as negatively in the 1988 campaign."
NYT: Bush decides to keep Gitmo open. "Mr. Cheney and his chief of staff, David S. Addington, have made it clear in the internal discussions this year that keeping Guantánamo open under a new president would validate the administration's decisions dealing with terrorists, the officials said."
Chris Cillizza: Is McCain coming back?
... Is it possible that the McCain comeback is happening right under our noses and is not being picked up due to the media's focus on the possibility of an Obama presidency?
Maybe, but a detailed look at the polling and the national playing field suggests that McCain's growth -- to the extent he has enjoyed it -- over the past week is as likely due to a natural tightening as election day approaches as any sort of major surge in support.
From Sept. 7 -- the day that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were bailed out by the U.S. government -- through the first week in October, the news was unequivocally bad for McCain and his party.
Voters overwhelmingly blamed the GOP -- particularly President George W. Bush -- for the economic morass. McCain's numbers tanked nationally and in key battleground states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida among others) as did the numbers for Republicans seeking Senate and House seats.
In that free-fall it's possible (and, perhaps, likely) that McCain's poll standing dropped below what any generic Republican presidential candidate could expect to receive in the way of support. During that period, voters who were almost certainly in McCain's camp before the financial crisis jumped ship -- heading either to the undecided camp or to Obama's side.
The last few days -- particularly given McCain's return to a very traditional "big government, tax raising liberal" attack against Obama -- may well have brought some of those voters who left McCain in a huff back into the fold as the debate reminded them of why they vote for Republicans in the first place.
But, simply re-claiming voters long expected to be on your side (and we are thinking of life voters in particular here) is not the same thing as turning a corner with critical independent voters -- either nationally or in battleground states.
While the polling outlook may well have improved marginally for McCain over the past week, the structural problems revealed in the most recent Washington Post/ABC News poll remain.
The election is a referendum on the economy and which candidate is better suited to correct its problems. Due to the strong sense that the country is headed off in the wrong direction AND the huge unpopularity of Bush, Obama is far better positioned to win the economic argument than McCain.
And, never forget the continued financial advantage that Obama enjoys over McCain. It's extremely difficult for a candidate trailing in the polls to overcome being outspent three to one and, in some cases, far worse without some sort of major external event intruding.
In sum, can we buy that "Joe the Plumber" and Obama's pledge to "spread the wealth" has helped bring white men back to McCain's side? Absolutely. Is it enough to change our current analysis that Obama is the clear frontrunner to be the next president of the United States? No.
ABC: "More challenges for John McCain: Likely voters overwhelmingly reject his effort to make an issue of Barack Obama's association with 1960s radical William Ayers. Fallout continues from McCain's pick of Sarah Palin for vice president, with 52 percent saying it weakens their confidence in his judgment. And on optimism, it's Obama by 2-1. Skepticism about the Ayers issue was one of the factors cited by Colin Powell in his endorsement of Obama yesterday, and in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, likely voters broadly agree: 60 percent say Obama's relationship with Ayers is not a legitimate issue in the presidential campaign; 37 percent say it is."
Mike Tomasky: "Republicans have lifted the lid off their right wing id."
LAT: Writer fights Italian mob with words. More on Roberto Saviano here.
LAT: "The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario late last night on suspicion of voter registration fraud."
AP: "Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse."
Jane Mayer: "Palin’s sudden rise to prominence owes more to members of the Washington élite than her rhetoric has suggested. ... Throughout the campaign, Palin has mocked what she calls 'the mainstream media.' Yet her administration made a concerted effort to attract the attention of East Coast publications. In late 2007, the state hired a public-relations firm with strong East Coast connections, which began promoting Palin and a natural-gas pipeline that she was backing in Alaska. The contract was for thirty-seven thousand dollars. The publicist on the project, Marcia Brier, the head of MCB Communications, in Needham, Massachusetts, was asked to approach media outlets in Washington and New York, according to the Washington Post. ..."
More from Nate Silver on the Wikipedian candidate.
CNN: The Obama campaign reports it raised over $150 million in September, 632,000 new donors, average donation $86. More from the NYT.
LAT: "Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country. ...YPM, a group hired by the GOP, allegedly deceived Californians who thought they were signing a petition. YPM denies any wrongdoing. Similar accusations have been leveled against the company elsewhere." A reader notes, "The really sleazy thing about this is that if these voters were duped into requesting an absentee ballot when they signed this form they will not be allowed to vote when they show up in person at the polls. Young Political Majors is a Florida LLC registered under the name YPM LLC. Mark A. Jacoby is the only registered corporate officer. He also has another Florida company, Mark A. Jacoby LLC. Both companies have addresses in Denedin, Tampa and Melrose, Florida."
WSJ:
Barack Obama attracted 100,000 people at a Saturday rally here, his biggest crowd ever at a U.S. event.
The crowd assembled under the Gateway Arch on a sunny Saturday afternoon to hear Obama speak about taxes and slam the Republicans on economic issues.
Lt. Samuel Dotson of the St. Louis Police Department confirmed the number of attendees piled into the grassy lawn by the Mississippi River.
To be sure, big crowds don’t always signal a big turnout on Election Day. But Obama’s ability to draw his largest audience yet in a typically red state that just weeks ago looked out of reach, could signal a changing electoral map.
For months Missouri polls put Obama as much as ten percentage points behind Republican John McCain. It was widely believed that McCain’s pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate would have won over the state’s conservatives and boosted his chances there. So far, that hasn’t happened.
A Rasmussen poll released on Friday shows Obama leading in Missouri 52% to 46% for McCain. ...
Fivethirtyeight.com's Sean Quinn in western Pennsylvania:
More from Ben Smith.So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"
Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."
In this economy, racism is officially a luxury. ...
WP:
Comments one reader: "I'm surprised they're not charging him with theft of services for not paying for his stay at the Guantanamo Hotel."The Bush administration is seeking to recall a military jury that gave a light sentence to Osama bin Laden's driver in one of the first trials at Guantanamo Bay, arguing that the judge improperly credited the defendant for time he had already spent in the detention facility.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a 40-year-old Yemeni captured in Afghanistan in November 2001, was sentenced in August to 66 months for providing material support to terrorism. The judge, Navy Capt. Keith J. Allred, credited the defendant with 61 months and eight days for time he had been detained at the U.S. military prison in Cuba, leaving Hamdan with an effective sentence of 142 days. Prosecutors had sought a 30-year term.
The government argues that Hamdan was not entitled to any credit for his pretrial detention because he was not held at Guantanamo Bay "in connection with the charges for which he was tried, but was independently detained under the law of armed conflict as an enemy combatant," according to motions filed with the military court and released this week.
According to military prosecutors, that distinction also allows the government to hold any detainee even after he has been tried, convicted, sentenced and has served his time. The government said in court papers that prosecution for violations of the laws of war is an "incidental fact" to a detainee's "wartime detention as an enemy combatant." [...]
Human rights groups said the government was avoiding the logic of its own position by trying to find a way to hold Hamdan other than as an enemy combatant.
"What's the point of having a trial if the sentence handed down is irrelevant to how long the U.S. can detain him?" asked Stacy Sullivan, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch. "Clearly, the government recognizes that it can't justify ignoring a sentence handed down by the military commissions -- that's why it has challenged the sentencing. If the government loses and continues to detain Hamdan after December 31, it will be acknowledging the fundamental flaws in the legal process it created at Guantanamo."
Atlanta Journal Constitution and Denver Post endorse Obama. Also, the Kansas City Star, Salt Lake Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times. The Examiner papers, Boston Herald, NY Post, Manchester, New Hampshire Union Leader, West Virginia Wheeling News Register, Colorado Pueblo Chieftan, and Napa Valley Register have endorsed McCain.
Rich Byrne comments at the American Prospect on the recent Kundera allegations. More from the IHT.
Just Out: 16 Words: New Court Filing Suggests Manufactured Terror Threat in Bush's 2002 State of the Union
Go read.A new court filing by the lawyers for Lakhdar Boumediene and five other Guantanamo detainees suggests that the Bush administration ordered the Bosnian government to arrest and hold the men after an exhaustive Bosnian investigation had found them innocent of any terrorism related activity and had ordered their release, in order to use them as props in Bush's January 2002 State of the Union speech.
The filing--"Lakhdar Boumediene, et al., Petitioners, v. George W. Bush, President of the United States, et al., Respondents, Petitioners' Public Traverse to the Government's Return to the Petition for Habeas Corpus"--lays out the case that the Bush administration threatened at the highest levels to withdraw diplomatic and military aid to the Balkan nation if Bosnia released the men, which its own three-month investigation had found innocent of any terrorism charges in the days leading up to Bush's January 2002 State of the Union.
Faced with the threats of the withdrawal of aid and that if it released the men, the White House would order NATO troops to detain them, Bosnia transferred the men under duress to the custody of the US government in January 2002, and the US transferred them to Guantanamo. Ten days later, in his 2002 State of the Union address, Bush used sixteen words to warn Americans that, in "cooperation" with the Bosnian government, it had captured terrorists who had planned to bomb the US embassy in Sarajevo: "Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy," Bush told the nation.
But, six years later, the detainees' new petition says, after the US Supreme Court has sided with the detainees and ordered the US to give the detainees habeas corpus rights, the Bush administration has failed to repeat the embassy plot charges that Bush used in his State of the Union address, or to produce credible evidence of why the men should be held as enemy combatants.
(Bush also used 16 words to falsely claim in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had sought yellowcake uranium from the African nation of Niger -- a claim the White House had been previously repeatedly warned by the CIA was unfounded and which the White House later admitted Bush should not have said, months after the US invasion of Iraq).
The 58-page traverse petition was filed today in the US District Court for the District of Columbia...
More from FDL's Bmaz.
Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times endorse Obama. Noted that it is the first time apparently in its 161-year history that the Tribune has endorsed a Democrat for president:
And the Tribune savages McCain for his choice of Palin:However this election turns out, it will dramatically advance America's slow progress toward equality and inclusion. It took Abraham Lincoln's extraordinary courage in the Civil War to get us here. It took an epic battle to secure women the right to vote. It took the perseverance of the civil rights movement. Now we have an election in which we will choose the first African-American president . . . or the first female vice president.
In recent weeks it has been easy to lose sight of this history in the making. Americans are focused on the greatest threat to the world economic system in 80 years. They feel a personal vulnerability the likes of which they haven't experienced since Sept. 11, 2001. It's a different kind of vulnerability. Unlike Sept. 11, the economic threat hasn't forged a common bond in this nation. It has fed anger, fear and mistrust.
On Nov. 4 we're going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.
The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States. [...]
We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party's nominee for president.
We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.
The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics.
This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party's nominee for president....
The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office -- and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. ...
We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party's course. We like McCain. ...It is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. ...
McCain failed in his most important executive decision. Give him credit for choosing a female running mate--but he passed up any number of supremely qualified Republican women who could have served. Having called Obama not ready to lead, McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. His campaign has tried to stage-manage Palin's exposure to the public. But it's clear she is not prepared to step in at a moment's notice and serve as president. McCain put his campaign before his country. [...]
When Obama said at the 2004 Democratic Convention that we weren't a nation of red states and blue states, he spoke of union the way Abraham Lincoln did.
It may have seemed audacious for Obama to start his campaign in Springfield, invoking Lincoln. We think, given the opportunity to hold this nation's most powerful office, he will prove it wasn't so audacious after all. We are proud to add Barack Obama's name to Lincoln's in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States.
But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I've listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.
But it's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn't think aloud. She just . . . says things.
Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she's not a big "egghead" but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? "I'm Joe Six-Pack"? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—"palling around with terrorists." If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand. This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.
No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush's style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.
I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives. In one now-famous case, Christopher Buckley was shooed from the great magazine his father invented. In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.
Mike Allen reporting that Colin Powell will may endorse Obama. "But an air of mystery surrounds Powell's planned live appearance Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' and no one is sure what he will say. ...The general’s camp is being coy about what he might or might not say on Sunday. But some McCain advisers suspect, without being sure, that Powell will endorse Obama." More from Steve Clemons.
