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05.13.08 -- 12:27AM // link | recommend (16)

Scales Falling From My Eyes

From Michael Barone's glowing review of Doug Feith's war memoir ...

Unfortunately -- and here Feith is critical of his ultimate boss, George W. Bush -- the administration allowed its critics to frame the issue around the fact that stockpiles of weapons weren't found. Here we see at work the liberal fallacy, apparent in debates on gun control, that weapons are the problem rather than the people with the capability and will to use them to kill others. The fact that millions of law-abiding Americans have guns is not a problem; the problem is that criminals can get them and have the will to kill others. Similarly, the fact that France has WMDs is not a problem; the fact that Saddam Hussein had the capability to produce WMDs and the will to use them against us was.

--Josh Marshall

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05.12.08 -- 11:14PM // link | recommend (21)

Barr

Bob Barr, who we first met as one of the nuttiest of the mid-1990s Republican Revolution nutbars, has over the last decade refashioned himself as a fairly consistent supporter of embattled civil liberties and opponent of unbridled executive power. And today he announced his bid to be the presidential nominee of the Libertarian party, which will choose its standard-bearer at its national convention starting on May 22nd. (Libertarian muckety-mucks consider Barr the frontrunner for the nod.)

Normally these third party candidacies don't amount to anything. And I don't expect this one to either. But on this one ... maybe.

Barr is enough of a media darling that if he runs he'll get a lot of free media. And there's enough weirdness going on in the Republican party right now that I could imagine a few scenarios where he'd draw non-trivial numbers away from McCain. As always in these cases the place to look isn't in aggregate national numbers but in particular states where a drawing off a few points in one direction could make a state competitive where it otherwise wouldn't be.

At first glance you might think Barr could hurt McCain in the South. Some people have this idea that by spurring massive rates of voter turnout among African-Americans Obama could put some Deep South states into play. But this has never made sense to me. States like Mississippi and Alabama have big African-American minorities. But short of heroic levels of voter turnout, there just aren't enough Democrats in these states to win one of them. Certainly there aren't enough African-Americans to do it on their own. But perhaps if Barr could pull some Republicans away from McCain, some of these states could be in play?

Not likely. The regional and ideological calculus doesn't add up. One of the GOP base's biggest complaints about McCain is his purportedly insufficient GOP hackdom. Barr doesn't really do any better than McCain on that score. In fact, he's probably less hackish than McCain. So that won't be a good contrast. And in the South the Republican party is really about cultural traditionalism, race and war. McCain's got war covered; and Barr's against the Iraq War. So that doesn't play. And his civil libertarianism probably doesn't play well with cultural revanchists. (Barr was a pretty big culture warrior in the 90s. But I get the feeling that that's been overshadowed by his civil libertarianism. And regardless he'd probably need to keep it under wraps to secure the Libertarian party nod.) So at the end of the day it's really pretty rough sailing for Barr down South -- notwithstanding that he made his political career in Georgia.

The anti-war, small-l libertarian stance is generally assumed to be more attractive in the West. And this raises some interesting possibilities since it's in the West that Obama's strength as a general election candidate has been most evident. As I explained earlier, if you draw a line from Michigan west to the southern tip of Nevada, it's in the states above that line where Obama is outperforming Hillary Clinton and putting some traditionally Republican states into play. And a lot of those states are also ones where libertarian politics, if not Libertarian party candidates, have traditionally faired well. So I wonder if Barr's candidacy could potentially have the net effect of adding to Obama's traction in those states.

Finally, there's the anti-war factor. Civil liberties is pretty abstract for most people. But the Iraq War isn't. So a lot of Barr's drawing power will be a test of just how much opposition to the Iraq War there is in the Republican party. How many Republicans are there out there who just won't accept McCain's Iraq forever position but can't bring themselves to vote for a Democrat? And how many of them could Barr sop up?

I'm curious to hear other people's views on this. Like I said, third party candidates seldom amount to anything significant in a presidential contest. But Barr's media celebrity and the state of the GOP leave some chance of this one breaking the mold. So let me know your thoughts.

