With its portent of more Florida-like electoral chicanery, it had shaken my buddies in the liberal commentariat to their core: The proposed Republican-backed initiative to change the way California counts it electoral vote -- shifting from the winner-take-all method in place in 48 of the states to the one-congressional-district-one-vote method in place in Maine and Nebraska -- could have split the mega-state’s electoral vote in a way only a Republican could love. Instead of rewarding all of the Golden State’s 55 electoral votes to the victor (that is, to the Democratic nominee), the measure would have siphoned off 19 electoral votes -- roughly, the numerical equivalent of Ohio -- to the Republican, presuming he could carry the congressional districts that have Republican representatives. The initiative would go on the June primary ballot next year, when few Californians would bestir themselves to vote, and could just squeek through. And with that, the Republicans would hold the White House with a narrow electoral victory in November.

I never believed any of this. California voters have been confronted with a series of initiatives over the years specifically intended to bolster Republican strength, chiefly ones that would change the reapportionment process in the GOP’s favor. None of them has passed. And the thought that the state’s Democrats and independents -- who are all but indistinguishable from Democrats when polled on their political beliefs -- would let this particular initiative pass was sheer fantasy. The rage that a clear majority of Californians feel towards Bush and his party cannot be overstated. Moreover, major Democratic funders – mega-donor Stephen Bing among them -- were prepared to drop a bundle on the campaign to defeat the initiative.

The early polling on the measure was hardly auspicious. On first mention to state voters, it barely scraped 50 percent support, and that just registered voter reaction to the description of the initiative, with none of its political implications fleshed out. No California initiative in decades has succeeded if it didn’t start out with considerably more than 50 percent support. Republicans who understand California politics distanced themselves from the proposal. The Governator himself said he didn’t like it.

Now, it looks as if the Democratic efforts to defeat the initiative won’t even be necessary. As reported in today’s Los Angeles Times, the initiative campaign is roughly $1.8 million shy of the $2 million usually needed to collect the signatures to place an initiative on the ballot, and the time for signature-gathering ends in November. The initiative’s two chief consultants told the Times on Thursday night that they had quit the campaign, one citing his frustration that he couldn’t determine the identity of the campaign’s only major donor. (A Missouri organization that receives and doles out right-wing donations -- and that had sent along $175,000 to the campaign from one donor it refused to name -- had declined even the campaign’s efforts to determine the donor’s identity.)

The Times quoted Republican consultant Marty Wilson, who’d been fundraising for the initiative, who said, “the campaign never got off the ground.” A gratifying miscarriage of injustice.

--Harold Meyerson

Yesterday, the Senate approved a measure to expand hate crime legislation by extending coverage to violence against gays, which of course comes after plenty of debate and threats of a filibuster. The bill is named after Matthew Shepard, the gay college student whose violent death in Wyoming in 1998 sounded calls across the nation to expand what's included under the hate-crime legislation passed in 1968. If passed, it will be the first update to the legislation since then, and it would cover violence motivated by a victim's sexual orientation, gender, disability or gender identity in addition to religion, race, national origin, or color.

Dems, as well as the senator who has been trying to get this legislation in pretty much every day for the last seven years, Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.), are gleeful that it stands a chance of clearing the House and Senate this time. But they're not-so-gleeful about the fact that it would probably be vetoed when it lands on Bush's desk. So, they're lumping it into the defense spending bill, figuring he won't veto that. "At a time that we are fighting terrorism abroad, the United States Senate says, 'We are going to fight terrorism, hatred and bigotry here at home,'" said Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

Which of course pisses off conservatives who worry that Bush will be more against federal hate crime laws than he is for giving troops better body armor. It's an interesting method of getting it passed, so I'm curious to see how it will fare.

--Kate Sheppard

Via Matt, I see that Verizon's policy chief is Tom Tauke, an anti-choice congressman from Iowa in the '80s who lost a Senate bid to Tom Harkin in 1990. From a National Review article about the campaign:

...Tauke wants a constitutional amendment recognizing "the personhood of the unborn." "When NARAL comes into the state," Tauke says, "I'm not going to sit back and take it."

NARAL apparently spent $100,000 to defeat Tauke. So is it really a coincidence that this man is policy chief of the only wireless company that (initially) refused to cooperate with NARAL?

(And this is a little off topic, but upon reading Tom Tauke's name, my first thought was, "The Indian feather guy?" As the National Review article mentions, his campaign used to hand out feathers on headbands (like this) at events. I remember seeing this at a parade when I was a kid in Iowa. Who knows? I may have even worn one. How retro and messed-up is that?)

--Ann Friedman

Dr. Jay Parkinson is riding a wave of mini-celebrity on New York blogs. He's a young physician specializing in care for 18 to 40 year olds in Manhattan and Brooklyn without health insurance. He doesn't have an office, makes only house calls, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the cheapest places to get MRIs and pick up prescriptions, and will talk to you over AIM, Gchat, email, or the phone. For these services, you pay $500 annually.

Oh, and he's also a freelance photographer of naked ladies. And a bit of a media whore. But this is a seriously great idea.

--Dana Goldstein

I headed over to the press conference on Bush's Major Economies meeting yesterday, but was waiting to hear what the man himself would say in his address this morning to post on it. An excerpt:

Our guiding principle is clear: We must lead the world to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and we must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people. We know this can be done. Last year America grew our economy while also reducing greenhouse gases. Several other nations have made similar strides.

[…]

Our guiding principle is clear: We must lead the world to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and we must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people. We know this can be done. Last year America grew our economy while also reducing greenhouse gases. Several other nations have made similar strides.

There were some other particularly laughable moments from the press conference yesterday evening, including when Karen Harbert, assistant secretary for policy and international affairs at the Department of Energy, told the gathered reporters about how great our environmental policies have been under the Bush administration, and the example we've been to the rest of the world: "We’re living proof that we can actually begin to address climate change, sustain economic growth, and do it in an environment where we are addressing energy security." And when James L. Connaughton, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, assured a European reporter that the United States is "just several months" behind them on creating emissions goals, and that it's a good thing we've been dragging our feet all this time making sure the science was in. Oh, and this gem: "We’re doing more than anybody else. We actually have, you know, a zero-emission coal fire power plant moving through the process. We hope to get it done by 2012."

Which is exactly what this whole alternative climate summit is about: fanciful promises, denial of what needs to be done to tackle climate change, and subversion of the efforts of everyone who actually gets it.

--Kate Sheppard

David Moberg (senior editor at In These Times) weighs in on the GM strike:

If business and labor had joined together in 1970 in the fight for health insurance, unionized and non-union auto companies would now be on a level playing field, and GM would not be at such a financial disadvantage against producers like Toyota because of retiree health care costs.

Kate Sheppard reports back from the UN summit on climate change.

Jon Margolis says that Wednesday's Democratic debate was really about unseating Hillary as the front runner.

Harold Meyerson explains the rise of the "Have-Nots."

Ezra Klein evaluates Al Gore and Bill Clinton's post-White House efforts.

And we'd especially like to note Terence Samuel's column this week -- it's a scathing critique of Bill O'Reilly's comments about his meal with Al Sharpton, and a look at what gains we've really made in the 50 years since the Little Rock Nine.

--The Editors

A couple of Matt's commenters beat me to it, but I don't think it's really accurate to say that Thompson is taking a stand on "federalist" grounds. He's never met a federal abortion regulation he doesn't like, for example, so as with 99 percent of the population "federalism" matters to him at most in the familiar question-begging sense in which "federalism" isn't doing any real work but is just a way of concealing your substantive position on the merits. Rather, I think that he's using "federalism" as a smokescreen for the fact that he's a closet tolerant who doesn't really have a problem with gay marriage. Which admittedly I think is even more charitable towards Thompson, and he does deserve of a modicum of credit for not going along with all of the symbolic gay-baiting the GOP base seems to demand.

--Scott Lemieux

I was reading this post over on Seed's Science Blogs this morning in which Jake Young hypothesizes about the correlation between wealth and weight. While countries in dire poverty obviously tend toward skinnier citizens, and relative wealth makes for greater access to food and therefore, greater obesity rates, he posits that the rates would model an inverted U – declining again as the citizenry reaches higher socio-economic status. Right now, poorer people in rich countries have access to only cheap, high-calorie foods, which leads to greater obesity rates in that middle-SES range. Wealthier people are better-able to access quality calories, lowering obesity rates. If that's true, he proposes that possible policies to combat that might be:

1) We make food more expensive. We, in essence, simulate poverty for the purposes of food consumption. This does not mean making our economy more like the Cuban one. Instead, we raise taxes on food or take steps to make more expensive so that people will eat less. This may sound like a ridiculous option, but lots of people advocate various brands of libertarian paternalism -- a term that I still reject as a contradiction -- to fight obesity. They advocate policies such as taxing specific type of high calorie food to make people eat less of them, or they are arguing that we ban certain foods, which will have the indirect effect of making food more expensive.

2) We could try and make the people in the middle of the U richer. We exploit the fact that as people get richer they are more likely to exercise and eat right, that they are more likely to have access to the weight control measures that at present only the very rich have.

This is interesting in light of the fact that obesity has been finding its way into presidential discussions of late, beyond just the tale of Mike "Former Fat Guy" Huckabee. There was even a forum for the specifically on the topic at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services last week, in which Bill Richardson promised to "fight obesity every day" as president. Richardson, incidentally, was the only candidate to attend, while most of the others from both the Democratic and Republican slates sent staffers. Clinton and Obama's people pushed better health care as the solution, while Romney and Giuliani's campaigns mumbled something about the free market.

Here are a few other ideas: stop subsidizing Big Corn, release the corporate stronghold on school lunch programs, and generally improve what, how much, and how kids eat in our public schools.

--Kate Sheppard

The conservative drive for California to assign its electoral college delegates proportionally has collapsed due to lack of organization, the L.A. Times reports. It would be disastrous for individual states to abandon the winner-take-all system one by one, as it would put the winner of those states at a severe, unfair disadvantage nationally.

If we want a more representational democracy, we'll need to abolish the electoral college altogether and let the people elect their president.