The Washington Post endorses Obama:
The choice is made easy in part by Mr. McCain's disappointing campaign, above all his irresponsible selection of a running mate who is not ready to be president. It is made easy in larger part, though, because of our admiration for Mr. Obama and the impressive qualities he has shown during this long race. Yes, we have reservations and concerns, almost inevitably, given Mr. Obama's relatively brief experience in national politics. But we also have enormous hopes.
Mr. Obama is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building. At home, we believe, he would respond to the economic crisis with a healthy respect for markets tempered by justified dismay over rising inequality and an understanding of the need for focused regulation. Abroad, the best evidence suggests that he would seek to maintain U.S. leadership and engagement, continue the fight against terrorists, and wage vigorous diplomacy on behalf of U.S. values and interests. Mr. Obama has the potential to become a great president. Given the enormous problems he would confront from his first day in office, and the damage wrought over the past eight years, we would settle for very good. [...]
Mr. Obama's temperament is unlike anything we've seen on the national stage in many years. He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view. He has inspired millions of voters of diverse ages and races, no small thing in our often divided and cynical country. We think he is the right man for a perilous moment.
Lobbyist named in NYT/McCain story speaks to National Journal's Ed Pound.
NYT: PBS "Torturing Democracy" documentary to air nationwide only after Bush leaves office. Lots of scheduling difficulties and political interference suggested.
WP's Dana Milbank: Secret Service stopping reporters from interviewing citizens at Palin rallies at Palin campaign's request:
Via Romenesko. Is there still a Congress?I have to say the Secret Service is in dangerous territory here. In cooperation with the Palin campaign, they've started preventing reporters from leaving the press section to interview people in the crowd. This is a serious violation of their duty -- protecting the protectee -- and gets into assisting with the political aspirations of the candidate.
JTA: Jackson denies NY Post/Amir Taheri report. Taheri, who previously published a false allegation that Jews in Iran had to wear yellow stars which several papers had to retract, does seem to be the Ghorbanifar of columnists, as the papers that carry him must surely know.
Cultural Intelligence. The Center for Public Integrity's Nick Schwellenbach reports on what the Marines are reading about Iran, based on a field guide on cultural intelligence he's obtained:
PaperTrail has obtained an exclusive copy of the military's field guide for cultural intelligence for possible military operations in Iran, which is designed to help the U.S. military understand foreign cultures. Though nowhere near as enjoyable as the U.S. Army's 1943 Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II, ... it describes in detail what our soldiers are learning about Iran — and it's everything from paranoia within the military to preferred pants widths.
The existence of fault lines among Iran's military organizations and its ethnic groups is a major theme in the Marine Corps's CD-ROM, Cultural Intelligence for Military Operations: Iran.
The guide also paints a picture of endemic paranoia within Iran's armed forces. "Relationships between superiors and subordinates are characterized by deference and gratitude but also by cynicism and manipulation. Iranians expect their social inferiors are scheming somehow to oust or overthrow them, even though they profess allegiance and obedience," according to a section called Cultural Influences on Military Effectiveness. ...
NBC's Aram Roston: McCain fundraiser accused of "war profiteering":
Here's a link to Waxman's letter to Gates.A company that ships oil into Iraq for use by American forces there "appears to have engaged in a reprehensible form of war profiteering," according to a letter by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Cal., Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The company, International Oil Trading Limited, is run by Florida-based businessman Harry Sargeant, a top fundraiser for the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain.
Waxman's committee launched an investigation earlier his year following a May 2008 report by NBC News that first reported on the oil contracts.Sargeant, the McCain fundraiser, is the president of IOTC, which won massive Pentagon contracts to provide U.S. troops in Iraq with fuel. NBC first reported on the contracts in May. This summer, Sargeant came under the spotlight again after the Washington Post reported that he was at the center of campaign-contribution "bundling" involving tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions from "unlikely" donors. In August the McCain campaign said it was returning about $50,000 linked to Sargeant's fundraising.
Today, Waxman released a letter he sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, calling for action on the huge oil contracts. "Over the last four years," Waxman wrote, "IOTC has been paid over $1.4 billion by U.S. taxpayers to deliver fuel through Jordan into Iraq and has earned a profit of over $210 million."Waxman said that those profits were significant. "The IOTC contracts stand out for the extent of the company’s apparent profiteering. Of the $210 million in profits received by the company, at least one third--$70 million--appears to have benefited a single individual: Mr. Sargeant. If the IOTC contracts had been awarded to the lowest bidders, the taxpayers could have saved over $180 million."
More from the NYT.
Addie Stan rounds up debate observations at the HuffingtonPost.
More from Jacob Hacker: "We can only hope that it really is the end of the Karl Rove era in American politics."
NYT: Ruling may impede thousands of Ohio voters.
Update: The Politico's Avi Zenilman: Will Joe the Plumber be purged from voter roles? Apparently his name is misspelled in his vote registration.
ABC: "Joe the Plumber" in fact eligible for tax cut under Obama plan.
Debate: McCain seemed to be trying harder initially to be more genial, but still comes off as quite ill-tempered. At moments, almost having trouble controlling his anger even when there's no obvious provocation to him, and when Obama is making gestures again and again to be civil ("John and I agree on two things...."). McCain repeatedly expresses annoyance at Obama's "eloquence." McCain even belittled Obama's saying "health of the mother" as if that is such an inane concept?! Curious how others will see it, but I cannot believe tonight's performance will help McCain with women undecideds or independents.
David Brooks on PBS: Obama landed three solid reassuring performances. No game changer for McCain. "McCain seemed tight. Is this someone you want to live with for four years?"
Update:
CNN: 58-31 Obama-McCain, and McCain's unfavorables went up slightly.CBS instant poll, survey of "about" 500 uncommitted voters:
53 percent said Obama won; 22 percent said Mccain, 25 percent a draw.
Uncommitted voters: 28 pct now committed to obama; 14 pct to McCain
Who would raise taxes? McCain: 48 pct; Obama 63 pct.
Right decisions on health care: McCain, 30 pct; 69 pct Obama
Chris Cillizza's take.
Fivethirtyeight: Mediacurves poll of independents: 60 to 30 for Obama. Nate Silver: "At the end of the day, one of McCain's problems is that he simply doesn't own the negativity very well. During the John Lewis sequence, during the ACORN and Ayers stuff, he came across as uncomfortable, insincere, overcoached. In certain ways, his 'straight talk' brand plays against him when it seems as though he has trouble believing his own talking points." Sean Quinn: "Looks like the Luntz group went Obama." (Stan Greenberg focus group here and here).
More from Nate Silver: "Tonight's debate is not going to do John McCain any favors. On the contrary, it was the most lopsided of the four events in the post-debate snap polls.McCain was winning the debate early on, responding with surprising vigor and detail on the economy. But then came this (negative campaigning) .... McCain's implication that Obama was principally responsible for the negative tone of the campaign was simply not going to be credible to most voters. ... But voters came into the debate thinking by 2:1 margins that McCain was running a negative campaign and Obama a positive one. To try and fight against that tide was a significant mistake.... Obama, it should be noted, was not particularly effective during this exchange (especially considering that he should have prepped for this kind of sequence days ahead of time), eliciting a lukewarm response from the dial groups. But it turned out that he didn't have to be, as McCain was left with just enough rope to hang himself. And from that point forward, the dials looked like the S&P 500 every time that Obama finished one of his responses and McCain began his. The voters had been pleasantly surprised with the McCain they saw in the first 20 minutes of the debate. But after that disingenuous sequence on negative campaigning, they basically gave up on him."
All the people who have been advising McCain to run a more negative, non-issue based campaign have done him a disservice. It makes him seem smaller, and voters have heard it all before and aren't interested. The more they try to ramp up the scary factor, there's a kind of so-what factor and the more negative, tight, embittered McCain seems with no clear overall positive message. Similarly, they've used Palin in a way that makes the ticket come across as extreme and highly polarizing. And one can increasingly foresee McCain as a somewhat tragic figure, likely to be defeated in a way by his own party and the pressures to be his party's candidate and run his party's type of divisive, smear-filled, non-issue based negative campaign, against perhaps some of his own inclinations. McCain really comes across as increasingly embittered.
NYT:
Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist and Nobel Prize laureate, publicly and forcefully denounced the Turkish government for its treatment of writers in a speech he gave at the opening ceremony of the Frankfurt Book Fair on Tuesday evening as the president of Turkey sat listening.
Every year, a nation is chosen to be guest of honor at the fair, an annual rite of the international publishing industry, and this year it is Turkey. Hundreds of thousands of publishers, editors, agents and authors are gathered here from 100 countries to talk about and negotiate deals for upcoming books in what has become the most important annual event on the book-publishing calendar.
At Tuesday’s opening ceremony in a packed auditorium, Mr. Pamuk spoke quietly but intensely as Abdullah Gul, the president of Turkey, sat in the audience. “A century of banning and burning books, of throwing writers into prison or killing them or branding them as traitors and sending them into exile, and continuously denigrating them in the press — none of this has enriched Turkish literature — it has only made it poorer,” Mr. Pamuk said.
Mr. Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006, was the subject of criminal charges of “insulting Turkishness” after giving a 2005 interview to magazine in which he condemned the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey in World War I and the killing of Kurds by Turkey in the 1980s. The charges were dropped, but many nationalists have not forgiven Mr. Pamuk.
“The state’s habit of penalizing writers and their books is still very much alive,” Mr. Pamuk said in his speech. “Article 301 of the Turkish penal code continues to be used to silence and suppress many other writers, in the same way it was used against me; there are at this moment hundreds of writers and journalists being prosecuted and found guilty under this article.”
When he was working on his latest novel, “Museum of Innocence,” Mr. Pamuk said he used YouTube to research Turkish films and songs. Now, he said that YouTube, along with many other domestic and international Web sites, are blocked in Turkey “for political reasons.” ...
Update: Secret service in the crowd said they didn't hear it.The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a threatening remark directed at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama during a political event in Scranton.
The agency followed up on a report in The Times-Tribune that a member of the crowd shouted, "Kill him!" after one mention of Mr. Obama's name during a rally Tuesday for Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. ...
Times-Tribune employees who covered the rally were interviewed today by the Secret Service.
Spokesman Darrin Blackford said the agency takes the threat seriously and will make an arrest if it can determine who shouted the remark.
John Hood takes the long view at the Corner: "Ronald Reagan led a political revolution in 1980 against decades of Keynesian nonsense and cultural rot — and then saw his party lose congressional seats in 1982. Bill Clinton led a Democratic takeover of Washington in 1992, which lasted two years. Bush and the GOP won full control in 2004, which lasted two years. In modern times, American political power has had a quicksilver quality. Does that mean that the upcoming election isn't important? Hardly! But it won't be the last word on the future of our Republic. No single election ever is."
More here and here.A Russian human rights lawyer whose clients have included leading Kremlin opponents said Tuesday that she had found poisonous mercury in her car in France and believed it may have been a warning to her.
Karinna Moskalenko told Ekho Moskvy, a radio station in Moscow, that the incident had prevented her from travelling to Moscow to take part in the trial of three suspected accomplices in the 2006 murder of the journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya. ...
A Strasbourg assistant prosecutor, Claude Palpacuer, said an investigation had been opened. He said Moskalenko and members of her family had been invited to undergo a medical examination to check if they had been contaminated. ...
Moskalenko's clients have included Mikhail Khodorkovsky, founder of a major oil company, Yukos, who is serving a prison sentence for fraud and tax evasion. He said his prosecution was punishment for challenging the Kremlin's power.
Prosecutors in that lawsuit applied to the Moscow Bar Association to have Moskalenko stripped of her right to practice as a lawyer, a step she said was designed to weaken Khodorkovsky's defense.