--Josh Marshall

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05.12.08 -- 10:40PM // link | recommend (3)

Lying Minority Leader John Boehner's lie of the day.

--Josh Marshall

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05.12.08 -- 8:49PM // link | recommend (15)

Numbers Crunched

A number of interesting details in the new WaPo/ABC news poll.

First, on the horse race, Obama beats McCain 51%-44% and Clinton beats him 49%-44%. Statistically speaking, those are basically the same margins. But I strongly suspect we will see Obama's numbers moving ahead of Clinton's in the coming days.

This is one factor that's been too little remarked on -- I've never plotted the numbers out on a graph but who does better against McCain has tracked consistently with who's getting the winner and loser headlines in the primary battle. So, consistent headlines that communicate Clinton's or Obama's power, effectiveness, winner-hood for lack of a better word, push up his or her numbers vis a vis McCain. That's not particularly surprising when you think about it. But it does put the softness and mutability of those general election horse race numbers into perspective.

Next up, age.

39% of Americans said they'd be uncomfortable with president who enters office at age 72, as McCain would, whereas only 16% think same about a female president and only 12% say so about a black president.

I don't think there's any question that questions like this yield a substantial amount of self-censoring among respondents. Social Scientists have a reassuringly unwieldy term for this -- which escapes me at the moment. But basically, many people won't say they'd be uncomfortable with a black president because they know they're not supposed to think like that, even if they do. On the contrary, there's no comparable social stigma associated with thinking that about someone past retirement age.

Still, even with that factored in, that's a very big gap -- and a big slice of the electorate for whom McCain's age is a big issue. No doubt that's why we're hearing a lot of references from Dems about honoring McCain's many decades of service to America.

Finally, there's this ...

While overall discomfort with an African-American president is much lower, it rises among less-educated whites - the same group that's been a challenge for Obama in the Democratic primaries. Among whites who haven't gone through college, 17 percent say they'd be at least somewhat uncomfortable with a black president; that compares with just 4 percent of white college graduates. Clinton may face a similar problem, however; less-educated whites also are more apt to be uncomfortable with a woman president (21 percent, vs. 7 percent of white college graduates).

Late Update: As a stream of helpful TPM Readers have reminded me, the term in question is "social desirability bias." Like I said, a reassuringly unwieldy term.

--Josh Marshall

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05.12.08 -- 8:30PM // link | recommend (17)

TPMtv Sunday Show Roundup: The Long Goodbye

The question now doesn't seem to be whether or not Hillary Clinton will continue to wage a campaign, but rather how she wages it as the final three weeks of primaries plays out. And her comments last week to USA Today concerning the white working-class vote suggest that the question is still up in the air ...

High-res version at Veracifier.com.

--Ben Craw

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05.12.08 -- 7:10PM // link | recommend (2)

Help Wanted

The Obama campaign starts staffing up for the general election, according to an email obtained by TPM Election Central.

--David Kurtz

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05.12.08 -- 5:04PM // link | recommend (20)

D'Oh!

Ahhh, already some comedy gold coming from that DOD document dump.

TPM Reader Kevin H. found this nugget.

Back in June 2006 there's this email ...

hi. jed babbin, one of our military analysts, is hosting the michael medved nationally syndicated radio show this afternoon. he would like to see if general casey would be available for a phone interview any time between 3 and 6 pm. topics would be: status of operations in iraq and if troop levels should/can/will be reduced. ... please feel free to contact jed directly (contact info below) if the general can/would be available for the interview. this would be a softball interview and the show is 8th or 9th in the nation.

A short time later a press flack from the Office of the Secretary of Defense writes back ...

Hi Thanks for sending this. Just fyi, probably wouldn't put "softball" interview in writing. If that got out it would compromise jed and general casey.

--Josh Marshall

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05.12.08 -- 4:32PM // link | recommend (10)

Ta-Nehisi Coates, on the myth of the black racist voter.