--Dana Goldstein

There's a lot to digest in the leaked transcript of a February 2003 conversation between President Bush, Spain's Jose Maria Aznar, and Condoleezza Rice on the impending invasion of Iraq, but it pretty much confirms what we already knew about the president: By February 2003, he was already committed to going into Iraq, UN mandate or not; he viewed the entire UN process, at best, as a form of theater necessary to calm the concerns of other world leaders less gifted with heroic vision than he (and given what we now know about the utter fiction of Colin Powell's WMD pageantry, he treated it as such); he was completely unreflective and unprepared for anything but the best possible outcome; as indicated by his reference to Iraq having "a relatively strong civil society," he was surrounded by advisers every bit as incompetent as he.

--Matthew Duss

Via LGM, the heartwarming story of a multitude of wingnuts working themselves into a sanctimonious froth over a movie still. Let's all join D in issuing a hearty, Nelson Muntzian "HAW-haw!" to Right Blogistan.

Despite the photo in question being, repeat, a movie still, it remains true that that Iran continues to engage in the hideous practice of stoning, just as it remains true, despite the Killian documents apparently having been forged, that young George W. Bush was granted a spot in the Texas Air National Guard through the intervention of his family's powerful friends while other, less privileged Americans were sent off to fight and die in a war that Bush claims to have supported, just as it remains true, despite the addition of some extra smoke into this photo, that Israel bombed the rotting hell out of Lebanon last summer. But, as always with the nutters, there's truth, and then there's truthiness.

--Matthew Duss

It strikes me as woefully deficient that the exam's vision of African American history is limited to one question about the slave trade.

And in case you were curious about the "correct" responses to some of the more subjective questions below:

Our economy is a "capitalist economy" or "market economy."

Americans can participate in their democracy through voting, joining a political party, helping on a campaign, joining a civic or community group, telling elected officials their opinions, calling Senators and Representatives, publicly supporting or opposing an issue or policy, running for office, or writing a letter to the editor.

Susan B. Anthony "fought for women's rights" and "fought for civil rights." Saying she was a "feminist activist" or "one of the mothers of the American feminist movement" would not be an appropriate answer.

--Dana Goldstein

The civics exam immigrants must pass to become American citizens has been revised for the first time since 1986, and the new questions will go into effect next year. The Bush administration wanted the test to be more challenging, but the revision also pays more attention to diversity, the achievements of women, and current events. My question is, when are we going to get serious about teaching this information to kids in American schools?

Here's a sampling of questions I've culled from the full exam:

1. What is the economic system in the United States?
2. What are two Cabinet-level positions?
3. What is one power of the Federal government?
4. What is the name of the Speaker of the House of Representatives?
5. What are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy?
6. What group of people was taken to America and sold as slaves?
7. Name one of the writers of the Federalist Papers.
8. What did Susan B. Anthony do?
9. Name one American Indian tribe in the United States.
10. Name one U.S. territory.

--Dana Goldstein

This photo comes via the big Barack Obama rally in New York last night. His staff had a scissors lift (a.k.a. a cherry-picker) and was taking photographers -- and, by the end of the evening, print reporters as well -- up in it to get crowd shots. Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said 22,758 people registered online to attend the rally in Manhattan's Washington Square Park, right across the street from New York University, though it's impossible to know how many of them showed up. It was a very big rally, that's for sure.

Obama took the stage to the strains of Kanye West's "Touch the Sky" (a number of us political press dorks were uncertain of this, but -- love the New York press corps -- I confirmed it with a nearby reporter from Vibe Vixen) and left to the beat of Yellowcard's "Believe," which later Googling revealed is a 9-11 tribute song.

Obama's staff appears to have chosen the date, time, and site of the rally to conveniently coincide with both the Clinton Global Initiative here in New York and John Edwards' evening appearance on MTV in a Q & A session with MTV viewers and MySpace readers. The deeper reason for being in New York, of course, is that it has a lot of delegates and distributes them proportionately, and so, in a protracted nomination fight, could add to Obama's total even if Hillary Clinton wins her home state, as she is expected to do. It's coming up on the end of the quarter, as well, and Obama's large rallies have tended to serve as pretty effective low-dollar fundraisers, thanks to the dozens of official campaign T-shirt hawkers one finds at them. Heck -- within an hour of leaving the rally I received an Obama mobile text-message reminding me to buy a T-shirt , in case I had not done so at the rally, and giving me a 20 percent off discount code to do so.

The rally was clearly targeted toward the MTV demographic, from the choice of location right near a university to a special pre-show guest appearance by 25-year-old Chinese-American rapper Jin, who warmed up the crowd with his "Open Letter to Obama," perhaps the only hip-hop song ever written that name-checks Jack Abramoff.

Obama opened with some jokes about having lived in New York, which draw giggles from the crowd. "I used to hang out in Washington Square Park," he said, before giving his mic a quizzical look. "I know a little something about Greenwich Village. I was going to say I know some of the bars around here but I think my communications director was trying to cut that off."

He then went into his standard stump speech, with slightly more digs at Clinton than usual, and the first dig at Bill Richardson I've heard anyone bother to make (reciting a litany of people who tell voters false things, Obama said: "there are those who will tell you getting out of Iraq is painless").

After the speech, Obama's Echo Boom followers streamed out of the park, their faces beatific with the glow of political first love.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

Via David Roberts, Reuters put out a timeline on the evolution of Bush's global warming rhetoric since he took office in 2001. In March 2001, he voiced his opposition to Kyoto. In June 2001, he said he wasn't really sure if humans are causing global warming. June 2002, he called the EPA's report on the dangers of global warming "bureaucratic" hot air. In July 2005, he admitted that "an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem." In January 2007, he mentioned global warming in his State of the Union address, and by August of this year, he decided to invite the leaders of the most-emitting nations together in Washington to talk about what to do about it.

Which brings us today, where the "Major Economies" summit is going down over at the State Department. In his address this morning, James L. Connaughton, who chairs the Council on Environmental Quality, told the gathered leaders that they'll be "talking about each of us developing national commitments beyond 2012." And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed what the administration has been pushing since they finally came around to admitting climate change is real and caused by humans:

First, we should agree upon a long-term goal for greenhouse gas reduction. Climate change is a generational challenge, and it requires a serious long-term commitment to reverse the growth in global emissions to the point where we can stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. We should do this, as we agreed in the UN Framework Convention, in a timeframe that allows the environment to adapt and in a way that ensures continued global economic development.

Our second task is to establish mid-term national targets and programs to reach our common broader goal. Let me stress that this is not a one-size-fits-all effort. Every country will make its own decisions, reflecting its own needs and its own interests, its own sources of energy and its own domestic politics. Though united by common goals and collective responsibilities, all nations should tackle climate change in the ways that they deem best.

And what they're pushing is this: lofty, far-off goals that sound good on paper but don't get anything done, voluntary cuts decided upon by each country separately, and prioritizing economic growth at any cost. While they're encouraging country-by-country goals, they're threatening to veto the landmark energy bill being negotiated in the House and Senate, the Water Resources Development Act recently passed, and any climate bill that makes it through this Congress. The Bush administration is still not taking the threat of global warming seriously -- nor are they intending to do much about it while in office.

--Kate Sheppard

In case your day was suffering from a paucity of outrage, CAP has created a map on which you can see how many of your state's tax dollars are going to the Iraq War. We blue types in California, for instance, have offered a generous $60 billion for the prosecution of war we didn't really want. The Texans, by contrast, have offered a mere $40 billion. Remember that next time you hear the Right complain about how they shouldn't have to pay for anyone's health care.

--Ezra Klein

That's a 40 year low, according to Newsweek. And only 9 percent of elementary school teachers are male. It's true that children -- especially many at-risk kids -- benefit from a positive male influence in their lives. I remember how exciting it was the summer before fifth grade to learn my teacher would be a "Mr." that year. But I think the Newsweek story focuses too much on fears of being seen as gay or a pedophile, and too little on how little our culture values teaching, in part because women are the majority of the people doing it:

There are several reasons many men find it difficult to enter, and stay in, the teaching profession: the starting salary for teachers is about $30,000, and less in early education. "Right now I don't have a wife, I don't have kids," says Bart Tittle, 24, a preschool teacher in Independence, Mo., who earns about $25,000 a year. "Later in life it's going to be much more challenging."

And it's challenging for working women supporting families, too. It's no coincidence that 75 percent of teachers are female and that the average salary in the profession is $47,602. Even in the wealthiest public school districts with the most highly-educated teachers, salaries tend to top out well beneath six figures. Old thinking about women's wages -- that they are supplemental instead of an integral, and often the only part of a family's income -- is a part of the problem

--Dana Goldstein

Kevin asks for debate impressions. I watched the debate in a bar where it couldn't be heard, so my only impression was that every time Tim Russert was on the screen, it looked like we were watching archival footage from the 70s. Boy needs a haircut.

Meanwhile, here at the CGI, Clinton is giving an award to Shakira. Apparently, she builds schools in Colombia. Apparently, I'm madly in love.

--Ezra Klein

Matt highlights this genuinely bizarre passage in a Times article about the labor dispute at GM:

Beyond the bookkeeping effect of VEBAs, the health care funds could create a kind of incentive for Detroit companies and the union to modify their behavior.

Paying the high borrowing costs caused by their low debt ratings meant the Detroit companies had to keep wringing profits from big vehicles like sport utilities and pickups, rather than shifting to the smaller models with better fuel economy that consumers were demanding.

Likewise, U.A.W. members, assured of health care benefits that were the envy of the labor movement, had little incentive to take better care of their health, since their generous coverage would pay for most any ailment.

By contrast, Toyota, which pays premiums only for workers, not their families, has fitness centers at its factories and requires newly hired workers to exercise two hours a day during their training period.

Matt identifies the most obvious problem: assertions about a moral hazard that are both unsupported by evidence and utterly illogical. The idea that people will have no incentive to avoid debilitating illnesses and take care of their bodies as long as their health treatments are paid for is so bizarre I make a mental note to stop taking anyone who says it seriously. But in addition, the article doesn't even support the premise. If employees at Toyota have such a powerful incentive to stay healthy, why are they required to work out? And isn't it their non-insured family members rather than the insured workers who have the incentives?

The next time you're informed about the "liberal" bias at the Times, however, remember the news story claiming that Toyota failed to provide health benefits to their employees' families ... for their own good!