NYT: New CBS/NYT poll says attacks backfire on McCain. "After several weeks in which the McCain campaign unleashed a series of strong political attacks on Mr. Obama, trying to tie him to a former 1960s radical, among other things, the poll found that more voters see Mr. McCain as waging a negative campaign than Mr. Obama. Six in 10 voters surveyed said that Mr. McCain had spent more time attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president; by about the same number, voters said Mr. Obama was spending more of his time explaining than attacking. ... The top reasons cited by those who said they thought less of Mr. McCain were his recent attacks and his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. " Update: Panelists debate effect of Palin pick to McCain candidacy.
WP: White House endorsed waterboarding in memos.
Update: Senate Intelligence committee chairman Jay Rockefeller responds in a statement: "“The Senate Intelligence Committee is in the midst of an investigation of the CIA's interrogation program, including the Department of Justice's determination that the use of waterboarding on prisoners is lawful. If White House documents exist that set the policy for the use of coercive techniques such as waterboarding, those documents have been kept from the Committee. That is unacceptable, and represents the latest example of the Bush Administration withholding critical information from Congress and the American people in an attempt to limit our oversight of sensitive intelligence collection activities. As Chairman, I will not allow the Bush Administration's stonewalling to prevent a full accounting of the facts.”
Noah Shachtman interviews Jim Bamford on his new NSA book, the Shadow Factory.
Chris Cillizza picks through the numbers of the latest ABC/WP poll. "Unless McCain can convince voters -- sometime VERY soon -- that he is not the heir to the Bush legacy, this race, judging from the Post/ABC data, is darn near unwinnable for McCain."
NYT: International dignitary filled conference in Tehran fuels western interest in possible Khatami re-run for Iran presidency.
David Frum v. the Corner:
For a few weeks now, especially since the Palin nomination, one has noted a cadre of conservatives - Frum, David Brooks, Ross Douthat, George Will, in part Charles Krauthammer -- expressing not just dismay at the pick, but more broadly kind of nudging the right to an acceptance of its probable loss of the election next month. And a parallel incredible resistance to accept that possibility - a rejection of the legitimacy that essentially Obama could be elected -- by some on the right, a kind of plan to go down in flames, which at times has seemed willfully, insanely over the top as well as deeply irresponsible. Fighting has very much turned inwards, and Frum's patience seems to be wearing thin.I receive emails from readers every day who tell me that the only possible motive I could have for expressing doubts about the McCain ticket is my desire to attend cocktail parties, appear on TV, apply for a job in the Obama administration etc. Now I see this line of accusation appearing in the Corner too. ...
Do my correspondents (and now my Corner colleagues) truly believe that - but for my pitiful media and social ambitions - nobody in America would have noticeed that Sarah Palin cannot speak three coherent consecutive words about finance or economics?
In the past month, Sarah Palin's unfavorability ratings have risen by 12 points. She briefly boosted the McCain ticket, but that effect subsided by the end of September. Blue-collar white women (!) now reject Palin as unqualified for the presidency 48-43, according to the Wall-Street Journal/NBC poll.
It's flattering to be told that my eagerness to clink glasses with the Washington social elite is the driving cause behind the shriveling public support for the Alaska governor. Flattering - but not very convincing. Tens of millions of people have tuned in to watch Sarah Palin field questions from Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, and then to share a stage with Joe Biden. If Palin's public support is now collapsing, it is her own doing.
Possibly it is bad form for me to acknowledge this reality. As one of my correspondents wrote this very morning:
Well he may have a point.PLEASE KEEP YOUR REMARKS TO YOURSELF! Nobody but Democrats wants to hear them.
Perhaps it is our job at NRO is tell our readers only what they want to hear, without much regard to whether it is true. Perhaps it is our duty just to keep smiling and to insist that everything is dandy - that John McCain's economic policies make sense, that his selection of Sarah Palin was an act of statesmanship, that she herself is the second coming of Anna Schwartz, and that nobody but an over-educated snob would ever suggest otherwise.
Who knows? Perhaps if I do that enthusiastically enough, somebody somewhere might even pour me a free drink or invite me onto the airwaves for a 3 minute Monday morning sunrise interview. And after all: What else could I possibly want?
I know some see this election as representing the shift into a new era of Democratic ascendance. My own unacademic sense is that the right won't be out of power very long, that human nature itself will make an opposition party viable sooner than many think. The economy will hopefully recover in a year or two. The people who think gov't should do less and more will still be here. The people who respond to demagoguery of various sorts will still be here. The people who want less immigration, etc. But the Republicans look to be having a very bad election this time and why I think there's likely to be more of a psychic tipping point this moment for conservatives is because they've had power now for a while and it's very hard to face the prospect of giving that up. Especially when there seems to be a big element of fear on their part too that some of the right exercised their power so divisively, and there could be a kind of retribution against them. At the end of the Clinton era, and I was largely out of the country during those years and was not paying close attention, but I don't remember Democrats being afraid for political revenge from the Republicans when the White House changed hands. But there seems to be an element now on the right of essentially fear, fear for themselves masquerading as anti-Obama hysteria, that thinks maybe they went too far when they had power and it's going to be awful if and when they don't. I mean, really, read some of the Corner, and there's truly an hysterical quality to some of the stuff. Which the saner Frums and Brooks seem to be trying to kind of talk them down from. And again from afar, the prospect that the next president would lead so divisively as Bush/Cheney/DeLay/Rove deliberately did is hardly something one would imagine would tempt or politically benefit whoever comes after Bush, trying to lead a union that feels pretty jittery and fragile on many fronts.
Update: Just saw this Christopher Hitchens' piece: "I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that 'issue' I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the "experience" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign."
More thoughts from the Poor Man.
NYT: Milan Kundera denies newly uncovered records that allege that as a student he informed on a supposed anti-communist spy, who spent years in a prison camp. More from the original Czech investigation.
Sindbad. Interesting. German magazine Der Spiegel reporting that an Iranian-Canadian dual national arrested October 5 at Frankfurt airport passport control on suspicion of exporting banned items for Iran's Shahab missile program is in fact a long-time German BND agent, codenamed Sindbad. (Been informed it's not Djamshid Nezhad). Some background on other recent Iran export control cases here, here and here.
Here's the German Der Spiegel report, "Sindbad's end," if someone is inclined to translate.....
Update: Many thanks to my friend A., translation below the jump:
Hmm. Isn't this what the BND would have a top agent who had penetrated Iranian missile program doing? I still don't understand why they necessarily allowed German prosecutors to curtail his work.The End of Sindbad
by Holger Stark
An Iranian businessman was active as a spy for years, as a top source of
the German federal information agency (Bundesnachrichtendienst) in Tehran
- now he's been busted. The German govt fears massive diplomatic problems.One of the most spectacular spy stories of the decade came to a quite
unspectacular end. Agents of the customs criminal division waited last
Sunday until the older gentleman had passed through passport control
at Frankfurt airport, then they stepped forward. Hancuffs clicked shut,
the man was led away.His co-workers knew the man as a businessman from Iran who managed a
middle-rank enterprise in Hessen, a stocky gentleman aged 61, just
returned from a trip abroad.The customs agents know him as a smuggler of weapons technology for Iran,
or at least that is the suspicion that has led to him being placed in
detention while his case is under investigation.The BND knows him as "Sindbad", the code name under which he has spent
more than a decade spying for the German foreign intelligence service.The story of this man is a modern version of that of the seafarer of the
world of fairytales. He is a traveling merchant from the Orient, with whom
one can never be sure where his loyalty lies in the end. Like his namesake
in the "1001 Nights" this modern Sindbad traveled around half the world,
did business in Tehran, Germany and in Canada, where he has a second
citizenship. He became a well-to-do merchant, who dealt in high technology
- and in secret information.Up to now, Sindbad was considered one of the very best and most important
sources for the BND. He delivered information from a region that, like
no other, is regarded as a no-go area for diplomats and secret services:
Iran, the land of the mullahs and of the unpredictable head of state,
Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who wants to lead his nation to become a nuclear
power. To place a spy in Iran, that is considered a supreme achievement
for the secret services, something they all try for: the Israeli Mossad,
the British MI6, the American CIA -- and the German BND.This case brings with it almost incalculable foreign policy consequences.
The information reported by Sinbad filled in the white spaces on the maps
of the BND; his reports were delivered to the Foreign Office and for years
they served as important building blocks for the Iran policy of the German
government. On a number of occasions, the data from the spy were directly
incorporated into the situation analyses of Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier (of the Social Democratic Party).Germany's influence on the negotiations concerning the Iranian nuclear
program rest above all on a clever tactic of Steinmeier's, which relies on
a mixture of concessions and threats. This tactic is based on an unusually
detailed understanding of the facts - among others thanks to Sindbad.
Within the German federal government there is now growing concern that the
reaction of the mullahs will lead them to take draconian measures, once it
becomes known how long the BND had been active in Tehran and what methods
it used. The feared consequences range from strained diplomatic relations
to counterintelligence measures.That is because the documents delivered by Sindbad were evidently from
the inner sanctum of the Tehran state apparatus. At times he would hand
over pictures of tunnel boring machinery, at other times details of secret
storage facilities, at times freshly minted papers on progress in the
development of delivery systems for nuclear warheads. The information for
the most part came from those ministries in Tehran where he had the best
entree. In Pullach [near Munich, site of the HQ of the BND] seat of the
1st Abteilung [unit of the BND], which ran Sindbad, and in Berlin, where
the analysts of the 3rd Abteilung reside, who evaluated and analyzed the
information delivered by Sindbad, they were delighted. The information
served up by the source from Tehran fit in with the fragments that the BND
had already gathered as a result of other initiatives.Part 2: The service paid its top source a full million euro as honorarium
That was the beginning of a collaboration that from the mid-1990s on led
to a relationship of confidence between the BND and its spy. The service
paid its top source a full million euro as honorarium, an unusually high
amount, that is invested in sources only in exceptional cases. As one
official puts it, he was "one of our highest-value sources in the entire
area of proliferation."Even so, there were already doubt early on in Pullach as to whether
someone who was able to act with such nonchalance might perhaps be working
for more than one employer. German officials thought it barely conceivable
that the government in Tehran was not keeping a special lookout for the
peripatetic merchant, who moved around the world so freely, as few
Iranians could.This is why, more than once, the German secret service tried to
investigate suspicions that their Iranian counterparts might be feeding
the West manipulated material through Sindbad. On the other hand: was it
not the case that in most cases Sindbad's information turned out to be
confirmed? Hadn't he more than once provided leads concerning other cases
of proliferation? Was the profit that Sindbad derived from the obscure
operations of his firms not attractive enough to continue this business?And so he continued. With the knowledge of the BND, the merchant set up a
firm in Canada and another in Germany, in central Hessen. This role made
it possible for him to travel a good deal. And in the end, it was what
brought about his downfall.That is because, in parallel with the secret services, another
agency in Germany had cast out its net, one that is among the most
efficient in the field of armaments export control: the customs criminal
division (ZKA). And it was this net that eventually snagged Sindbad.The finance (internal revenue) authorities, by coincidence, had flagged
Sindbad at the beginning of the year for an external audit, and the look
at the books showed great irregularities. The documentation were forwarded
to the ZKA, his phone calls were tapped, his e-mails monitored, the
merchant was placed under observation - until the ZKA found out what it
needed. It seems Sindbad's firm was exporting apparatus that could be used
for the Iranian missile program. Since September 2007, two shipments had
already been completed; two further shipments were planned. The master spy
had told the BND nothing about this.The apparatus in question is what is called "dual use" machinery, which
can be used for both military and civilian applications. However the
consignee to which the shipments were addressed is on a blacklist, which
in the case of Iran at this point comprises 25 firms - those enterprises
about which the German government has grounded suspicions that they are
involved in [Iran's] "very ambitious ballistic missile program." That
makes these business transactions illegalThe machinery, according to the federal prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe,
was destined for the production of the Shahab rockets, the great pride of
Tehran's missile program. With an estimated range of 1,300 to 1,600 km,
these rockets could reach Israel - and at some point they could possibly
be fitted with nuclear warheads. That is why any shipments that could be
destined for the Shahab-program are looked at particularly closely
watched.The customs agents soon became aware that the merchant was an informant
of the BND. Indications of that fact emerged from the covert surveillance.