--David Kurtz

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05.12.08 -- 4:07PM // link | recommend (10)

Bad TV Movie

I hadn't seen much of the Vito Fossella story since late last week. So I hadn't seen that Fossella's secret life was much more involved then I'd realized. At first I'd thought that Fossella had simply had an extramarital affair in which he'd fathered a child -- not the most unusual story. And it actually struck me as a point in his favor that he was actually trying to be a father in his daughter's life -- something I still think is a point in his favor. Remember, part of what tripped him up was that he'd told the arresting officers in his DWI arrest that he was going to visit his daughter, who was sick. He probably could have weathered having a female friend bail him out of jail. Explaining what he meant by visiting his daughter was a bit more difficult.

Later of course it turned out that this wasn't an affair that was in the past: Fossella had an on-going relationship Laura Fay, the retired Air Force Colonel who mothered his child.

What I hadn't realized was that Fossella was juggling at a level usually reserved for the plot lines of thoroughly incredible hollywood movies.

Not only was Fossella keeping his wife and family in the dark about his girlfriend and child in Northern Virginia. He was also keeping his girlfriend and child in Northern Virginia in the dark that he was still married and had a family in New York.

According to the Daily News, which has basically owned this story, Fossella had told Fay that he was separated from his wife. And it wasn't until Fay saw a draft of his press release apologizing for the incident that she realized that he was actually still married.

--Josh Marshall

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05.12.08 -- 3:55PM // link | recommend (2)

In For a Penny, In for a Pound

An AFSCME official tells TPM Election Central that the union will put "real money" into pro-Hillary ads in the remaining primary states.

--David Kurtz

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05.12.08 -- 3:46PM // link | recommend (33)

Money Changes Everything

Bloomberg has a good rundown today of the constraints facing Hillary Clinton if she tries to recoup the $11.4 million she's loaned to her campaign. A number of readers have had questions about how the loan repayment would work and the rules and regs associated with personal campaign loans, and this piece should answer most of those.

Let me touch on one other aspect to this. A lot of attention has, legitimately, been focused on the fact that Bill is an indirect conduit for money to her campaign. His speaking or consulting fees can ultimately find their way to Hillary's campaign coffers in the form of those personal loans from the Clintons. One campaign finance expert interviewed last week said "the Clintons have effectively bypassed campaign finance reform in a manner that's ingenious -- using Bill Clinton effectively as a front for the fundraising."

But there's another point to be made on these Clinton loans that relates to the pre-existing concerns about a First Lady succeeding her husband to the Presidency. The Clintons' personal fortune is a direct result of their political careers. One of the trappings of the office in this day and age is the celebrity attendant to it -- and the money-making opportunities that affords. Their lucrative outside endeavors -- book publishing, speaking engagements and consulting -- would not have been possible had he not been President (and to a lesser degree, were she not a senator).

The Clintons are taking $11.4 million made as a result of being in public office and plowing it back into retaking that office. The campaign acknowledges that Hillary only made about $11 million from her Senate salary and book deals, so at least a fraction of the loan came from joint assets contributed by Bill, although regardless of how much Bill technically contributed, the remaining fortune is what gives her the luxury of ponying up $11 million. If $11 million was all they had, you can bet they wouldn't have loaned that much to the campaign.

Without that $11.4 million, Hillary's campaign would very likely have run out of money to compete in Indiana and North Carolina. It's possible that she would have been forced to withdraw from the race already were it not for that money -- money they had available by virtue primarily of Bill having been President.

There is, it seems to me, a qualitative difference between this kind of self-financing and the more traditional kind, where an independently wealthy candidate seeks to leverage his or her personal fortune to win political office. It's also different than lending one's name and celebrity to one's son's campaign, to name another recent example. In essence, they are using the trappings of the office once out of office to get back into office. That is the sort of self-perpetuation of power that we associate with dynasties.