--Scott Lemieux

Did anyone else watching last night's debate notice the ads from the American Cancer Society? Rather than the traditional awareness-raising ads about the need for cancer prevention, early detection, or funding for research and development of cures, the ads are about how a lack of access to health care or a lack of sufficient health care is the biggest challenge in fighting cancer in this country. The 47 million Americans without health insurance and the 16 million under-insured are less likely to get the regular check-ups that help catch cancers at their earliest, most treatable stages. And even if they do detect it, the cost of treatment is often insurmountable. Apparently, the American Cancer Society is spending their entire $15 million ad budget on these commercials.

Some have criticized the society for getting political, but it's political problems that they have to overcome in meeting the goals of their organization, making it a fitting and worthy campaign. A recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal criticized the group for wasting money that should have been spent on more prevention and detection campaigns, missing the entire point of the ad campaign: that we can't adequately prevent, detect, or care for cancers when a large swath of the populous doesn't have access to doctors. Richard C. Wender, M.D., national volunteer president of the society, defended the campaign in a subsequent letter to the editor:

The society was the first traditional health charity to engage in paid advertising and, to be sure, for years our ad budget, which is less than 2% our revenues, was spent raising awareness of things such as colorectal cancer and breast cancer screenings and tobacco prevention. These and other efforts to emphasize the lifesaving benefits of prevention and early detection measures have proven effective. But they are not enough.

[…]

We openly acknowledge that such a system can be achieved in different ways. Our objective is to help define what the country needs and to encourage an open and productive dialogue about how to achieve it. The solution could be private, public or some combination of the two. What we are certain of is that the answer should be in the hands of the American people, and that elected officials must take the lead and work with all concerned to find an answer that saves more lives from cancer and improves our health-care system.

An important message coming from an important organization.

--Kate Sheppard

Going over last night's debate in my head one more time, I can't help help but focus on Tim Russert's oddly confrontational and, as I said last night, rather inane moderating style. From his repeated, failed attempts to trip up Hillary with references to her husband's administration, to his harping on John Edwards about his hair and expensive house, to his wrong-headed question about bible verses, to his obvious personal obsession with making Social Security "solvent," I came away from this debate feeling like very little policy was addressed.

The conversation on residual troops in Iraq was important, as was the interlude about Iran. But overall, this was a debate more about style than substance. Hillary proved again that her charisma and delivery shine in the debate format, while Barack Obama can hardly muster 10 percent of the energy for a debate that he puts on display at events such as the SEIU candidates' forum. Edwards won some points for being the most aggressive front-runner toward Clinton on foreign policy, but he didn't deal well with Russert's haranguing about the hair. I wish Edwards had simply replied, "Of course I regret that expensive haircut. I would never have gotten it if I thought it would have distracted people so much from the really important issues we're debating tonight: ending the war in Iraq, providing universal health care, and restoring America's place in the world."

--Dana Goldstein

What strikes me about the sex statistics you cite, Kate, is that they really upturn the stereotype that promiscuity is primarily responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the developing world. Indeed, in Zimbabwe, for example, women's access to prenatal care is a stronger determinant of a population group's HIV infection rate than the prevalence of prostitution. Educating women and giving them comprehensive reproductive health care is one of the very best ways to fight AIDS.

--Dana Goldstein

Here at the CGI, Hank Paulson, shilling for Bush (who apparently take global warming incredibly seriously, all his past positions notwithstanding), just offered up one of the great lines of all time. Asked by Tom Brokaw whether Bush's determination on climate change is shared by Republicans on Capitol Hill, he replied, "I think there's a wide variety of knowledge on Capitol Hill."

Yep, many different knowledges, some of them true, some of them false, spread broadly. And they call the Left post-modern.

--Ezra Klein

Foreign Policy has an infographic in this month's issue about sex, and safe sex, around the world. Seems the number of sexual partners grows with income; people in low-income countries average 6.3 partners, while high-income countries average 9.7. People in high-income nations also have sex earlier, and are more likely to have unprotected sex – with nations like Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand at the head of the pack. Also, Icelanders and Germans lose their virginity earliest, and your sexual preference isn't a very likely determinant of whether or not you use protection. The info comes from the world's largest survey of sexual behavior, conducted by Durex (the condom purveyor). Fascinating.

--Kate Sheppard

The candidates were just asked "Red Sox or Yankees?" The preceding question asked them to quote their favorite bible verse. Biden answered: "Jesus' warning about the Pharisees." I think he meant to critique fundamentalism. Obama and Richardson cited the Sermon on the Mount. Clinton said the Golden Rule. Gravel fumbled, "Love. That love is the most important thing."

--Dana Goldstein

But she's holding her own. He gives her a hackneyed scenario about a ticking-time bomb terrorist attack and the question of whether to torture a detainee. When she says "hypotheticals are dangerous," Russert replies that the scenario was told to him by "William Jefferson Clinton." Hillary raises her eyebrow and says Bill Clinton's not on the debate stage tonight, "I am." Laughter and a big round of applause.

--Dana Goldstein

Obama dodges the question of whether "turning the page" means "turning the page on Bush, Clinton, or both." He speaks slowly and cautiously about working alongside independents and Republicans on issues like universal health care.

Does Hillary think it's dangerous to have only two families in the White House over two decades? "I thought Bill was a pretty good president. ... I am running on my own. I think I know how to find common ground and to stand my ground."

Biden is asked whether MoveOn.org has changed politics. He responds, "They haven't changed politics. They're part of the party, it's not their party."

Should Obama have gone to Jena to protest? "No, because I was in Washington at that time trying to bring an end to the war in Iraq, and that was something that was critical. The fact is that before any of the other candidates on this stage, I spoke out in regard to Jena. ... This is an issue that's not black or white, it's an issue of American justice. We've got to make sure the justice system works for every American."

Does Edwards support developing more nuclear power here in the U.S. "No. No."

Obama: "We shouldn't take nuclear power off the table."

Clinton: We need a viable solution on what to do with nuclear waste before we develop more nuclear power.

--Dana Goldstein

...Since back in the day, Hillary points out. Word. She won't negotiate with people who won't protect the future of the program.

Obama says privatization is a bad idea that will "put people's retirements at the whim of the stock market."

--Dana Goldstein

Edwards is doing it again! In the last debate, John Edwards said he was against gay marriage, but his wife Elizabeth supported it. This time, he tells us his daughter Cate supports gay marriage. He bets his 9-year old and 7-year old will probably someday support gay marriage, too.

Wow. Obama jumps onto the bandwagon! He hasn't personally talked to his daughters about gay marriage, but, "My wife has."

What's going on? Is gay rights spouse's work?

--Dana Goldstein

Russert is turning the discussion on universal health care into a referendum on HillaryCare. Then he points out to Edwards that when he ran for president in 2004, he didn't support universal health care, saying it would be too expensive. That's is a hard hit against Edwards, and nobody's made it so clearly before. "You've radically changed your position," Russert says. The candidate replies, "That's true, and so has America."

--Dana Goldstein

No, she says, local police shouldn't be made to enforce federal immigration policy: "It's not their job."

--Dana Goldstein

Richardson says, "You asked me because I'm the Hispanic here, but I'll answer." The problem is the lack of a federal legalization process, he continues, and the Mexican's government's tacit approval of illegal immigration. We should be allowing more immigrants to come to the U.S. legally. But then he says, "Would it be more bureaucracy? Yes." Groans all around.

Biden on Rudy: "He's the most uninformed person in American foreign policy and running for president."

--Dana Goldstein

This is the most honest and detailed discussion on the topic we've heard to this point. Obama says he would hope to have all U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013, but Clinton and Edwards won't make the same promise. Edwards guesses 3,500 to 5,000 troops will be necessary to protect the American embassy in Baghdad and do humanitarian work. Obama says American soldiers will be needed in Iraq to guard U.S. bases, do counter-terrorism work, and protect Iraqi civilians.

It's Edwards here who is arguing with Clinton about their differences on Iraq. He claims she would continue combat operations, she says that like him, she wants to redeploy the vast majority of troops.

Bill Richardson takes the unrealistic stance of not leaving "any troop behind."

--Dana Goldstein

The CW going into the Democratic primary debate about to air on MSNBC is that we should be watching whether Barack Obama attacks Hillary Clinton tonight, particularly on Iraq. Chris Matthews says, "If he won't accuse her of blowing it...of making the worst decision in the world...than why should the American people reject Hillary if he won't do it?"

Now he says, "I'm warming up to Hillary these days." Keith Olbermann replies, "I don't have anything to warm up from!" Not sure what he means. Has Olbermann always been really hot for Hillary?

Anyhow, I'll be paying attention to all this, and much more substantive issues as well. Here we go. The first question is on how to end the war, and Obama says, without confronting anyone, "I opposed this war from the start."

--Dana Goldstein

As others have pointed out today, philanthropy by the wealthy can rarely have the same impact in the international arena as collective action by people with less money through their governments. That said, a remark by UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres at a press conference with Angelina Jolie on the education of children of conflict really brought home for me what one purpose of the Clinton Global Initiative is, beyond the direct power of the philanthropic efforts it helps to inspire and organize. The point of a $9 million education commitment Guterres was discussing was not just the money, he said. The money was "an instrument" that established the principle that refugees had a right to be educated.

The establishment of social principles and recognition of rights is something that can and sometimes must precede government action, and something philanthropy can help build. In some ways the CGI is operating as a massive lobbying effort by Bill Clinton and many others directed toward business interests and the wealthy, with the goal of making them more progressive. If corporations help establish a general social principle and change their own values through through their commitments to philanthropy, that changes the political climate for the next Democratic president. To put it more concretely, if, say, WAL-MART makes a commitment to asking the shipping fleets that move its goods around the country to change from regular gasoline to bio-diesel, that influences not just the environment and not just the American trucking industry, but also the political climate for Democrats seeking legislative solutions to climate change, by turning a potential business opponent into an ally and industry green leader. Indeed, going straight to the heads of industry can lead to grassroots impacts -- such as a world where American truckers become more environmentally conscious, because they have to be -- and where those changes could, in turn, potentially trickle up again through the political system.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

Why are a bunch of bloggers attending the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in New York, in addition to the usual members of the press who cover gatherings of the wealthy in New York, philanthropy, and/or international development issues? And how does this relate to the fact that the former president's wife is running for the presidency? I'm still sorting this out, but a clue comes in the role of Feministing.com's Jessica Valenti and former Prospect writing fellow Mark Leon Goldberg, who both work for U. N. Dispatch as their day jobs. Jessica, who was also part of the Bill Clinton-blogger confab that sparked a million blog posts (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, trust me, it's not worth getting into), and Mark have roles as press aides at the conference. And the U.N. Dispatch was previously edited by Peter Daou, who is now the Hillary Clinton campaign's internet communications director.