And so it was that in April there was a first crisis meeting between the
heads of the agencies and the federal prosecutor's office. The code of
criminal procedure permits halting a criminal investigation when it raises
"the danger of serious damage to [the interests of] the Federal Republic
of Germany" - which is also how such matters are resolved in most other
countries. The BND would have been glad to be able to save its source in
this manner.However, the law foresees such emergency measures only in cases involving
violations of national security legislation. In Sindbad's case, however,
what he was suspected of was a violation of the law regulating foreign
exports. It soon became clear that this loophole in the law could not be
employed. On top of this, chief federal prosecutor Monika Harms raised
massive objections to any deal - the law left no wiggleroom, she insisted.
BND Chief Ernst Uhrlau accepted this view, despite the foreseeable
consquences.In addition to the foreign policy consequences the damage caused by the
arrest is immense, especially for the BND. In the future it will be
incomparably more difficult to obtain insider information about Iran's
armaments program. The secret service must now also occupy itself with
the problem of providing its informant with a new identity.That is because, while Sindbad may be facing a prison sentence thanks to
the illegal exports, he faces something much worse that could follow. The
revenge of the Iranian secret service against traitors can be terrible.
Not long ago, a revolutionary tribunal passed a death sentence on merchant
Ali Ashtari, accused of having been a spy for Mossad. Sindbad can hardly
hope for anything better, in the even that the Iranian agency gets its
hands on him.Why did the spy on the one hand betray his government in Tehran, while at
the same time shipping it material for armaments? To that question, the
investigators have yet to find any conclusive answer. Perhaps he thought
he was untouchable. It is not unusual that people who work for the
security services grow to believe that they are exempt from the banalities
of the justice apparatus. Or perhaps the merchant merely wanted to collect
a double paycheck.In the end, his loyalty was undivided: it was only to himself.
Barack Obama picked up at least 16 newspaper endorsements this weekend, including six in swing states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri. John McCain, as far as we know, gained just two.
The Wisconsin State Journal and The Sun of San Bernardino had backed Bush in 2004. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch called Obama's opponent, John McCain, "the incredible shrinking man" who had made a horrific pick for his running mate.
Backing Obama: In Ohio, The Blade in Toledo and the Dayton Daily News; the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Tennessean of Nashville, the Wisconsin State Journal. the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times, and in California the Fresno Bee, Sacramento Bee, Contra Costa Times, The Herald of Monterey, and The Sun of San Bernardino (which had picked Bush over Kerry), plus the New Bedford Standrd-Times in Massachusetts.
Joining the Obama team in battleground states were the Muskegon (Mich.) Chronicle, the Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Express-Times and Springfield (Ohio) News.
McCain registered two pick ups: The Wheeling News-Register in West Virginia and the Napa Valley Register in California.
The biggest ever sale of oil assets will take place today, when the Iraqi government puts 40bn barrels of recoverable reserves up for offer in London.
BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are all expected to attend a meeting at the Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair with the Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani.
Access is being given to eight fields, representing about 40% of the Middle Eastern nation's reserves, at a time when the country remains under occupation by US and British forces.
Two smaller agreements have already been signed with Shell and the China National Petroleum Corporation, but today's sale will ignite arguments over whether the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was a "war for oil" that is now to be consummated by western multinationals seizing control of strategic Iraqi reserves.
Al-Shahristani is expected to reveal some kind of "risk service agreements" that could run for up to 20 years, with formal offers to be submitted by next spring and agreements signed in the summer.
WP:
Overall, Obama is leading 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, and for the first time in the general-election campaign, voters gave the Democrat a clear edge on tax policy and providing strong leadership.
McCain has made little headway in his attempts to convince voters that Obama is too "risky" or too "liberal." Rather, recent strategic shifts may have hurt the Republican nominee, who now has higher negative ratings than his rival and is seen as mostly attacking his opponent rather than addressing the issues that voters care about. Even McCain's supporters are now less enthusiastic about his candidacy, returning to levels not seen since before the Republican National Convention.
Conversely, Obama's pitch to the middle class on taxes is beginning to sink in; nearly as many said they think their taxes would go up under a McCain administration as under an Obama presidency, and more see their burdens easing with the Democrat in the White House.
The poll was conducted after Tuesday night's debate, which most voters said did not sway their opinions much. Still, voters' impressions of Obama are up, and views of McCain have slipped.
Nearly two-thirds of voters, 64 percent, now view Obama favorably, up six percentage points from early September. About a third of voters have a better opinion of the senator from Illinois because of his debate performances, while 8 percent have a lower opinion of him. By contrast, more than a quarter said they think worse of McCain as a result of the debates, more than double the proportion saying their opinion had improved. McCain's overall rating has also dipped seven points, to 52 percent, over the past month.
Really interesting NYT book review profile of long-time NSA chronicler James Bamford and his new book on NSA domestic spying:
When The New York Times reported the warrantless eavesdropping in December 2005, Mr. Bamford recalled, “My phone started ringing at 4 in the morning” as reporters chasing the story looked for an expert.
This time Mr. Bamford’s experience as an N.S.A. sleuth had failed him. “I was extremely shocked,” he said. “I’d always said they had learned their lesson and were obeying the law.”
Mr. Bamford said he felt he had been duped by the agency and by General Hayden, who had granted him several interviews and had invited him to dinner. “The Shadow Factory” is in part a reporter’s mea culpa for his temporary seduction by a powerful agency.
WOW. Congratulations Paul Krugman! More. Among the reasons this award so exciting, that Krugman is a scholar who has long made his insights accessable to ordinary people in his newspaper column and blog.
AP: FBI records show Hoover's antagonism towards columnist Jack Anderson.
LAT:
Darrel J. Vandeveld was in despair. The hard-nosed lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, a self-described conformist praised by his superiors for his bravery in Iraq, had lost faith in the Guantanamo Bay war crimes tribunals in which he was a prosecutor.
His work was top secret, making it impossible to talk to family or friends. So the devout Catholic -- working away from home -- contacted a priest online.
Even if he had no doubt about the guilt of the accused, he wrote in an August e-mail, "I am beginning to have grave misgivings about what I am doing, and what we are doing as a country. . . . I no longer want to participate in the system, but I lack the courage to quit. I am married, with children, and not only will they suffer, I'll lose a lot of friends."
Two days later, he took the unusual step of reaching out for advice from his opposing counsel, a military defense lawyer. "How do I get myself out of this office?" Vandeveld asked Major David J.R. Frakt of the Air Force Reserve, who represented the young Afghan Vandeveld was prosecuting for an attack on U.S. soldiers -- despite Vandeveld's doubts about whether Mohammed Jawad would get a fair trial. Vandeveld said he was seeking a "practical way of extricating myself from this mess."
Last month, Vandeveld did just that, resigning from the Jawad case, the military commissions overall and, ultimately, active military duty. In doing so, he has become even more of a central figure in the "mess" he considers Guantanamo to be. ...
Vandeveld, who was prosecuting seven tribunal cases -- nearly a third of pending cases -- has declined to be interviewed about the particulars of the Jawad case. But he did engage in a series of e-mails with The Times about his general concerns, before being "reminded" last week that he could not talk to the press until his release from active duty was final. In the future, he said, he plans to speak out. ...
Anyone who knows him, Vandeveld, 48, told The Times, "will probably tell you that I've been a conformist my entire life, and [that] to speak out against the injustice wrought upon our worst enemies entailed a weather shift in my worldview." ...
But by July, Vandeveld told The Times, he had grown increasingly troubled. He kept finding sources of information and documents that appeared to bolster Frakt's claims that evidence was being withheld -- including some favorable to the defense, such as information suggesting that Jawad was underage, that he had been drugged before the incident and that he had been abused by U.S. forces afterward.
Vandeveld also was having difficulty obtaining authorization to release documents in his possession to the defense.
NYT: Day after being removed from US terror sponsor list, North Korea resumes dismantling nuclear plant.
Obama down to seven point lead in latest Gallup tracking poll. NYT: Obama knocks on doors in Holland, Ohio.Barring a dramatic change in the political landscape over the next three weeks, Democrats appear headed toward a decisive victory on Election Day that would give them broad power over the federal government.
The victory would send Barack Obama to the White House and give him larger Democratic majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate — and perhaps a filibuster-proof margin there.
That could mark a historic realignment of the country's politics on a scale with 1932 or 1980, when the out party was given power it held for a generation, and used it to transform government's role in American society. [...]
Added Rothenberg: "Republicans appear to be heading into a disastrous election that will usher in a very bleak period for the party. A new generation of party leaders will have to figure out how to pick up the pieces and make their party relevant after November."
Jacob Heilbrunn on Bart Gellman's The Angler: "It didn’t have to be that way. As governor of Texas, Bush hewed to a centrist course, working, as he often boasted, with the Democratic-led State Legislature. As a candidate for the presidency, he promised more of the same. But as president, he struck out on a more radical and polarizing course, one that Barton Gellman, in his engrossing and informative 'Angler,' suggests he would not have followed absent Cheney. (Angler is Cheney’s Secret Service code name.) Gellman, a reporter at The Washington Post, has interviewed numerous associates and antagonists of the vice president, offering the most penetrating portrait of him yet. The result is that Cheney doesn’t seem as bad as you might think. He’s even worse."
Over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. ...
What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole. The liberals had coastal condescension, so the conservatives developed their own anti-elitism, with mirror-image categories and mirror-image resentments, but with the same corrosive effect.
Republicans developed their own leadership style. If Democratic leaders prized deliberation and self-examination, then Republicans would govern from the gut. ... The political effects of this trend have been obvious. Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone.
The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community. ...
This year could have changed things. The G.O.P. had three urbane presidential candidates. But the class-warfare clichés took control. Rudy Giuliani disdained cosmopolitans at the Republican convention. Mitt Romney gave a speech attacking “eastern elites.” (Mitt Romney!) John McCain picked Sarah Palin. ... And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission — because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away.
AP: "A legislative committee investigating Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has found she unlawfully abused her authority in firing the state's public safety commissioner. The investigative report concludes that a family grudge wasn't the sole reason for firing Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan but says it likely was a contributing factor."
How close are McCain's foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann and Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi? In this piece, I asked long-time Chalabi advisor Francis Brooke among others.
Adelson no longer No. 3. Bloomberg:
As I remember, Adelson's worth was estimated at $15 billion, so a loss of $4 billion may not hurt him as much as it would you or me. I wrote about the right's frustration with Adelson's tendency to take a hands-on role in projects he funded back in the spring, including the conservative advocacy group, Freedom's Watch.Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chief Executive Officer Sheldon Adelson's net worth declined by $4 billion between Aug. 29 and Oct. 1, the steepest drop among Americans who lost $1 billion or more during the credit crisis, according to Forbes magazine.
The magazine, in its Oct. 27 issue, recalculates the effect of September's financial news on the wealthiest Americans, those who make up its Forbes 400 list. That list was published on Sept. 17.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman Warren Buffett overtook Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates as the richest American by posting an $8 billion gain to $58 billion during the period, the magazine said. Gates's net worth declined $1.5 billion to $55.5 billion during the 33-day period. He had been first for 15 straight years.
NYT:
International nuclear inspectors are investigating whether a Russian scientist helped Iran conduct complex experiments on how to detonate a nuclear weapon, according to European and American officials. As part of the investigation, inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency are seeking information from the scientist, who they believe acted on his own as an adviser on experiments described in a lengthy document obtained by the agency, the officials said.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is under way, said that the document appeared authentic, without explaining why, but they made it clear that they did not think the scientist was working on behalf of the Russian government. Still, it is the first time that the nuclear agency has suggested that Iran may have received help from a foreign weapons scientist in developing nuclear arms.