In some ways, it misses the point to heap this all at the feet of the Clintons. It's the result of a series of political and social changes -- longer life spans have lengthened the period of the post-presidency, First Lady's can and will have their own professional and political lives, celebrity has become its own currency -- that the Clintons aren't directly responsible for and which the founders could hardly have anticipated.

Still, the effect is undemocratic, and it's troubling that we don't seem to recognize it as such.

--David Kurtz

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05.12.08 -- 3:15PM // link | recommend (17)

We Need Your Help

As I noted in this post over the weekend, buried in that DOD document dump on the compromised cable show 'military analysts' was a fun little email in which someone (the sender's name is redacted) wrote attacking Rajiv Chandrasekaran, an assistant managing editor at the Post and author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City for having the temerity to do a week of guest posts at TPMCafe "a super-liberal blog ... edited by Bush-bashing uber-liberal Josh Marshall ..." In particular, they were steamed at his responding to a Post OpEd defending the occupation by legendary Bush hack Dan Senor.

In any case, that was mainly good for laughs and fun for us here at TPM. But it's got us to thinking there are probably other little nuggets buried in that document that either got missed by the Times reporters or simply didn't rise to the level of getting included in their big piece. But the topic is one that can shed a lot of light on how these folks saw the different networks, which hosts and reporters were more receptive to getting played, what the different strategies were. I suspect there's a lot of interesting stuff buried in there.

So we're setting up a research thread over at TPMmuckraker where we're asking readers to break off chunks of the document dump and then report in our comments section on what they find. Join us.

--Josh Marshall

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05.12.08 -- 2:35PM // link | recommend (9)

Strike Three

In case you missed it over the weekend, one of the military judges at Gitmo has disqualified the general overseeing the military commissions there from any further participation in the Hamdan case because of his efforts to politicize the process.

At TPMmuckraker, we've compiled a timeline, based on the judge's ruling, of the efforts by the general, Thomas Hartmann, former Pentagon general counsel William Haynes, and other officials to game the system and squelch complaints about their own conduct.

--David Kurtz

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05.12.08 -- 2:00PM // link | recommend (2)

TPMCafe Table for One: Larry Bartels

Larry Bartles sits down at the TPMCafe Table for One this week. His new book is Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. He introduces its theme of the political impact of the growing gap between rich and poor in his first post at Cafe.

--David Kurtz

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05.12.08 -- 11:03AM // link | recommend (7)

Today's Must Read

What does it mean that government domestic spying is up but counterterrorism prosecutions are down?

--David Kurtz

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05.12.08 -- 9:29AM // link | recommend (22)

Smokin' Joe

Joe Lieberman is out there touting the alleged endorsement of Obama by Hamas as reason to vote for John McCain.

--David Kurtz

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05.11.08 -- 1:12AM // link | recommend (134)

So Many Coincidences

Women's Voices Women's Votes has another "unfortunate coincidence" in the timing of its voter registration mailings, this time in West Virginia.

--Josh Marshall

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05.10.08 -- 8:35PM // link | recommend (42)

That Didn't Take Long

McCain's convention chair gets tossed after Newsweek reported that he'd lobbied for the Burmese dictatorship.

McCain's pretty tight with a lot of lobbyists, isn't he?

--Josh Marshall

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05.10.08 -- 4:27PM // link | recommend (81)

Guess That's A Bad Thing?

TPM Reader EW sent in this little snippet from that DOD document dump about the Times military analysts story ...

(ed.note: This would appear to be the post in question. And this is Dan Senor's WaPo Oped. Senor, you'll remember, originally didn't exist but (living out the old adage) was later created by critics of the administration's Iraq policy because of the felt need for a living caricature of the Bush White House political operatives and hacks sent to mismanage the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq.)

--Josh Marshall

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05.10.08 -- 4:13PM // link | recommend (27)

Heckuva Job ...

McCain taps former lobbyist for Burmese dictatorship to run GOP convention.

(ed.note: For longtime TPMers, also note that Doug Goodyear is CEO of the DCI Group, the pioneering GOP astro-turf organizing outfit.)

--Josh Marshall