Some of the bloggers here were invited to attend as part of the CGI's broader blogger outreach efforts, but many also sought to come on their own and are thrilled to just be allowed in. There are pro-Hillary bloggers here, such as Karen M. of Hillary's Bloggers, motherhood and activism bloggers, like Emily McKhann of themotherhood.net, enviro-bloggers, foreign policy bloggers, and a handful of the usual suspects in D.C. blogging (though not much evidence of the generally anti-Hillary sectors of the Townhouse community).

The main reason for the new blog presence appears to be, as the former president made clear this morning, that the CGI is trying to be more web-savvy and to develop a more significant internet presence and communications strategy. This year the CGI is also using the internet to democratize its philanthropic efforts through its MyCommitment small-donor site, for example -- which is a timely move in this era of online fundraising. Still, with a presidential race on, bringing political and issue area bloggers deeper into Clintonworld cannot but be expected to have some overflow effects for the senator, if only by sketching more clearly for them a different part of the world in which she moves.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

I went to the American Constitution Society's Supreme Court Term Preview today. Lots of interesting stuff, (I'll be writing a run down of the fall docket for TAP Online early next week) but I thought the most interesting comment came from Virginia Seitz of Sidley Austin who discussed the civil rights, or as she put it "the labor and employment law " docket :

The first thing I think that is interesting is to note what's missing, and that is any labor union plaintiff or defendant in any of these cases. These are all individual employee cases and just from my historical perspective that is unique over time in the Supreme Court's docket, and reflects the sort of shrinking proportion of organized labor in this country, and it's extremely critical these employment law cases to an organized work place. But I think it's worth noting and maybe mourning for a moment the absence of labor union plaintiffs in the court's docket this year.

I asked Seitz about this after the event. "No one is a labor lawyer anymore," she told me, "Everyone is an employment lawyer."

--Phoebe Connelly

So please come visit. It'll be fun! I promise! Festivities begin at 9 pm Eastern.

--Dana Goldstein

This article in today's Post illustrates the fact that it's not just backwater Louisiana towns that have a problem with very public displays of racism: A number of events on college campuses also reek of an era that most assume is long behind us. From a noose hung outside the African American cultural center at the University of Maryland to culturally insensitive cartoons at the University of Virginia, a number of racially-charged incidents have made it clear that campuses aren't necessarily the bastions of tolerance and progress some might expect.

The piece suggests that one of the reasons is that for more and more students, college is the first time they'll actually be in an integrated setting:

"Many people don't make that transition well," said Beverly Daniel Tatum, the president of Spelman College.

She said she doesn't expect that to change anytime soon, with public schools less integrated than they were 20 years ago. In 2005, for example, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than half of black students but only 3 percent of white students attended public elementary and secondary schools that were 75 percent or more black.

Dana pointed to some of these segregation trends in her piece last week, as well as the fact that there isn't much going on to reverse these trends. Between 1968 and 1980, the number of black students attending predominantly black schools fell from 77 percent to 63 percent, which many saw as a breakthrough in ending school segregation. But that number has been creeping back upward since then, to about 66 percent in 1993-94, and 73 percent in 2005-2006, according to a recent study (PDF) by the Pew Research Center.

While the number students attending "nearly all-white" schools (defined as a school in which fewer than 5 percent of the students are from minority groups) fell by more than a third between '93-'94 and '05-'06, 37 percent still attend schools with less than 10 percent minority students, and 87 percent attend schools with where white students are the clear majority.

While I think this is a sound point in the article, I also think there are other factors at play, not least of which is the idea that students do a lot of this to be contrarian. The piece highlights a lot of the "diversity" initiatives on campuses, and points to the possibility that students become inclined to rebel against "political correctness" when the initiatives are pushed to them as such, or simply view them as superfluous add-ons to the real reason they're in college.

But all of this should point to the value of more integrated schools throughout the education system, so students don't just appear at college and discover that brown people exist and may have had life experiences that differ from their own -- life experiences, say, that would make seeing your fellow students in blackface, even on "Politically Incorrect Day," pretty offensive.

While Robert Putnam's most recent findings about diversity and civic engagement indicate that the benefits of diversity might not be as great as my idealistic, liberal worldview inclines me to believe, there is something to be said for exposure to other people, and an awareness of the issues affecting other people, as the best way to reduce both prejudice and insensitivity. It's also a lot more effective than a few diversity courses at the college level or a seminar at your office. As a study put out by the Association for Psychological Science released this week found, "reducing prejudice may require more than simply adopting egalitarian values" -- which is a lot of what diversity curriculum and college-level programs for reducing bias appeal to. The study's authors argue that reason alone can't recondition people's attitudes toward people of other races, but they "could be reconditioned through positive interpersonal experiences."

--Kate Sheppard

David Brooks, in his recent column on the Democratic strategy that would best please him, tells us that liberal/progressive bloggers are a mean-spirited bunch and that the Democratic politicians listen to them only at their own peril, and even then most reluctantly:

The fact is, many Democratic politicians privately detest the netroots' self-righteousness and bullying. They also know their party has a historic opportunity to pick up disaffected Republicans and moderates, so long as they don't blow it by drifting into cuckoo land. They also know that a Democratic president is going to face challenges from Iran and elsewhere that are going to require hard-line, hawkish responses.

Ouch. Now my feelings are hurt. So were Glenn Greenwald's, apparently, because he wrote up quite a response to Brooks' column. Greenwald covers most of the factual dispute with Brooks' ideas, which lets me focus on just a few self-righteous musings on the meaning that Brooks assigns to the "netroots".

In Brooks' world the netroots are far left, out of touch with the "average American," and so dangerous that a Democratic politician listening to them will self-destruct. Yet the conclusion of his piece is that the netroots don't really matter at all. He lists four reasons why this must be true, ending with:

Fourth, the netroots are losing the policy battles. As Matt Bai's reporting also suggests, the netroots have not been able to turn their passion and animus into a positive policy agenda. Democratic domestic policy is now being driven by old Clinton hands like Gene Sperling and Bruce Reed.

But if all this is true, why get all upset about the self-righteousness and bullying? Surely it can help Brooks' own party, the Republicans? My guess is that the point of this column is to strengthen the meme of the liberal and progressive blogs as far-left extremist outlets which every careful politician should shun.

--J. Goodrich

The first candidate with a comprehensive education plan is John Edwards. No surprise there, and no surprise that the proposals are excellent. The details were released last Friday and highlighted in a speech at an Iowa middle school; apologies for not getting to it until today. The basics:

• Universal pre-school for 4-year olds, with tuition on a sliding-scale based on family income.
• "Smart Start" services for kids younger than 5, including screenings for health problems and learning disabilities and home visits to new parents.
• A new focus on good teaching. Edwards walks a fine line between supporting reform in the way teachers are paid and aligning himself with the teachers' unions. He wants to give teachers in high-poverty schools between $5,000 and $15,000 in annual bonuses, but only if their overall school is high-achieving, if they take on extra mentoring responsibilities, or if they achieve advanced certification. He does not support rewarding individual teachers for the performance of their specific set of students.
• Create a national teachers' university modeled on West Point.
• Reform No Child Left Behind by creating better assessments of student learning that include essays, oral presentations, and long-term projects. Yes! Assessing high standards doesn't have to mean multiple choice. Edwards seems to understand that we have to get the testing industry out of the policy-making process. Some other NCLB changes are similar in scope to what's offered in the Miller-McKeon discussion draft currently in committee.
• Build 1,000 new high-quality schools, including magnet schools in urban areas and schools affiliated with colleges and built on their campuses. Focus on integrating schools by providing incentives for suburban schools that admit high-poverty students.
• Create a federal fund to turn around failing schools.
• Support community service among high school students.

There's been very little media coverage of the plan, but predictably, the few articles written about it were too focused on the estimated costs -- $7 billion in the first year. The bottom line here, as policy-makers debate reforms to NCLB, is that Edwards manages to be critical of the bill's real faults without using it as an easy punching bag. He articulates an intelligent alternative model for state assessments and pays attention to some problems Congress has all but ignored, such as promoting socioeconomic integration within school buildings. Now we'll see if other candidates rise to the occasion and present their own visions for our schools.

--Dana Goldstein

Gene Sperling may not have benefitted from the split screen comparisons with Brad Pitt, but he seemed just thrilled later in the afternoon session on education to be sharing a stage with Columbian superstar and sexy songstress Shakira, of "Hips Don't Lie" fame.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

The Hill reports today that antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan is looking to run against Nancy Pelosi in 2008. Sheehan says Pelosi has failed to defund the war. Apparently, Sheehan doesn't know that the trend for reelection in Congress is very high (over 90 percent in the last two congressional election years). Furthermore, Pelosi's approval rating in her home district of the Bay Area is 56 percent, more than enough to comfortably win reelection. The whole thing is mainly a press stunt to make Pelosi uncomfortable (as I'm sure she already is) with every war supplemental bill. This was confirmed by The Hill quoting Sheehan saying, "This really isn’t me against Nancy Pelosi. This is me against the war machine."

--Kay Steiger

The polygamist Warren S. Jeffs has been convicted for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year old girl. His motives for doing this, he says, were religious.

"That just makes him all the more the prophet," said Isaac Wyler, who was kicked out of the church by Mr. Jeffs in 2004 but has remained in Colorado City.

Benjamin Bistline, a former member of Mr. Jeffs' church, said he thought the verdict would probably shift the balance of the church away from its historic base here in southern Utah to more recently established compounds in Texas, South Dakota and elsewhere.

"They believe that polygamy is god's word, and they will still do underage marriages," said Mr. Bistline, 72, who has written about the F.L.D.S.

What do we do when the beliefs and practices of a religion violate human or civil rights? How do we allow for the freedom of religion or avoid discriminating against certain religious beliefs when those beliefs are based on discrimination of some other kind?