WP: "A federal appeals court last night temporarily blocked a judge's order that the government must release 17 Chinese Muslims held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into the United States. ... The men have been held at Guantanamo Bay for nearly seven years but are no longer deemed to be enemy combatants."
Politico: "Barack Obama has purchased a half-hour of airtime on CBS, sources confirm. The Obama campaign will air a half-hour primetime special on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m. Sources say the Obama camp is also near a deal with NBC and Fox. It's not yet clear if an ad buy is locked on any other network, however, or if the duration or time period is the same."
ABC News: Whistleblowers say government routinely eavesdrops on communications of ordinary Americans overseas, including the troops, aid workers, journalists:
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, said in a statement: “The Committee will take whatever action is necessary to ensure those rules are followed and any violations are addressed.” More from the Post.Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), called the allegations "extremely disturbing" and said the committee has begun its own examination. ...
"These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.
Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."
She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and "collected on" as they called their offices or homes in the United States. [..]
NSA awarded Adrienne Kinne a NSA Joint Service Achievement Medal in 2003 at the same time she says she was listening to hundreds of private conversations between Americans, including many from the International Red Cross and Doctors without Borders.
"We knew they were working for these aid organizations," Kinne told ABC News. "They were identified in our systems as 'belongs to the International Red Cross' and all these other organizations. And yet, instead of blocking these phone numbers we continued to collect on them," she told ABC News. ...
Both former intercept operators came forward at first to speak with investigative journalist Jim Bamford for a book on the NSA, "The Shadow Factory," to be published next week. ..."Both of them felt that what they were doing was illegal and improper, and immoral, and it shouldn't be done, and that's what forces whistleblowers."
Update: Discussing this piece, I was struck by how some former military and intel officers describe this story as basically another sign of incompetence. e.g. some stupid grunt isn't told what the rules are, or his commander doesn't enforce it right, etc. "Yes, bored, stupid, enlisted personnel misusing their positions, even stupider officers who are afraid they are going to miss something, and then leaders at the top who are so ignorant of how their organizations really work that they have no idea it is even going on," one former intelligence official responded to the report. "It is a complete failure of management just as Abu Ghraib was. Do you think that any of those guys have any idea what Private Jones is really doing?" The sort of "bad apples" or "bored apples" interpretation, but not a policy failure, or indeed, the policy. But as an ordinary civilian who has sort of understood the whole FISA debate, however ritualistic or fictitious, as being about policy assurances that a nominal legal/oversight system was being set up to prevent just such systemic abuses if not occasional ones, I find such allegations as those in the ABC report and forthcoming Bamford book while not surprising, deeply infuriating. Are they just all lying to our faces all the time? Is there zero oversight? Are all the statements from the president on down through Congressional staffers just totally phony? And I think the Congressional oversight chairmen as the chief representative of the people's only check on a secret system risk becoming the target of real political wrath in the near future, especially as more is learned in coming weeks and months, as more certainly comes out from the Bamford book and other accounts, for looking at best chronically ineffectual, and at worst, deeply deeply complicit in their ritualistic roles of pretending to participate in the construction of a system of oversight that clearly seems to have none (except the press). Where are the hearings on what the government is spying on? Where is the debate about how much the public is willing to trade in terms of civil liberties and privacy for alleged increased security? Whose job is it to take the lead in this process? What affirmative measures have they taken to prevent abuses and ensure the system is working the way they said it would? How many actual terrorism suspects detected -- two, three? vs. how many thousands or tens of thousands of ordinary innocent Americans people -soldiers, etc.- surveilled?
Newsweek: "The White House has faced several setbacks in its attempts to extradite Iranians accused of illegally seeking arms and military equipment for Tehran."
Worth reading: David Frum:
... OK, now for the sermon.
American voters are staggering under the worst financial crisis since at least 1982. Asset values are tumbling, consumer spending is contracting, and a recession is visibly on the way. This crisis follows upon seven years in which middle-class incomes have stagnated and Republican economic management has been badly tarnished. Anybody who imagines that an election can be won under these circumstances by banging on about William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright is … to put it mildly … severely under-estimating the electoral importance of pocketbook issues.
We conservatives are sending a powerful, inadvertent message with this negative campaign against Barack Obama's associations and former associations: that we lack a positive agenda of our own and that we don’t care about the economic issues that are worrying American voters.
Republicans used negative campaigning successfully against Michael Dukakis and John Kerry, it’s true. But 1988 and 2004 were both years of economic expansion, pro-incumbent years. 2008 is like 1992, only worse. If we couldn’t beat Clinton in 1992 by pointing to his own personal draft-dodging and his own personal womanizing, how do we expect to defeat Obama in a much more anti-incumbent year by attacking the misconduct of people with whom he once kept company (but doesn’t any more)?
Here’s another thing to keep in mind:
Those who press this Ayers line of attack are whipping Republicans and conservatives into a fury that is going to be very hard to calm after November. Is it really wise to send conservatives into opposition in a mood of disdain and fury for the next president, incidentally the first African-American president? Anger is a very bad political adviser. It can isolate us and push us to the extremes at exactly the moment when we ought to be rebuilding, rethinking, regrouping and recruiting. ...
Michael Cohen in the NYT:
But in some respects this is not completely Mr. McCain’s fault. He is the leader of a political party that has run out of steam. The Republican Party seems more and more like a spent and rudderless force, devoid of new ideas for how to govern the country, and wedded to its unbending political orthodoxies, of cutting government spending, removing regulation and reducing income taxes.
Indeed, more than one observer noted the contradiction of Ms. Palin on Thursday decrying overbearing government while in the next breath calling for more government oversight of Wall Street. On Tuesday, Mr. McCain had similar problems, as he called for a spending freeze right after pledging support for an expensive new program to buy up bad mortgages. With a potential $300 billion price tag, Mr. McCain offered little sense of how he would pay for the plan.
What has happened to the Republican Party is not unusual in American politics. A similar phenomenon befell Democrats in the 1970s and 1980s as they became so tied to their liberal orthodoxies they were unable to shift course and devise policies to respond to the changing needs and desires of middle class America.
Since the failure of the G.O.P.’s Contract with America in 1995-1996, the Republican Party has flirted with political decline; in 2000 a smart campaign by George W. Bush crafted around the notion of compassionate conservatism nabbed the White House. But since then the party has moved further and further to the right, out of the mainstream of American political thought, while at the same time Democrats, led by Mr. Obama, have reclaimed the political center with new ideas and a palpable energy for moving the country forward. The rising fortunes of the Democratic Party and the precipitous fall of the G.O.P. were on full display Tuesday night. At a time when John McCain needed desperately to find the masterstroke that would allow him to reclaim the initiative from Barack Obama, he found a G.O.P. policy cupboard bereft of ideas. ...
Tom Friedman: "And please also don’t tell me she is an 'energy expert.' She is an energy expert exactly the same way the king of Saudi Arabia is an energy expert — by accident of residence. Palin happens to be governor of the Saudi Arabia of America — Alaska — and the only energy expertise she has is the same as the king of Saudi Arabia’s. It’s about how the windfall profits from the oil in their respective kingdoms should be divided between the oil companies and the people. At least the king of Saudi Arabia, in advocating 'drill baby drill,' is serving his country’s interests — by prolonging America’s dependence on oil. My problem with Palin is that she is also serving his country’s interests — by prolonging America’s dependence on oil. That’s not patriotic."
CBS poll of 500 uncommitted voters: 40% said Obama won, 26% said McCain, 34% thought it was a draw.
A CNN debate poll found 54% said Obama did the best job, 30% said McCain did. "By a greater than two to one margin — 65 percent to 28 percent — viewers thought Obama was more likeable during the debate. ... A majority of debate watchers polled thought Obama was more intelligent, by a 57 percent to 25 percent margin over McCain. Twice as many debate watchers also thought Obama more clearly expressed than McCain, with 60 percent giving the nod to the Democratic nominee and 30 percent to his GOP opponent. Hands down, debate watchers questioned thought McCain rather than Obama spent more time attacking his opponent: 63 percent said McCain went more negative, as opposed to 17 percent who pointed to Obama. ... McCain did come out on top in one category that neither candidate wants to win: By a 16 point margin, debate watchers thought McCain seemed more like a typical politician during the debate. ... The poll suggests that independent voters thought Obama won the debate. Fifty-four percent of those identifying themselves as independent say Obama performed best, with 28 percent saying that McCain did the better job."After the debate, 68 percent of uncommitted voters said that they think Obama will make the right decisions on the economy, compared to 55 percent who said that before the debate. Fewer thought McCain would do so – 48 percent after the debate, and 41 percent before.
Before the debate, 59 percent thought Obama understands voters’ needs and problems; that rose to 80 percent after the debate. For McCain, 33 percent felt he understands voters’ needs before the debate, and 44 percent thought so afterwards.
There is some good news for McCain, who still dominates Obama when it comes to perceptions of readiness to be president. Before the debate, 42 percent thought Obama was prepared for the job, and that percentage rose to 58 percent after the debate. But 77 percent felt McCain was prepared for the job before the debate, and 83 percent thought so afterwards.
I agree with David Brooks' take on PBS tonight, that Obama seemed more confident, more at home in the times than McCain. A datedness to McCain came through in the forum tonight, especially in the first part of the debate, a datedness to his ideas about the economy, especially. And like one has sometimes with like a great uncle or something, a lack of awareness of how dated and out of touch some of the talking points sound. Does Ronald Reagan still offer the answer to today's economy? To listen to McCain, it did. But it sounded really thirty years old to my ears, and like he hadn't given the issues much thought, although he seemingly sort of tacked on a couple current received ideas wholesale into his remarks without explaining them in a way that at least I could grasp what he was talking about (buying the country's bad mortgage debt, spending freeze, but how do you have them both together??). He is more passionate about his national security posture, he owns it more as an issue, whether or not one agrees with it. But by the time that part of the debate came up, at least I already had a sense that beyond the current battle of this debate, he had missed his moment, and his ideas and thinking seemed stuck in the past (when he referenced Republicans and Democrats working together like they did in 1983, for instance, a quarter century ago, just as one example; he also repeatedly invoked Lebanon -- in 1982! The effect is that these formative events for him he is discussing with the intent to relate to a currrent issue happened in a distant, different world, and he's not even aware how many decades have passed.) On the other hand, McCain did seem perhaps less cranky, seemed to make an effort at points to tolerate Obama except when he couldn't (the startling "that one"), and connected with some of the audience questions well. It wasn't a blow out, but overall I felt the momentum stay well on Obama's side, and while he won according to CBS instapoll, still only 15% of the audience of 500 uncommitted voters moved to Obama, and 12% to McCain by the end of the night, the rest remained uncommitted.
Meantime, to read the right-wing sites tonight, they seem to have really convinced themselves that Obama is the anti-Christ, and McCain was foolish not to expose him. Have they managed to really convince themselves of this? Or are they afraid of losing power? the access to power they and their circles have had all these years? The mind reels. What does the right want? They've had almost total power for much of the past eight years. What do they want? How can they blame others for their failures? Bush wasn't conservative enough, they complain. Neither was his father. McCain isn't a true conservative. Palin is a true conservative but has other deficiencies. Is there a utopian ideal for the perfect conservative who would institute their plans the way they envision them in some perfect world? Their explanations and excuses for how it didn't go the way they thought it would when they controlled the executive and the legislature and much of the courts make the mind reel. And so they blame of course Obama, Pelosi, liberals, Soros, immigrants, the New York Times, whatever handy target real or manufactured is around. Whatever happened to the idea of being mugged by reality? You can see David Frum and David Brooks even Krauthammer and George Will have cautiously accepted some version of reality, but others are resisting regime change with all their might, and while they have convinced themselves it's for the deepest ideological/security convictions, one suspects for some it is also because as with other regime change scenarios, they fear it would cost them so dearly.
Update: More from Kevin Drum, Addie Stan, and Balagan: "When politics fails these believers, they cannot examine themselves and their position in any contingent way, but must blame the false conservatives, the conniving media, the infested immigrants, the Gigantic Left-wing Conspiracy that so inconveniently votes from time to time in the majority, and all the rest of the the stabs-in-the-back."
Sporadic live debate blogging:
McCain seems much more dated, aged this week. His economic ideas sound really like recycled Reagan ones. Tax credits. While people are losing their homes? Their pension funds have crashed? Companies can't get credit? 40 million people don't have health care? Does he realize the enormity of what's been happening the past few weeks?
A commission for Medicare. (Ok, I guessed I missed his proposal to buy bad mortgages or didn't get it).
Obama: We can't simply drill our way out of the problem. ... We are going to have to come up with alternatives.
McCain: "That one"? (He can't stand looking at Obama).
Midway thru sense: This is not a good night for McCain. ....
.,..
(Humanitarian intervention, Obama v McCain doctrines):
McCain: My record opposing going into Lebanon, supporting intervention in Kosovo Bosnia and Iraq .... shows my judgment is good.....and Obama was wrong.
Obama: McCain suggests I don't understand. I don't understand how we invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 while al Qaeda set up base camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He said we'd be greeted as liberators in Iraq. He was wrong. ... Enormous strain on our budget. Sen. McCain and I do agree that this is the greatest nation on earth. Never saw a nation in history of world saw ecnoomy decline and saw its military power maintained.
Obama: when genocide happening and we stand idly by, that diminishes us. We have to consider it in our national interest intervening when possible. ....
McCain: if we had done what Sen. Obama had wanted done in Iraq, it would have led to withdrawal on a timeline. ... Sen. Obama would have been brought our troops home in defeat, I will bring them home with honor.
(McCain): US is greatest force for good in world. But requires person who knows limits. Somalia --started as peacekeepers, became peacemakers, had to leave in disgrace. In Lebanon, I stood up to Pres. Reagan my hero and said Marines shouldn't be there. Realize send America's most precious asset into harm's way. I've been in that situation all my life.
McCain: my hero is a guy named Teddy Roosevelt. TR said talk softly and carry a big stick. Sen. Obama talks loudly. Sen. Obama says he wants to attack Pakistan.
Obama: I want to be very clear about what I said. Nobody called for invasion of Pakistan. What I said today was that if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin Laden and take him out, then we should. That has to be our policy because they are threatening to kill more Americans. Sen. McCain suggests I'm green behind ears and he's somber and responsible, this is the guy who sang bomb bomb bomb Iran, and who called for the annihilation of North Korea. This is not talking softly . This is the guy who said midway thru Afghanistan, next stop, Baghdad. ...(he is sounding more forceful).
[...]
McCain gets Ukrainian American vote. He's quite fluent and coherent on Russia. Says we won't have a new cold war. Moral support. etc. etc.
Obama: basically supports McCain on Russia stuff. Need to see around corners. Tend to be reactive.
*
Questioner: If Iran attacks Israel, would you wait for UN SC approval before aiding Israel?
(I know the answer. NO!)
McCain: Obama wants negotiations with Iran without preconditions. I want to have Bush policy of joining with our friends in league of democracies to pressure Iran to change its behavior. But at end of day my friend we can never allow a second Holocaust to take place.
Obama: Terry, first of all we honor your service. We cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. It would be a game changer in region, not only would it threaten Israel, our strongest ally,but also create possiblility of nuclear weapons to fall into hands of terrorists. And we will do everything in our power to prevent it... It is important to use all tools at our disposal to prevent scenario where have to make that kind of choices. If we can work w/ other countries to tighten sanctions on Iran, reduce our energy consumption so Iran has less money, Iran imports gasoline - if we can prevent them from importing refined petroleum, that starts putting squeeze on. It is true that I believe we should have direct talks not just with our friends but with our enemies, to communicate that if you don't change your behavior, there will be dire consequences, if you do change your behavior, .... (better relations). We have got to try to have talks understanding that we don't take military options off the table.
Update: David Brooks: not a great debate. If had to pick edge, edge went to Obama. Obama seemed more confident, more at home in the times.
Mark Shields: I don't think gloves came off.
Debate preview: So McCain tries to make tonight about character and what he says is a pattern of Obama's shady associations and excuses for them (Ayers, Rezko, Wright and Raines), his refusal now to say the surge worked and lack of commitment to victory in Iraq, Obama's "plan" (not) to raise taxes on everybody making more than $42,500 and on small businesses and how tax increases will doom the economic recovery and drive more business overseas, Obama's misjudgment/naivete in calling for negotiatians with Iran without preconditions, his lack of legislative achievements, and the need for a proven leader who will put country first in a time of crisis; and Obama tries to make tonight about having an economic plan for the middle class and about McCain's erratic behavior, McCain's associations with corrupt S&L profiteers, Phil Gramm, Rick Davis, Carly Fiorina's $40 million golden parachute, etc. McCain's plan for tax breaks to the Exxons and the super wealthy and lifelong support for deregulation and trickle-down economic theories that got us in this mess, his voting with Bush 95% of the time and being more of the same, McCain's misjudgment about how hard it would be in Iraq, the need to focus on rooting out core Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan, McCain trying to change the subject from the economy and being out of touch. Does that sound about right? McCain's advisors will be wanting him to seem to have less of a temperament issue than he has recently displayed, and Obama's advisors will be wanting him to be steady and even-keeled but perhaps a notch more forceful and able to connect.
Will McCain be able to force himself to look at Obama this time? Will they go as negative as recent days have indicated? I would bet they tend to stay a bit more above the fray, but that McCain's performance will convey his contempt for Obama, and sense of Obama's pretensions to fitness for the office, and Obama's message will try to convey that he understands real Americans and their needs and fears, and that while he respects John McCain, McCain is out of touch with the middle class, and his voting record, three decades with the Republican party in Washington, campaign choices and inner circle show that he will be more of the same people and ideas which got us into this mess.
Bloomberg: "U.S. Stocks Drop; S&P 500, Dow Post Worst Retreats Since 1937."
McClatchy on forthcoming Iraq NIE:
The findings seem to cast doubts on McCain's frequent assertions that the United States is "on a path to victory" in Iraq by underscoring the deep uncertainties of the situation despite the 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge for which he was the leading congressional advocate.
But McCain could also use the findings to try to strengthen his argument for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until conditions stabilize.
For Obama, the report raises questions about whether he could fulfill his pledge to withdraw most of the remaining 152,000 U.S. troops within 16 months of taking office so that more U.S. forces could be sent to battle the growing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
Word of the draft NIE comes at a time when Iraq is enjoying its lowest levels of violent incidents since early 2004 and a 77 percent drop in civilian deaths in June through August 2008 over the same period in 2007, according to the Defense Department.
U.S. officials say last year's surge of 30,000 troops, all of whom have been withdrawn, was just one reason for the improvements. Other factors include the truce declared by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of an Iran-backed Shiite Muslim militia; and the enlistment of former Sunni insurgents in Awakening groups created by the U.S. military to fight al Qaida in Iraq and other extremists.
The draft NIE, however, warns that the improvements in security and political progress, like the recent passage of a provincial election law, are threatened by lingering disputes between the majority Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs, Kurds and other minorities, the U.S. officials said.
Sources of tension identified by the NIE, they said, include a struggle between Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen for control of the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk; and the Shiite-led central government's unfulfilled vows to hire former Sunni insurgents who joined Awakening groups.
Sen. Obama was a co-sponsor of the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act in March of 2007 that among other things called on the Secretary of State to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. So points out the National Jewish Democratic Coalition, which says the Republican Jewish Coalition is trying to disinform on this fact. FWIW, Sen. McCain was a co-sponsor too, in case the RJC tries to pull this stunt on him.
Ross Douthat: "Like Poulos, I don't quite get that 'begin' - I think the McCain campaign has been trying to redefine Obama's identity more or less all year; they've just been playing the 'vacuous celebrity' and 'tax-and-spend liberal' cards, and only now are turning over the 'pals around with radicals' card because the others haven't worked. More generally, while I take the point about the potency of the Jeremiah Wright connection, my read on the situation is the opposite of Cost's: If there wasn't a single overriding issue like the economy on voters' minds, and if the two candidates were coming into the final month evenly matched - to the point where gaining a point or two with low-information voters or boosting your base's turnout by a point or two could make all the difference - then I think the gloves-off approach would have a chance of working. (Before the financial crisis hit, I confidently expected Wright to reappear down the stretch somehow, as a potential trump card for McCain in states where the polls were running very close.) But now, in these circumstances ... well, I think a rash of off-topic negative campaigning just makes the election look once and for all like 'change versus change the subject,' as Rich Lowry puts it today."
David Frum: "My pals over at the Corner are very excited by the last-minute attempt to transform Bill Ayers into the Willie Horton of 2008. Well, good luck...."
Related, my colleague Jeet Heer writes, "Because National Review is going on and on about terrorism, this might be a good occasion to revisit that magazine’s own relationship with political violence. I’ve written on this subject before but the current situation makes it interesting to recall these facts. ..."
WP:
I guess this is sort of the arms race strategy the Reagan administration employed against the Soviet Union.Barack Obama is outspending John McCain at nearly a three-to-one clip on television time in the final weeks of the presidential election, according to ad buy information obtained by The Fix, a financial edge that is almost certainly contributing to the momentum for the Illinois senator in key battleground states.
From Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, Obama spent more than $20 million on television ads in 17 states including more than $3 million in Pennsylvania and more than $2 million each in Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania. McCain in that same time frame spent just $7.2 million in 15 states. Even when the Republican National Committee's independent expenditure spending in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin is factored in (a total of $5.3 million), Obama still outspent the combined GOP forces by roughly $8 million in the last week alone.
The spending edge enjoyed by Obama has been used almost exclusively to hammer McCain as both a clone of the current president and someone who is out of touch on key domestic issues -- most notably the economy. The assertion of Obama's spending edge has coincided with the collapse of the financial industry and a refocusing by voters on the economy to turn the election from a toss up to one in which the Democratic candidate has moved into a discernible lead....
Obama's ad spending strategy has been based on the idea of stretching McCain to the limit in a series of non-traditional battlegrounds (Indiana, North Carolina, Colorado, Virginia), knowing that such an approach would force the cash-poorer Republican's hand at some point.
That decision paid off last week when McCain pulled down his television ads in Michigan, a move due in large part to the prohibitive cost of continuing to run commercials in the Wolverine State. A look at advertising in the last week in Michigan showed Obama dropping nearly $2.2 million as compared to $642,000 for McCain and just over $1 million by the RNC -- a difference of nearly $600,000 in favor of the Illinois senator.
WP:
Update: Someone sent me a version of this by email, and the gmail ads that come up sort of prove the point:Less than a week after the federal government offered an $85 billion bailout to insurance giant AIG, the company held a week-long retreat for its executives at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif., running up a tab of $440,000, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said today at the the opening of a House committee hearing about the near-failure of the insurance giant.
Showing a photograph of the resort, Waxman said the executives spent $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 for the spa.
"Less than a week after the taxpayers rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation," Waxman said. "We will ask whether any of this makes sense. "
The committee will ask the company's executives about their multimillion-dollar pay packages -- some of which they continue to receive -- as well as who bears responsibility for the company's high-risk investment portfolio, which led to its near collapse just weeks ago. ...
Joseph Cassano, the executive in charge of the company's troubled financial products division, received more than $280 million over the last eight years, Waxman said. Even after he was terminated in February as his investments turned sour, the company allowed him to keep up to $34 million in unvested bonuses and put him on a $1 million-a-month retainer. He continues to receive $1 million a month, Waxman said.
Marbella Vacation
Beach Front Retreat Panama
Find Criminology Schools
John Heilemann: How McCain lost his brand. (More advice for McCain: definitely don't take voter concern about the economic crisis too seriously.)
9%. Gallup: "Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are set to meet for the second presidential debate in Nashville Tuesday night at a time when only 9% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States -- the lowest such reading in Gallup Poll history. ... The previous low point for Gallup's measure of satisfaction had been 12%, recorded back in 1979, in the midst of rising prices and gas shortages when Jimmy Carter was president."