The Jeffs case is an extreme example and perhaps not that difficult to judge because of existing laws. But the Bush administration has recently focused on the defense of the rights of religious people. These rights often conflict with the rights of others, and my prediction is that we will one day get a less-obvious test case about how the government will rank these rights.

--J. Goodrich

In a Q&A with readers at NYTimes.com, Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal lets slip that "in the not-too-distant future" selected articles, editorials, and columns on the Times' website will feature user commenting. The paper is planning on continuing to approve each and every submitted comment before publication, so it could be a slow roll-out. I don't envy the interns whose job that is. But along with the demise of Times Select, this is more evidence that the paper of record is embracing the digital age.

--Dana Goldstein

This bit from Peter Galbraith's article on how George W. Bush helped establish Iran as the Middle East's new regional hegemon deserves special attention:

"In May 2003, the Iranian authorities sent a proposal through the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, Tim Guldimann, for negotiations on a package deal in which Iran would freeze its nuclear program in exchange for an end to U.S. hostility. The Iranian paper offered "full transparency for security that there are no Iranian endeavors to develop or possess WMD [and] full cooperation with the IAEA based on Iranian adoption of all relevant instruments." The Iranians also offered support for "the establishment of democratic institutions and a non-religious government" in Iraq; full cooperation against terrorists (including "above all, al-Qaeda"); and an end to material support to Palestinian groups like Hamas. In return, the Iranians asked that their country not be on the terrorism list or designated part of the "axis of evil"; that all sanctions end; that the United States support Iran's claims for reparations for the Iran-Iraq war as part of the overall settlement of the Iraqi debt; that they have access to peaceful nuclear technology; and that the United States pursue anti-Iranian terrorists, including "above all" the MEK. MEK members should, the Iranians said, be repatriated to Iran.

Basking in the glory of "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, the Bush administration dismissed the Iranian offer and criticized Guldimann for even presenting it. Several years later, the Bush administration's abrupt rejection of the Iranian offer began to look blatantly foolish, and the administration moved to suppress the story. Flynt Leverett, who had handled Iran in 2003 for the National Security Council, tried to write about it in the New York Times and found his Op-Ed crudely censored by the National Security Council, which had to clear it. Guldimann, however, had given the Iranian paper to Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, now remembered both for renaming House cafeteria food and for larceny. (As chairman of the House Administration Committee he renamed French fries "freedom fries" and is now in federal prison for bribery.) I was surprised to learn that Ney had a serious side. He had lived in Iran before the revolution, spoke Farsi, and wanted better relations between the two countries. Trita Parsi, Ney's staffer in 2003, describes in detail the Iranian offer and the Bush administration's high-handed rejection of it in his wonderfully informative account of the triangular relationship among the United States, Iran and Israel, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States."

Parsi was quoted in a June 2006 Washington Post article on the Iranian offer:

"Parsi said that based on his conversations with the Iranian officials, he believes the failure of the United States to even respond to the offer had an impact on the government...Iranian officials decided that the United States cared not about Iranian policies but about Iranian power.

The incident "strengthened the hands of those in Iran who believe the only way to compel the United States to talk or deal with Iran is not by sending peace offers but by being a nuisance," Parsi said.

In other words, the aggressive unilateralism and recklessness of our hardliners strengthened their hardliners. It bears repeating: Here we had Iran offering not just to talk, but even agreeing in advance to the U.S.'s main demands: transparency in Iran's nuclear program, cooperation in Iraqi security and reconstruction, and ending support for terrorism against Israel. Not only didn't the Bush administration not pursue it, they didn't even respond. In a presidency almost completely defined by its successive foreign policy blunders, this will surely be remembered as one of the worst.

--Matthew Duss

Brad Pitt just announced that he and Steve Bing plan to build a new 150-home community in New Orleans Lower 9th Ward. And the houses will all be sustainably built! This is, of course, a very good thing for about 150 families. But it's a bit hard not to be uncomfortable with the fact that this $150 million project, which isn't one of the biggest initiatives being announced, is the only one that got a press release on the desk of every media member (and on such smooth high-quality paper stock!). On the other hand, it's certainly true that I was watching Brad Pitt and marveling at his roguish charm and not watching Gene Sperling and absorbing his nerdish vision. So I suck too.

--Ezra Klein

The New York Times has an op-ed today from Reed Walters, the district attorney in the Jena 6 case, in which he defends the prosecution of the six teenagers, his decision to try Mychal Bell as an adult, and his inability to prosecute the noose-hangers because "it broke no law." Part of it is an appeal to the details of the attack that brought the charges:

The victim in this crime, who has been all but forgotten amid the focus on the defendants, was a young man named Justin Barker, who was not involved in the nooses incident three months earlier. According to all the credible evidence I am aware of, after lunch, he walked to his next class. As he passed through the gymnasium door to the outside, he was blindsided and knocked unconscious by a vicious blow to the head thrown by Mychal Bell. While lying on the ground unaware of what was happening to him, he was brutally kicked by at least six people.

All well and good; no one's disputing what went down exactly. What the thousands of protesters who went down to Jena and their supporters around the country take issue with is the disproportionate dispensation of "justice," the lack of any sort of context for the attack in the charges brought against the six teens, and the very fact that there isn't any sort of law against a hanging a noose in a public place as a threat to African Americans. These parts of the story are given scant mention in Walters op-ed, and these are the reasons the case has created a resurgence of civil rights activism – not because anyone thinks that Mychal Bell is blameless.

--Kate Sheppard

Michael Gerson, in a column about Hillary Clinton and religion, says that:

She has attacked pro-life people as enemies of "evidence," "science" and "the Constitution." And she has blamed pro-life "ideologues" for the prevalence of abortions because of their "silent war on contraception" -- a remarkable accusation that Roman Catholic opposition to birth control is somehow responsible for abortion in America.

As to the first part, well, don't take my or her word for it; let's turn things over to Anthony Kennedy, who has generously placed in the U.S. Reports the "pro-life" claim that although he can "find no reliable data" he just knows that women with different moral values that Michael Gerson just don't know what's good for them. Transparently irrational "Partial birth" abortion statutes do in fact reflect a movement at war with evidence, science, and the Constitution. As to the second part, once you get beyond Gerson's strawman phrasing Clinton's point is not "remarkable" but banal. Some number of abortions inevitably result from unwanted pregnancies. Making contraception less accessible or discouraging people from using it -- which, in the U.S., is hardly an exclusively Catholic phenomenon -- increases unwanted pregnancies. Hence, Clinton is right that the "silent war on contraception" increases abortion rates. And she could even go further and point out that the bundle of "pro-life" policies evident in Latin America -- illegal abortion, reactionary gender and sexual mores, skeletal welfare state -- produces higher abortion rates than the bundle of pro-choice policies manifest in Canada and Western Europe. Which presumably is why Gerson wants to imply that Clinton is engaging in religious bigotry rather than actually making an argument on the merits.

--Scott Lemieux

In his Baltimore Sun column today essentially predicting a Hillary Clinton win in both the primary and general election -- unless something goes terribly wrong -- Tom Schaller highlights one of the less-talked about strengths of her campaign: The grassroots organizing muscle of women's leadership group Emily's List. The National Organization of Women's PAC has also launched a major campaign for '08 called "Make History With Hillary." And Feminist Majority's PAC formally endorsed Clinton as well.

Yet many younger feminists, while not exactly surprised by the early Clinton endorsements, remain incredibly torn about this election. Obviously, we're weighing the attraction of voting for the first female, feminist president against the more progressive foreign policy and more aggressive anti-poverty platforms of John Edwards and Barack Obama. If Hillary wants to widen her lead among young female primary voters (polls last spring showed her leading Obama among young women by 6 points), she ought to deploy another one of the strengths Schaller points to -- her "platoon of staffers and top-flight wonks developing her policy papers and talking points." As Ezra argued last week, Clinton's home-run with her healthcare proposal owed a lot to John Edwards' lead. Why hasn't she met the Edwards and Obama campaigns with a detailed anti-poverty strategy or proposal focusing on urban issues or education? Clinton's been a smashing success among young feminists when it comes to fighting for access to contraception. She's introduced legislation to close the pay gap between men and women and has been a strong voice against sex and race discrimination in the workplace. She has combatted the rising rate of sexual assault against the women serving in our military. Hillary is the clear leader on those crucial issues. But the feminist movement of 2007 is much broader than that.

Maybe I'm vastly overstating the importance of policy to your average young female primary voter. Okay, I probably am. But when there is so much more Hillary Clinton can do to harness the energy of young feminist opinion leaders -- and their increasing online strength -- I do wonder why she isn't trying harder.

--Dana Goldstein

Sorry for our absence yesterday -- we underwent some long-anticipated tech updates which unexpectedly rendered the blog unusable. We're continuing to tweak, so apologies for any errors or oddness over the next few days.

Meanwhile, we've had some great pieces up at TAP Online:

Robert Kuttner continues his ongoing analysis of the financial meltdown with "The Fed as Enabler".

Adele Stan imagines a Newt Gingrich candidacy.

Matthew Duss takes a hard look at Giuliani's foreign policy advisors.

Sarah Posner offers her weekly peek at what's going on with the religious right.

Art Levine examines lax regulation of the pharmaceutical industry.

Also, the new October print issue of The American Prospect is up. Consider subscribing today.

--The Editors

The problem with bloggers is that they sometimes write posts that anticipate longer pieces you'll release later in the week. So that's tough. But for now, I'll say that I largely agree with Matt's initial take on the Clinton Global Initiative: It's a very good charity, but it's not a sufficient substitute for government action. And Bill Clinton, either through direct advocacy or his wife's campaign, could be doing much more to create national consensus for strong, collective action that's actually in proportion to the problems he's pointing out.

It was, for instance, a bit weird to watch Clinton lauding five major business executives for pooling $2 million for six humanitarian airdrops into Chad and Sudan. I mean, that's great, but it's peanuts. Moreover, if Clinton decided to make the plight of the Sudanese his primary issue, and was constantly speaking out, pressuring American politicians, cajoling foreign leaders, and generally pushing the relevant parties, he's one of the few individuals in the world who'd stand a serious chance at hastening a settlement. The philanthropy is undoubtedly virtuous and worthwhile, but it's just not up to these tasks, and possibly not the best use of Clinton's unique role.

--Ezra Klein

Via the Arabist, it seems two Saudi women recently lodged a protest against their country's religious police:

Members of Khobar's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice were the victims of an attack by two Saudi females, Asharq Al-Awsat can reveal.

According to the head of the commission in Khobar, two girls pepper sprayed members of the commission after they had tried to offer them advice.

Head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the Eastern province Dr. Mohamed bin Marshood al-Marshood, told Asharq Al Awsat that two of the Commission's employees were verbally insulted and attacked by two inappropriately-dressed females, in the old market in Prince Bandar street, an area usually crowded with shoppers during the month of Ramadan.

According to Dr. Al-Marshood, the two commission members approached the girls in order to "politely" advise and guide them regarding their inappropriate clothing.

Consequently, the two girls started verbally abusing the commission members, which then lead to one of the girls pepper-spraying them in the face as the other girl filmed the incident on her mobile phone, while continuing to hurl insults at them.

The Eastern Province's head of the commission also revealed that with the help of the police his two employees were able to control the situation.

The two females were then escorted to the police station where they apologized for the attack, were cautioned and then released.

We can easily dismiss the claim that the religious police were "polite" as these mutaween, many of whom are poorly educated ex-convicts granted early release because of their having memorized Qur'an in prison, are notoriously thuggish and abusive of women, Shi'is, and anyone else who they perceive as not conforming to their very strict Wahabbist interpretation of Islam. They essentially have a legal-religious sanction for bullying. Hooray for these women for politely advising and guiding them regarding the fact that a face full of pepper spray can ruin your whole day. Be on the lookout for the video.

--Matthew Duss

Matt and Ezra cite this wonderful Rick Perlstein post, with Ezra adding the following:

Remember here that the Soviet Union wasn't just a mean country. It was the epicenter of an expansionistic ideology that believed its historical triumph to be pre-assured. It was as religious as any religion. And it actually had a basis for this belief, as communism was a superficially attractive ideology that was attracting adherents in major countries -- the US included. And yet we not only dealt with the Soviets, but spoke to their leaders and welcomed them on our soil. Because we were the superpower, and we believed in our country.

Elements of that are debatable; I for one think that, ideology aside, the Soviet Union was pretty much a status quo state during the bulk of the Cold War. What's interesting, though, is that while the common conservative rejoinder to the Iran-USSR comparison is now "Yeah, but those Iranians are crazy!", back in the Cold War, the Founding Fathers of neoconservatism went out of their way to argue that the Soviet Union couldn't be deterred, either. The motivating logic of Team B was not, officially, to wildly overstate Soviet military power (although it succeeded in doing that), but rather to argue that the Soviet Union was developing an offensive nuclear doctrine and capability and would make deterrence irrelevant.

In other words, it's the same argument, over and over again. The difference is that today, the nutjobs have been allowed to take over the asylum. Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan were smart enough to understand the distinction between rhetoric and action, and how to prevent the former from overtaking the latter. That doesn't look like it's going to be the case with the current crop...

-- Robert Farley

In the past week, we've been treated to two different columns that explore the possibilities if Al Gore is announced as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 12. Brent Budowsky at The Hill thinks it would single-handedly restore America's image around the world:

From the immediate surge of media attention until the aftermath of Gore’s acceptance speech there will be a profound surge of international and national attention to what Al Gore stands for, and what he has done.

For the first time since Sept. 11, 2001 was hijacked as a pretext for the Iraq war, there will be a powerful, compelling and global discussion of the America that has been and should always be a genuine beacon of hope and light for the world.

Christopher Hitchens says Gore's waiting until after the prize-winner is announced to decide about running for president, and that his entire political career would be a wash if he wins and doesn't jump in the Democratic primary:

Should he make up his mind not to run, he would retrospectively abolish all the credit he has acquired so far. It would mean in effect that he never had the stuff to do the job and that those who worked and voted for him were wasting their time. Given his age and his stature, can he really want that to be the conclusion that history draws?

Both pieces are rife with strained (and strange) projections and undue prognosticating about a man that, even without the Nobel Prize, will have had one of the best years any American politician could hope for – a bestselling book, an Oscar, an Emmy, and both the ear and favor of other world leaders. Yet in the American political realm and the media, he still faces widespread derision and distrust. Why would he take the chance of having his legacy as the understated statesman marred by yet another disastrous run for the White House?

--Kate Sheppard

I highly recommend my colleague Matthew Duss' profile of "Giuliani's War Cabinet." The presence of Daniel Pipes on Rudy's team speaks not only to Giuliani's ignorant bellicosity on terrorism and the Middle East, but also to another of his longtime traits: A profound distrust of free speech and intellectualism.

Pipes' Campus Watch stands alongside David Horowitz's "academic freedom" movement as a prime supporter of the attack on free speech in the classroom. These organizations claim to support classrooms without ideology and the hiring of more conservative professors in the humanities and social sciences. But their underlying agenda is to punish critical thinking, especially when it comes to race, class, gender, sex, and America's role in the world. So it's no wonder that Pipes gets along great with the mayor who tried to censor art museums and ban the children's book Heather Has Two Mommies.

--Dana Goldstein

I'm yay-deep in climate change today, but it just came across the wire that the Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether or not voter-identification laws in some states are unfairly preventing poor people (and in most areas, the most affected groups are minorities) from going to the polls. Cases in several states have raised the question of whether laws that require a government-issued identification card to vote are inherently discriminatory, as a certain sector of the population lacks the means to pay for this form of identification and is therefore being denied the right to vote. The case they'll hear is out of Indiana, where a federal district judge and a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld a state voting law in January. The new law that requires ID replaces an older law that only required voters to sign in, and poll workers could verify the signatures against those on record.

Republicans tend to favor the laws in order to prevent voter fraud, while Democrats argue that they affect a segment of the population that usually votes for Democratic candidates. No one in Indiana has ever been prosecuted for voter fraud, which dissenting judge Terence T. Evans pointed to as evidence that the claim that ID laws combat fraud doesn't hold water. Writing as the lone dissenting opinion on the panel, he concluded: "Let’s not beat around the bush. The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly-veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic."

With the current Supreme Court, this could be a tough one to for those who oppose the ID laws to win. It might even be easier to make a basic, government-issued ID free for everyone. More and more public high schools are issuing plastic photo ID cards to all students for a variety of safety reasons free of charge, and those things can be produced on-site in minutes. And the county I'm registered to vote in sends all voters a little manila card with their voter identification information typed (on a typewriter, no less – how's that for inefficient) on it, also free of charge. Maybe this is absurd, but can't we just pool resources and issue a photo-ID to everyone who registers to vote?

--Kate Sheppard

Via Steve Benen, All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena has been cleared
of preach-crime by the IRS.

"The Internal Revenue Service has told a prominent Pasadena church that it has ended its lengthy investigation into a 2004 antiwar sermon, church leaders said Sunday.

But the agency wrote in its letter to All Saints Episcopal Church that officials still considered the sermon to have been illegal, prompting the church to seek clarification, a corrected record and an apology from the IRS, the church's rector told standing-room-only crowds of parishioners at Sunday's services.

The church also has asked the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, to investigate allegations that officials from the Justice Department had become involved in the matter, raising concerns that the investigation was politically motivated."

Politically motivated? As if the Bush administration would actually use the Department of the Treasury as a weapon against political opponents... that's what the Justice Department's for!

Benen:

"From the outset, the IRS seemed to deal with All Saints in an unusual way. For example, when a ministry is suspected of intervening in a political campaign, ordinarily the first step is a warning letter from the IRS. In this case, the agency skipped that step and went right to a threatening letter, stating that "a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church."

Moreover, usually a house of worship is reminded of legal limits, the institution promises to play nice, and unless there's a pattern of repeated abuse, the matter is final. The IRS seems to have taken a far more aggressive position towards All Saints Episcopal. The church provided the IRS with a copy of all literature given out before the election; the IRS said it wasn't satisfied. The church said it never endorses candidates; the IRS told church officials to either admit wrongdoing or face more intense scrutiny.

For that matter, there were multiple examples from the same election cycle of similar comments from conservative pastors in the South, some of which are arguably far more partisan than the All Saints example, but which did not prompt similar investigations."

Read the whole thing.

--Matthew Duss

Writing in Salon yesterday, Peter Galbraith goes into great detail about Iran's new role as regional hegemon. The L.A. Times reported on Mahmoud Ahmedinajad's growing popularity throughout the Middle East, a result of his steadfast opposition to the U.S.'s continuing occupation of Iraq. I think the latter story is particularly significant in that it suggests the troubling prospect of a scenario in which the U.S. is allied with authoritarian Sunni Arab governments against popular Arab movements increasingly inclined, if not specifically toward Iran, then at least toward the Shi'i ethic of resistance which Ahmedinajad, along with Hizballah's Nasrallah and Muqtada al-Sadr, have come to represent. These developments do not represent policy successes.

--Matthew Duss

Lost amid all the talk of the Iranian president and the war in Iraq this week is a Congressional hearing today entitled "From Imus to Industry: The Business of Stereotypes and Degrading Images," where the following music industry executives were scheduled to appear and be asked to take a public position on the misogyny and other offensive material in their products:

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman; Edgar Bronfman Jr. chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group; Doug Morris, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group; Alfred Liggins, president and CEO of Radio One; and Strauss Zelnick, a partner in ZelnickMedia and chairman of Take-Two Interactive.

Master P was also scheduled to appear, reported Media Week.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

I'm not really sure I understand the distinction that Matt is trying to draw here. As always when questions of motivations rather than actions come up, I think we have to return to George Wallace. Even politicians who make overtly racist appeals may be much more committed to winning elections than to racism. So I'm not sure it matters much what precise mixture of partisan advantage and racism motivates Republican efforts to suppress the African-American vote; the efforts are, in the end, racist even if wholly motivated by the former.

Similarly, I don't know how much racism and how much partisan advantage led to, say, Reagan kicking off his campaign in Philadelphia, MS to deliver coded appeals to southern racists (as well, of course, as the three Americans consistently committed to "states' rights" principles), but it's indefensible either way. Attempts to figure out whether the tunes played on Nixon's Piano are authentic expressions of subjective racist beliefs or mere self-interested cynicism are both impossible and beside the point.