The accompanying graph really makes this year look comparable to 1980 and 1992, except public confidence is lower now.
Also striking from the poll, how few people think any of these social/wedge/culture issues that have recently been revived are a top concern (5%), whereas 69% of those polled think the economy, of course, is a top concern.
It would seem the implications for the recent turn in McCain/Palin's campaign are that it is not likely to help them with anyone but the people they already got, and not get them the people they need.
AP: McCain was on board of private group in Iran contra case:
Elected to the House in 1982 and at a time when he was on the board of Singlaub's council, McCain was among Republicans on Capitol Hill expressing support for the Contras, a CIA-organized guerrilla force in Central America. In 1984, Congress cut off CIA funds for the Contras.
Months before the cutoff, top Reagan administration officials ramped up a secret White House-directed supply network and put National Security Council aide Oliver North in charge of running it. The goal was to keep the Contras operational until Congress could be persuaded to resume CIA funding.
Singlaub's private group became the public cover for the White House operation.
Secretly, Singlaub worked with North in an effort to raise millions of dollars from foreign governments.
McCain has said previously he resigned from the council in 1984 and asked in 1986 to have his name removed from the group's letterhead.
"I didn't know whether (the group's activity) was legal or illegal, but I didn't think I wanted to be associated with them," McCain said in a newspaper interview in 1986.
Singlaub does not recall any McCain resignation in 1984 or May 1986. Nor does Joyce Downey, who oversaw the group's day-to-day activities.
"That's a surprise to me," Singlaub said. "This is the first time I've ever heard that. There may have been someone in his office communicating with our office."
"I don't ever remember hearing about his resigning, but I really wasn't worried about that part of our activities, a housekeeping thing," said Singlaub. "If he didn't want to be on the board that's OK. It wasn't as if he had been active participant and we were going to miss his help. He had no active interest. He certainly supported us."
AP: Federal judge orders release of Chinese Muslims held at Gitmo. "In a landmark decision, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said it would be wrong for the Bush administration to continue holding the detainees, known as Uighurs, since they are no longer considered enemy combatants. The Uighurs have been in custody for almost seven years and have been cleared for release since 2004, but the government has not been able to find a country willing to take them in. Bush administration lawyers argued Tuesday that Urbina did not have the authority to order the Uighurs released into the United States. Urbina called the detention unlawful saying the Constitution prohibits indefinite imprisonment without charges." Human Rights Watch's Jennifer Daskal says: “The government should not drag its feet, but should immediately release these men from their unlawful confinement at Guantanamo."
Update: NYT story says judge ruled they should be allowed into the United States and rejected government's request for stay of his ruling.
Meantime, a new CBS poll shows the presidential race tightening.... If this is the case, however -- and it very well could be -- then this election is over. If the middle class had decided that Barack Obama is their guy, then he's going to win. So assume for a moment that there remain a sufficient number of persuadable voters to provide McCain with a prospective path toward victory.
Even so, I think most observers have tended to overstate the extent to which this election is in fact about Barack Obama. It is also very much about John McCain. As I argued in the Los Angeles Times in August, the principal reason why McCain has been able to remain in a relatively tight race with Obama, even as the Republican brand is in shambles, is because he has largely been able to distance his brand from that of the Republicans. This is evidenced by the fact that polling during the primaries indicated that Obama was in fact headed toward a landslide victory against virtually any other Republican, whether Mike Huckabee or Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney (though the later might have had some interesting opportunities in light of the current economic crisis). By contrast, for all the time her advisers spent trumpeting her electability, Hillary Clinton never had more than a 3-point lead against McCain before exiting he race, and trailed him for much of the primary season.
It may be quite difficult for McCain to attack Obama in this fashion without significantly damaging his own brand. ... What's interesting is that, with the exception of the past couple of weeks, McCain's and Obama's ratings have been fairly strongly correlated, tending to rise and fall together. This is not to say that negative campaigning doesn't work -- it sometimes does -- but it works at diminished efficiency, because you may be giving back 50 cents on the dollar by harming your own approval scores.
If the McCain campaign brings up William Ayers -- or Jeremiah Wright -- it will almost certianly be seen as attack politics. This might seem to be stating the obvious. ...The stories are liable to be reported as a typical partisan attack, which will impeach their credibility in the public's eyes and reduce their staying power. ...
Ultimately, however, the fact that McCain is resorting to these sorts of attacks [is] an indication of just how much his brand has been damaged. They certainly aren't likely to help him to repair it.
WP: "Aided by the faltering economy, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has the upper hand in the race for Ohio, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, putting Republican John McCain at a disadvantage in a state considered vital to his chances of winning the White House in November."
New CNN poll, conducted October 3-5, after VP debate. "More Americans appear to have an unfavorable view of Gov. Sarah Palin, and that may also be helping Obama in the fight for the presidency. Forty percent now have an unfavorable view of Palin, up from 27 percent a month ago and from 21 percent in late August, when McCain surprised many people by picking the first-term Alaska governor as his running mate. 'A majority of Americans now believe that Sarah Palin would be unqualified to serve as president if it became necessary, and her unfavorable rating has doubled,' Holland said." More from Pew.
WSJ/NBC: "The Democratic presidential running mates Barack Obama and Joe Biden are doing a better job in the debates, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. By a 21 point margin, 50%-29%, voters said the Democrats had the debate edge over rival Republican running mates John McCain and Sarah Palin, while 10% of respondents said the two tickets were equally as good and 4% said neither was good."
WP: In Florida, Palin goes for the rough stuff as audience boos Obama. "'Kill him,' proposed one man in the audience."
Human Rights Watch's Joanne Mariner: "A group of 17 Chinese Uighurs who have been cleared of the 'enemy combatant' designation should be freed from Guantanamo and given parole status in the United States, Human Rights Watch said today. Their case will be heard by a federal judge in the District of Columbia on Tuesday, October 7."
Time on McCain's Manchurian candidate attack.
The WP's Chris Cillizza on "the Keating fight and why it matters."
NYT: Dow falls below 10,000, for first time since 2004. Oil below $90/barrel.
Congressional Quarterly's Tim Starks' cover story on intel reorganization fatigue.
A reader sends this excerpt from Rolling Stone: "....In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches."
Also worth reading, from the LAT:
John McCain was training in his AD-6 Skyraider on an overcast Texas morning in 1960 when he slammed into Corpus Christi Bay and sheared the skin off his plane's wings.
McCain recounted the accident decades later in his autobiography. "The engine quit while I was practicing landings," he wrote. But an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure.
The 23-year-old junior lieutenant wasn't paying attention and erred in using "a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn," investigators concluded.
The crash was one of three early in McCain's aviation career in which his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials.
In his most serious lapse, McCain was "clowning" around in a Skyraider over southern Spain about December 1961 and flew into electrical wires, causing a blackout, according to McCain's own account as well as those of naval officers and enlistees aboard the carrier Intrepid. In another incident, in 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia.
After McCain was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967. Three months later, he was shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi and taken prisoner. He was not faulted in either of those cases and was later lauded for his heroism as a prisoner of war.
As a presidential candidate, McCain has cited his military service -- particularly his 5 1/2 years as a POW. But he has been less forthcoming about his mistakes in the cockpit.
Howard Wolfson in TNR:
Why won't the swiftboat tactics work this year?
Its easy to lose sight of it in the day to day coverage, but the collapse of Wall Street in the last weeks was a seminal event in the history of our nation and our politics. To put the crisis in perspective, Americans have lost a combined 1 trillion dollars in net worth in just the last four weeks alone. Just as President Bush's failures in Iraq undermined his party's historic advantage on national security issues, the financial calamity has shown the ruinous implications of the Republican mania for deregulation and slavish devotion to totally unfettered markets.
Republicans and Democrats have been arguing over the proper role of government for a century. In 1980 voters sided with Ronald Reagan and Republicans that government had become too big and intrusive. Then the economy worked in the Republicans' favor. Today the pendulum has swung ...
WP:
At the Republican National Convention this summer, the family came together to celebrate McCain's triumphant moment. "Everyone," says McCain's old friend and lawyer Bud Day, "was there and jovial."
Everyone except [McCain's first wife] Carol. She declined to join her children and her ex-husband.
It was probably just as well. The buildup to McCain's acceptance speech included an eight-minute video that celebrated his life, work and family. At its conclusion, delegates in the convention hall erupted in applause.
Carol McCain, the woman who stood beside McCain through triumph and tragedy, was never mentioned.
AP: "Plan for US diplomatic outpost in Iran dropped; political concerns among reasons"
The Bush administration has shelved plans to set up a diplomatic outpost in Iran, in part over fears it could affect the U.S. presidential race or be interpreted as political meddling, The Associated Press has learned.
The proposal to send U.S. diplomats to Tehran for the first time in three decades attracted great attention when it was floated over the summer, but has now been placed on indefinite hold as November's election nears and Iran continues to defy demands to halt suspect nuclear activities, officials told the AP.
Two administration officials familiar with the matter .... said a decision had been made to leave the decision to the next U.S. president because it could be seen as a reward for Iran's nuclear intransigence, especially when Iran policy has become a key part of the heated campaign between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.
SNL: Queen Latifa as Gwen Ifill, Tina Fey as Palin, incredible. Guy playing Biden also hilarious (Scranton is just "an awful, awful terrible place.")
Politico: "Branding his opponent as 'erratic in a crisis,' Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is preempting plans by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to portray him as having sinister connections to controversial Chicagoans. ... But Obama isn’t waiting to respond. His campaign is going up Monday on national cable stations with a scathing ad saying: 'Three quarters of a million jobs lost this year. Our financial system in turmoil. And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy. No wonder his campaign wants to change the subject.'" Also from Politico, Obama takes big new lead in Minnesota, 55 to 37. Obama up + six points in Real Clear Politics latest poll average, 49.3 to 43.3.
More:Medley defense contractors who won millions in federal earmarks through Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart employed a Capitol Hill lobbyist who pleaded guilty recently in an unfolding congressional corruption probe. ... The lobbyist, Cecelia Grimes, admitted in July to destroying evidence sought by the FBI in its ongoing investigation of ex-Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. She's the second former Weldon associate to plead guilty and cooperate. Ex-Weldon chief of staff Russell Caso admitted conspiring to help a consulting firm obtain federal funds in exchange for secret payments to his wife.
Court records show the FBI is exploring whether Weldon, once the powerful vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, supported earmark requests in exchange for fees paid to Grimes' lobbying firm. The firm, now defunct, was Grimes & Young. Grimes' partner was Cindy Young, daughter-in-law of veteran Rep. C.W. ''Bill'' Young, R-St. Petersburg.
Records show Mark Two paid Grimes, Weldon's friend and ex-real estate agent, $20,000 in 2006 to lobby the House for ``defense appropriations and authorizations.'' Grimes approached Locust President Enrique J. Enriquez after he spoke before Weldon committees regarding the contracting needs of small companies, said Locust attorney Nick Christin. But Christin said Grimes ``never generated any business for Mark Two or Locust.'' William Box, chairman of both companies, said he didn't know Mark Two paid Grimes to lobby. ''That's news to me,'' he said. ``I'm bothered that we apparently paid $20,000 for nothing.''
Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart has procured millions in federal funding to benefit a small Miami-Dade defense-contracting group that has donated tens of thousands of dollars to his political campaign and that of his brother, fellow U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.
Medley contractors Locust USA and Mark Two Engineering began contributing to the Diaz-Balarts' campaigns and political action committees in 2001, the year Locust secured its first small defense contract. Through this year, those contributions totaled more than $67,000.
Locust was awarded $20.8 million in Pentagon research and development contracts from 2001-2007, federal contracting records show.
At least 44 percent, $9.2 million, came through Congressional earmarks sponsored by Lincoln Diaz-Balart, The Miami Herald found. The largest -- $3.7 million -- came in 2006.