--Scott Lemieux

I'm confused by Peter Suderman's argument against S-CHIP here. Of course it's possible to believe a "program is both a success and yet desperately in need of additional funds." S-CHIP was created to extend health coverage to kids. It's been very, very effective at that. But there are more kids without health coverage, and within the income eligibility limits, than S-CHIP is funded to cover. So it's working well, and could do more with more funding. If you have six kids and a really sturdy, comfortable, two-bedroom house, it wouldn't make any sense to say houses aren't good because yours cant hold all your kids. You just need a bigger house.

--Ezra Klein

In the wake of the civil rights protests in Jena, Louisiana, white supremacists groups have "flooded" the town, according to the Chicago Tribune's Howard Witt. In an interview with the leader of a Mississippi white-supremacist group, Jena's mayor praised counterdemonstrations organized by "pro-white" organizations, calling them "moral support." And former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has vowed to support the town's white residents, who voted in his favor when he ran for governor in 1991.

The article is a must-read.

--Dana Goldstein

As Garance notes, SEIU has always upheld that they won't endorse till late in the game. October is most often mentioned, though in 2004, they didn't endorse until November. But this seems precisely backwards. Theoretically, SEIU should take either one of two tacks: They should endorse early, like August, and spend a number of months actively organizing on their chosen candidate's behalf, thus showing that their endorsement offers something concrete. Or they should hold out the possibility of an endorsement till very late, incentivizing all of the candidates to offer concessions in the hopes of receiving it, but then either refuse to endorse anyone or, if the frontrunner has been the most pro-labor, go with them.

What you really don't want to do is wait till it's too late for your organizing to change the internal dynamics of the race and endorse someone who isn't likely to win. In that case, your endorsement doesn't demonstrate any concrete effect and doesn't endear you to the eventual nominee. If SEIU does choose to endorse this cycle, their strategy will seem to have been the worst of both worlds.

--Ezra Klein

Steven Greenhouse lays out the challenge for John Edwards:

It often appears that the thing that will most help Mr. Edwards secure more union endorsements is not for him to march on a union picket line for the umpteenth time, but for him to get a 5 or 10 percentage point bump in nationwide polls. Many union leaders are wary of endorsing candidate who will flame out the way Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt did in the 2004 primaries, notwithstanding the union endorsements they had.

That said, the Service Employees International Union has said repeatedly that it would not endorse before October, so it shouldn't be seen as a rebuke to Edwards that he was not endorsed this week or last, after high-profile SEIU evaluation events. The union has a process that it is going through, and it's going to take a while. Last cycle, SEIU didn't endorse a candidate (Howard Dean) until November.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

The Bush administration is taking steps against the Burmese government:

US President George W Bush is to announce new sanctions against the ruling military junta in Burma, the White House has said. Mr Bush seems poised to impose a US visa ban and financial restrictions on members of the government. The move comes after eight days of increasingly popular protests against the junta led by Buddhist monks. The junta, which violently repressed protests in 1988, said it was ready to "take action" against the monks.

Mr Bush is expected to announce the new restrictions during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly. The BBC's Jonathan Beale, in Washington, says the US has already made clear that it is preparing to take unilateral action against Burma's military dictators. Washington is also hoping that its steps will encourage other nations to act and embolden the protesters on Burma's streets, he adds.

I think it's appropriate to target a vulnerable dictatorship with economic and travel restrictions in order to topple the government. I do, however, worry a bit about the timing. Sanctions could potentially have a destabilizing effect, but implementing them now could remove any disincentive that the military junta has for acting against the protesters.

--Robert Farley

Some of Rudy Giuliani's execrable young supporters are using the September 11th attacks to fundraise for the former New York mayor:

A supporter of Rudy Giuliani's is throwing a party that aims to raise $9.11 per person for the Republican's presidential campaign.

Abraham Sofaer is having a fundraiser at his Palo Alto, Calif., home on Wednesday, when Giuliani backers across the country are participating in the campaign's national house party night.

But Sofaer said he had nothing to do with the "$9.11 for Rudy" theme.

"There are some young people who came up with it," Sofaer said when reached by telephone Monday evening. He referred other questions to Giuliani's campaign....

Giuliani's campaign had no immediate comment.

According to the invitation, "$9.11 for Rudy" is an "independent, non-denominational grass-roots campaign to raise $10,000 in small increments to show how many individual, everyday Americans support `America's Mayor.'"

They're running ads condemning MoveOn but have no comment on this?

UPDATE: A later version of the A.P. story has Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella's response: "These are two volunteers who acted independently of and without the knowledge of the campaign. Their decision to ask individuals for that amount was an unfortunate choice."

--Garance Franke-Ruta

I missed Schwarzenegger's speech this morning while I was darting off to learn about mitigation strategies. Upon examining the transcript, it seems like it was by and large a justifiably self-congratulatory speech about what they have been able to achieve in California and now in the Western states, and in the economic gains that the state has earned as an early adopter in the technology sector. A chunk of his speech also gets to what needs to happen to get an international climate pact to the next level:

I believe California will do great things, amazing things. But we need the world to do great things too. The time has come to stop looking back at the Kyoto protocol. It is time to stop looking back in blame or suspicion. The consequences of global climate change are so pressing, it doesn't matter who was responsible for the past. What matters is who is answerable to the future. And that means all of us. The rich nations and the poor nations have different responsibilities, but one responsibility we all have is action.

I've got mixed thoughts on Schwarzenegger's "put up or shut up" posturing. On the one hand, it seems to fall into the same rhetorical pattern that guided our Kyoto policy: it's not us, it's them, and we're not in until they're in. But at the same time, thinking about Bali not as the Next Kyoto or as the U.S., et al, trying to make good on a past screw up, but as its own new, innovative, opportunity-rich pact offers a more positive spin on today's events and December's meeting.

--Kate Sheppard

The GM workers are striking:

About 73,000 General Motors workers began a nationwide strike in the United States yesterday, marking the first walkout against the carmaker for almost a decade.

It is also the first nationwide strike by car workers in any company since 1976.

The United Auto Workers Union, (UAW) representing General Motors factory employees, have failed to reach agreement with the company's management over pay and benefits.

Talks are thought to have broken down on Sunday after union negotiators sought guarantees that General Motors would build new models in the US. The carmaker can cut labour costs by $25 an hour per factory worker if it moves manufacturing to Japan.

Part of the row between the two sides is centred on $51 billion (£25.2 billion) of healthcare benefits promised to retired workers. General Motors wants to pay the union to form a trust to take on the cost of managing those liabilities. The union is arguing over how much the company will pay into that trust. It is also in dispute over pensions, wages and profit-sharing for existing workers.

Note the absence of such major strikes for three decades. This has much to do with the forces of globalization which diminish the bargaining powers of workers in affluent nations. Add to those weakened powers an environment which doesn't find high CEO benefits a problem but does worry over the necessity to pay for the health care costs of retired workers. Why do the latter when it is possible to take the production abroad, into a country where workers don't expect such benefits at all?

The particular American twist to such effects of globalization is the employer-linked aspect of health care benefits. In some other countries the care of worn-out workers will be the responsibility of the public sector, but here the workers must wait until they are old enough for Medicare. And firms have the obvious incentive of trying to minimize the health care and retirement benefits to their retired labor force. After all, it's no longer producing.

A long time ago I remember reading that the American automobile industry spends more money on health insurance than on steel. Whether that is true or not, the employment-based health insurance system doesn't give the best incentives for the provision of health insurance to all individuals. Indeed, I'd expect the CEOs of the General Motors and other parts of the automobile industry to be among the most eager supporters of government-funded health insurance plans. It would leave them more money to spend on steel.

MSNBC reports on the reactions of the Democratic presidential candidates to the news of the striking GM workers. What do the Republican candidates think, I wonder?

--J. Goodrich

DROITS DE L'HOMME? I like how Nicolas Sarkozy talks about climate change, too, Ezra. And I know he's cute. But let's not get all starry-eyed. Over in France, Sarko has enraged the left by announcing that 25,000 immigrants will be deported this year, many to Africa. Employing his typical, borderline-nativist rhetoric, Sarkozy said France needs immigrants who are "selected, not edured."

--Dana Goldstein

EDWARDS ON AIDS. Proving once again that there's no grassroots progressive interest group John Edwards can't woo, he became today the first presidential candidate to respond to 100 HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations who have sounded "A Call to Action" for a "National AIDS Strategy." His proposal is here, and although parts of it are, of course, a repackaging of his universal health care plan, he hits all the right notes: Strengthening research efforts; focusing on the race, class, and gender disparities that affect who's infected; bringing drug costs down in the developing world; and focusing on women's rights and education as powerful antidotes.

--Dana Goldstein

GORE SPEAKS. Al Gore just called for the heads of state to have a climate plan locked in by 2010. Waiting until Kyoto expires in 2012 will be too late, and we can't afford any lag time between the two, he iterated. He wants leaders to call an emergency gathering of the U.N. for the beginning of next year to review what happens at Bali, and then hold meetings at the head of state level every three months thereafter until we reach an agreement. I mean, it would be nice if climate change were that level of of priority for these leaders, but somehow I just don't feel like it is, and I'm not sure that today's meetings will convince all of them to make it so.

--Kate Sheppard

DISASTER BRINGS US TOGETHER. I'm at a press conference with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni and it's...strangely cordial. Livni starts out by endorsing a Palestinian state and saying it's in Israel's interests. Abbas makes, obviously, much the same claim. Indeed, there's quite a bit of comity here, as neither appears to view the other as their primary obstacle. Rather, that role is taken by Hamas, who the two are almost tripping over each other to denounce. Livni repeatedly implies that resolution can be found with Abbas, but not with Hamas. Abbas repeatedly denounces Hamas's seizure of Gaza.

This is actually quite worrying. If the Palestinian Prime Minister loses legitimacy and makes his primary objective a triumph over Hamas and the Israelis begin making hyper-conciliatory noises with a leader they know can't deliver a settlement and refuse to speak to the other relevant party, that's a recipe for total gridlock.

--Ezra Klein

NEW MONIKER FOR NCLB? Under its new, yet-to-be fully unveiled rendition, No Child Left Behind may be re-christened, the Washington Post reports. Vote for your favorite proposed alternative in comments, or suggest something new!

The Quality Education for All Children Act

Children First!