Where is the Weekly Standard when you need it, to defend Porter Goss's decision to appoint Dusty Foggo to the number three job at the Agency, now that Foggo has pled guilty to fraud and is going to jail? All that vigorous vetting at those Washington area poker games, never mind the contracts he took affirmative measures to hide that he was throwing at his friend Wilkes, and a few mistresses he badgered to have installed at various CIA jobs, according to just some of the the 28-count Foggo indictment (.pdf). What's a few million dollars in corruption and crony contracts if it's furthering the cause - well, what was the cause, installing chiefly fiercely partisan GOP loyalists throughout the Agency, as the White House was attempting to do at every other federal agency, Monica Goodling/Lurita Doan-style?
And where have Porter Goss and Patrick Murray snuck away? Don't they want to speak up, to defend their decision to appoint Foggo to the Executive Director job? And Patrick Murray especially interesting, since he was wired into the White House national security legal structure from the beginning, having served on the Bush/Cheney transition team, and been appointed by President Bush to serve as associate deputy attorney general at the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003 (an appointment the White House seems to have removed from its website), before becoming Goss's right fist at the Agency. That would be the Justice Department that ended up in May 2006 authorizing the FBI to conduct the unprecedented raid on Foggo's CIA office. The humiliating details of the case forcing the White House to abruptly dump Goss, news he was delivered in a phone call from the White House during a Friday May 5, 2006 lunch he was hosting for a visiting group of think tank scholars (he excused himself, and headed for the White House, where he was publicly retired, a decision he did not know about when his lunch began, according to a source of mine who happened to be there for lunch with the Director that day).
Time to speak up, Goss and Murray. First off, on whose recommendation exactly did Goss make the decision to appoint Foggo to the number three job? (This 2006 Newsweek piece worth rereading, which says Foggo had served as a kind of informant for Goss and the Gosslings when Goss headed HPSCI, no doubt at the aforementioned poker games). And what was it about the revelation that the FBI was investigating Foggo that seemed to make Goss's removal of utmost urgency for the White House? And, since partisan hackery over competence, professionalism or evidently ethics was apparently what the appointment was about, do they plan to visit Foggo in jail? Any more card games planned before Foggo heads to the slammer? It all seems so much like the end of Alberto Gonzales, who suddenly doesn't have a friend in Washington. Another case study of cronyism, partisan zealotry, overreach and incompetence for the history books about this sorry era.
WP: "With the party already struggling to generate enthusiasm for its brand, Republican strategists fear that an outpouring of public anger generated by Congress's struggle to pass a rescue package for the financial industry may contribute to a disaster at the polls for the GOP in November. ... GOP operatives said the party's declining fortunes are rooted in a series of events over the past two weeks, including McCain's decision to suspend his campaign in order to help broker a deal on the rescue plan and Republican opposition that doomed the bill in a House vote on Monday. Those incidents helped reinforce voter impressions that Washington is broken and that Republicans bear the brunt of the blame, the party insiders said. In the most recent Washington Post-ABC News national poll, more than half of all voters said they were 'very concerned' that the failure of the first bailout vote would cause a 'severe economic decline.' By a ratio of 2 to 1, they blamed the legislations' defeat on Republicans."
NYT: House approves bailout.
"Many lawmakers who changed sides, said they had agonized over the decision amid a torrent of calls and e-mail messages from constituents, and several cited a provision added by the Senate increasing the amount of savings insured by the federal government to $250,000 per account from $100,000."
Krauthammer: "In the primary campaign, Obama was cool as in hip. Now Obama is cool as in collected. He has the discipline to let slow and steady carry him to victory. He has not at all distinguished himself in this economic crisis -- nor, one might add, in any other during his national career -- but detachment has served him well. He understands that this election, like the election of 1980, demands only one thing of the challenger: Make yourself acceptable. Once Ronald Reagan convinced America that he was not menacing, he won in a landslide. If Obama convinces the electorate that he is not too exotic or green or unprepared, he wins as well. ...He's got a first class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president." (Via TPM).
Reuters: "Iran would consider stopping sensitive uranium enrichment if guaranteed a supply of nuclear fuel from abroad, an Iranian official suggested on Thursday. ...Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the UN nuclear watchdog, said the reason why the Islamic Republic was enriching uranium was the lack of an legally binding international accord on security of fuel supply. Asked if with such a deal Iran would shelve enrichment, he said that arrangement would be a first step but it would have to be implemented, and Iran would need to retain some enrichment as a contingency in case supplies were cut."
WP: "The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to "engage and inspire" the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government. The new contracts -- awarded last week to four companies -- will expand and consolidate what the U.S. military calls 'information/psychological operations' in Iraq far into the future, even as violence appears to be abating and U.S. troops have begun drawing down. ... The four companies that will share in the new contract are SOSi, the Washington-based Lincoln Group, Alexandria-based MPRI and Leonie Industries, a Los Angeles contractor. All specialize in strategic communications and have done previous defense work."
Post-Debate:
CNN poll said Biden wins 51 to 36 percent among people who watched.
CBS NEWS/KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS POLL
(Uncommitted Voters who watched the debate)
46% of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Joe Biden was the winner. 21% thought Sarah Palin won, 33% thought it was a draw… 98% after the debate saw [Biden] as knowledgeable (79% before the debate).
More:
Uncommitted voters who watched the vice presidential debate thought Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden did the best job by a margin of more than two to one, according to a CBS News/Knowledge Networks poll taken immediately following the debate.
However, there was good news in the poll for Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, too. Palin's debate performance improved uncommitted voters' perceptions of her overall, and on a number of specific measures. But uncommitted voters still have doubts about her ability to assume the presidency if necessary and she lags behind Biden on her knowledge and preparedness for the job.
More from Nate Silver; and Harold Meyerson:
Biden, meanwhile, was having the night of his life. In fact, he did two
things that Barack Obama didn’t do nearly as well in the first
presidential debate last week. First, he put the middle class at the
center of his case for the Democratic ticket and delineated a
pro-middle-class economics quite distinct from the Republicans’
trickle-down. Second, he relentlessly attacked John McCain’s voting
record, and linked it to the policies of the Bush administration.
Biden, we should remember, is a scrappy lawyer with working-class
roots, and he came across Thursday night as a more effective,
plausible, nuanced but no-nonsense populist tribune than the Democrats
have had in years. Given the current zeitgeist, he was just what the
Democrats needed. Serious times need serious leaders, and Biden was
surely that.Palin was the kid from the sticks who was still standing when it was
done. The nation, I think, was grateful for that. If she had gotten
deeply flummoxed, as she had been during the Couric interview, it would
have caused embarrassed cringing in America’s living rooms. Instead,
her performance was a marvel of its kind -- dissociated, jumbled, at
times completely contradictory (“you build up infrastructure and rein
in government spending,” she prescribed at one point: Huh?), with
soundbites appearing and reappearing almost at random, but fast, happy,
almost joyous: Made it through that five-minute question that I know
nothing about without even pausing: Phew!
AP: Obama advisor suggests Robert Gates as possible holdover. Which seems to make a lot of sense.
Gates also gave these interesting, unstarry eyed remarks about the challenge of engaging Iran at a Nat'l Defense University speech Monday (below the fold)
SEC. GATES: I have been involved in the search for the elusive Iranian moderate for 30 years. (Laughter.) I was in the first meeting that took place between a senior U.S. government official and the leadership of the Iranian government in Algiers at the end of October, 1979. Brzezinski -- the Iranian prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister asked to meet with Brzezinski, who was in Algiers for the 25th anniversary of the Algerian Revolution and I was with him. He asked me to go as the note-taker.
And he walked into that meeting and, in essence, said, "We will accept
your revolution. We will recognize your country. We will recognize
your government. We will sell you all the weapons that we had
contracted to sell the Shah. We have a common enemy to your north.
We can work together in the future." Their response was, "Give us the
Shah." Each repeated their respective positions about five or six
times and at the end, Brzezinski stood up and said, "To give you the
Shah would be incompatible with our national honor." And that ended
it. And three days later they seized our embassy and two weeks later
all three of those officials were out of their jobs.Every administration since then has reached out to the Iranians in one
way or another and all have failed. Some have gotten into deep
trouble associated with their failures, but the reality is the Iranian
leadership has been consistently unyielding over a very long period of
time in response to repeated overtures from the United States about
having a different and better kind of relationship. And it seems to
me that the effort that we are now engaged in with our allies, with
Russia and China, in terms of trying to bring pressure to bear on the
Iranians to change their approach to the rest of the world is probably
the best way to go about this.We've been engaged in talks with the Iranians. This administration,
in 2004, as I recall, reached out to the Iranians and there were some
discussions at that time because there was some ambiguity about
whether the Iranians were being helpful or not in Iraq. There were
some instances where they were being helpful, some where they weren't.And of course, in the 2004 or (200)5 study that I co-chaired with
Brzezinski for the Council on Foreign Relations with respect to U.S.
policy on Iran, given the fact that President Khatami was in power,
sounded more moderate -- at least was not making some of the
outrageous statements that Ahmadinejad does -- we said, "It's worth
reaching out to them."But with the election of Ahmadinejad and the things he has said and
the things that Iran continues to do, it seems to me that the contacts
that we've had at the ambassadorial level -- the opportunity to engage
in a dialogue should they be willing to stop their enrichment in some
kind of verifiable way is not an unreasonable precondition to
high-level talks.I just think this is a case where we have to look at the history of
outreach that was very real, under successive presidents, and did not
yield any results. I think until the Iranians decide they want to
take a different approach, to the rest of the world, that where we are
is probably not a bad place.....
WP: Skepticism of Palin growing, poll finds: "With the vice presidential candidates set to square off today in their only scheduled debate, public assessments of Sarah Palin's readiness have plummeted, and she may now be a drag on the Republican ticket among key voter groups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. ... The 60 percent who now see Palin as insufficiently experienced to step into the presidency is steeply higher than in a Post-ABC poll after her nomination early last month. Democrats and Republicans alike are now more apt to doubt her qualifications, but the biggest shift has come among independents. In early September, independents offered a divided verdict on Palin's experience; now they take the negative view by about 2 to 1. Nearly two-thirds of both independent men and women in the new poll said Palin has insufficient experience to run the White House. ... Palin now repels more independents than she attracts to McCain."
WP:
More.John McCain's combative interview with the Des Moines Register yesterday has raised questions anew about the Arizona senator's temperament as the presidential race enters its final days.
In a decidedly testy exchange with the Register's editorial board, McCain was at turns caustic and sarcastic when pressed about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's experience and criticism from some in conservative circles of her selection as his vice presidential running mate.
More on former CIA director Porter Goss's Dusty Foggo problem:
... Now, then-CIA director Porter Goss's decision to appoint Foggo to the CIA's number three spot had been a highly controversial and contentious one at the Agency. Foggo was well known in Agency ranks for philandering, gambling, a security issue dating to his Vienna days, and for generally being something of a sleaze. Suffice it to say, that senior Agency veterans left as a direct and indirect result of Goss's controversial decision to appoint Foggo to the Executive Director position, among them the top two operational officers who have since returned. And under Goss's hands off management style, Foggo wasn't just some CIA executive or bureaucrat. He effectively ran the CIA day to day. So you can see that when the CIA realized it had a Dusty Foggo problem, this was actually a rather big problem, and in particular it was a problem for Porter Goss.
And indeed, when federal investigators closed in and raided Foggo's CIA officers and home in May 2006, Goss abruptly resigned. A source who was in Goss's office that Friday morning that the White House announced Goss was going to retire said his "retirement" came as a complete surprise to Goss. But Goss's tenure was simply no longer tenable when it was now front page news that Foggo was likely to be indicted in the wider Duke Cunningham corruption affair and the issue of who had the misjudgment to put Foggo in that position was likely to emerge. ...
Observation from a list I'm on: "The last time that both the White Sox and Cubs were in post-season play, Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House." So, good omen for the second coming of Teddy Roosevelt, or Team Chicago?