New Partnerships for Student Achievement

Educating Americans for Today's World

The Lifelong Economic Security Act

The Give Children a Fair Chance Act

--Dana Goldstein

NECESSARY CAVEAT TO THE TEDIOUSNESS OF SPEECHIFICATING. Evo Morales was the noted exception to this morning's rather mundane mitigation discussion. The Bolivian president uniformly condemned capitalism as "the worst enemy of humanity," one that will never allow for actual solutions to our climate change problem. The basic idea behind his five-minute speech was that as long as we treat the planet like "merchandise," we won't be able to change the looming reality of climate change. "If we do not change the models, we certainly won't be changing this climate," said Morales. Now that's a different mitigation strategy.

--Kate Sheppard

MORE TALKING ABOUT TALKING. I'm back in the press room waiting for Al Gore's lunchtime speech to the delegates to be broadcast on the big ole' teevee (we weren't invited to this event). So here's what gets me about today's goings on. I just spent two hours listening to leaders make passionate speeches about the need to mitigate our effects on the planet, leaders that included Federal Chancellor of Austria Alfred Gusenbauer, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, and Bolivian President Evo Morales. Each leader gets five minutes to stand before the others assembled in their plenary session, and they've all discussed what you'd expect – targets, the need for sustainable development, and just how grave a concern climate change has become in the years since Kyoto. But that's it – they talk, others listen, others talk. So I could share the frustration of president of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, who led off his speech by saying he hoped this whole thing would be a more interactive session. I think he wanted fiery debates on mitigation strategies, which would have been a whole lot more exciting – and probably more productive.

On a similar note, there are separate sessions for each general area of climate change – mitigation, adaptation, financing, technology. But I doubt any of the delegates have an interest in just one of those subject areas. I know I do. Wouldn't it make more sense to have one general assembly with everyone involved, and have representatives with compelling stories address the entire body? And perhaps have some conversation rather than endless speechification?

--Kate Sheppard

IN DEFENSE OF BOB HERBERT. I've been an afficionado of the New York Times op-ed page since about the age of 12, when it was the only section of the newspaper I read daily. I grew up with Gail, Maureen, William, and Nick, so I really can't help but chime in to defend my old friend Bob Herbert, a 14-year veteran of "the page."

In a feature article over at the Washington Monthly, T.A. Frank, a truly brilliant and funny writer, asks, "Why Is Bob Herbert Boring?"

Bob Herbert is a sensible person who usually assesses things more accurately than his colleagues, regularly hits the streets to report on the world outside, shines a light on people and issues that deserve far more attention than they usually get, and tells you things you really ought to know but don't. But here's the catch: you don't read Bob Herbert. Or, if you say you do, I don't believe you.

The numbers are on my side. Take a look in LexisNexis and see how often various New York Times columnists have been mentioned (not syndicated) in other papers this year. Thomas Friedman gets more than 3,000 mentions, and David Brooks gets 2,650. Maureen Dowd gets 1,615; Paul Krugman, 1,179; Nicholas Kristof, 805. Bob Herbert gets 533. Web sites that shape national news coverage rarely link to him. ABC's The Note, one of the most insidery of Washington publications, has in the past few years referred to Paul Krugman 146 times, David Brooks 129 times, and Maureen Dowd 84 times. Bob Herbert? Twice.

Frank goes on to demonstrate that most Beltway journalists don't read Herbert and that although he's a strong voice for social justice, liberal blogs such as Atrios and DailyKos ignore the columnist. Why isn't Herbert, who has an impressive record of being correct on tough, under-reported issues, more influential, Frank asks?

Part of the problem here is how we measure influence. As Frank points out, Herbert's reporting, which often relies on local events to tell larger stories about poverty and racism in America, has gotten wrongly convicted men out of jail and amplified the lives of people who usually live far outside the purview of the national media. Most recently, Herbert told the story of a young woman escaping sex work in Las Vegas. We love when Nick Kristof travels to Africa to do that, but why not when Herbert delves into problems closer to home?

As for blogs, it's no surprise that the DailyKos family doesn't link to Herbert. The majority of male netroots bloggers have proven again and again that they have little interest in domestic social justice crusades centered around identity. The civil rights and women's rights wings of the Democratic coalition are far less important to their worldview than "muscular progressivism" in foreign policy, a stance largely calibrated to win elections. That's not a bad thing, but it doesn't make for a movement particularly interested in Herbert's stories of inner city poverty and persistent racism.

Frank suggests that the format of statistics about pernicious social trends embedded within personal stories is ineffective, and certainly not well-suited to 800-word columns. I'd respond that Kristof won a Pulitzer doing exactly that. That returns us to the mystery of why, exactly, Herbert isn't influential among media elites. To the extent that's true, I'd guess it's more our fault than his.

--Dana Goldstein

TALKING ABOUT TALKING. Matt, Ezra, and Brian Beutler have expressed some cynicism about today's events, and I can't say I blame them. Last night the assorted bloggers gathered to take in today's spectacle met with some important folks-who-know-and-do-stuff at various divisions of the UN, and all of us were clearly bringing with us a certain degree of pessimism about the ability of what happens today to translate to the level of commitment that we need to see down the line in Bali.

While I'm certain that there's a lot of good conversation to be had here today, I do have to look at it from the U.S. politics side of the game. And on that side I expect to see big aspirational promises from Bush and co., but no agreement to mandatory cuts and targets. I fully expect the administration to punt on climate change, and to do their best to undermine the U.N. while waiting for the clock to run out on their term. But that said, the U.N. can't wait for the clock to run out to get started on this. Kyoto expires in 2012, and it's probably going to take two years to come up with a new pact and two years to get it ratified; there isn't a whole lot of time to waste waiting for the administration to change.

So watching what's going on here today, one really has to keep in mind that what everyone else will do is the most important factor – whether they'll pool their efforts to put pressure on the U.S., whether they'll move forward with binding targets without U.S. consent, and whether they'll create a plan that efficiently addresses mitigation, adaptation, financing, and technological needs. Climate change could be an issue that reinvigorates the U.N. and reaffirms that they can play an important role in international politics. They could craft a binding treaty that the next administration would be compelled to sign onto. Or the rest of the world could just figure that they're off the hook on this one, at least until a new administration is in power in the U.S., or worse yet, cave to crafting something weak. So while it's true that we can't expect anything big today outside of conversations on the subject, those conversations alone are big.

--Kate Sheppard

TODAY IN TAP ONLINE. In a piece from our latest issue, Bob Kuttner wonders whether we'll be able to reverse the financial damage in time to prevent another 1929-style meltdown.

The sub-prime mess, the huge risks taken by hedge funds, and the conflicts of interest that led to Enron and kindred scandals, are all the consequences of serial bouts of financial deregulation. Since the 1970s, in the name of free-market efficiency, Congress and presidents of both parties repealed key protections put in place by the New Deal. But the main effect has been to engineer windfall profits for financial insiders, replace real productive innovation with financial engineering, shift wealth from families to corporations, and put the entire American economy at ever greater risk.

As a result, the economy has increasingly come to depend on asset bubbles -- overvalued stocks, overpriced real estate, and dubious financial instruments like derivatives. The bubbles have been pumped up by speculative borrowing. The borrowing feeds on itself, as it did in the 1920s, since an inflated asset is handy collateral for still more borrowing. Alarmingly, these bubbles turn out to be interconnected -- hedge-fund profits reliant on high-yield sub-prime mortgages, and a soaring stock market bid up by risky private equity deals -- so if the air goes out of one bubble, it goes out of others. That's why the crisis is so hard to manage, even by a very aggressive Federal Reserve.

Read the whole thing here.

Also today, Paul Starr compares Hillary Clinton's health care reform proposal to the the 1993 Clinton Health Security Plan. (For more on Hillary and health care, see Starr's cover story, "The Hillarycare Mythology" and Ezra on whether her plan's daring owes something to the Edwards campaign.

And Michal Lumsden writes that many progressive Protestants are struggling to reconcile their support for the troops with their moral opposition to war -- and they're making a fresh case for more religious-political dialogue.

--The Editors

STILL A PROBLEM. One of the more interesting aspects of the criticisms of Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby is the way that, despite the authors' specific and strenuous disavowal of the idea of a "Jewish conspiracy," some critics still accuse the authors of describing a "Jewish conspiracy." (Am I supposed to hold the book sideways, or read it by the light of the full moon in order to translate "there is no conspiracy" into "there is a conspiracy"? I’m not sure.) Indeed, Mearsheimer and Walt's continued insistence that they are not engaged in conspiracy-mongering is simply taken by their critics as more proof that they are engaged in conspiracy-mongering, something which, ironically, is characteristic of conspiracy-mongering. But never mind.

Now, I think it's pretty obvious to reasonable people that the charge of anti-Semitism against Mearsheimer and Walt is not serious, except in so much as it indicates the unfortunate tendency of some among the hard-line pro-Israel community to sling it with dangerous abandon. The intent of this, of course, is to "dirty up" anyone who questions the preferred "peace-loving Israel under siege" narrative, and to make sure that right-thinking people are afraid to be associated with such characters. We saw this attempted against Jimmy Carter last year, and a few weeks ago against Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Marty Peretz is at the front of this gang, and has regularly engaged in and, from his perch as editor in chief of The New Republic, promoted these kinds of attacks against Carter, Brzezinski, Walt and Mearsheimer, as well as against hundreds of other supposed Israel-haters who reside at the State Department, at the CIA, in Peretz's television, and in the heating vents of Peretz's house. A few months ago, Eric Alterman wrote a piece for TAP in which he discussed, among other things, Peretz's "obsessive and unapologetic hatred of Arabs, the evidence of which is visible nearly every day on Peretz's [blog] The Spine." Glenn Greenwald has also commented on this, as has Matt Yglesias. I myself, tired of encountering people who were either unaware or in denial of Peretz's tendencies, gathered a bunch of Peretz's riper quotes together on a blog (it was, needless to say, not particularly edifying work) to serve as a demonstration. Judge for yourself. (Note: It's a bit easier to take if you read it in Archie Bunker's voice.)

I've written all this to ask a question: Leaving aside one's opinion of their overall thesis, given that nothing that Walt and Mearsheimer have written about either Israel or Jewish people comes anywhere close to the kind of open contempt and racist invective that Marty Peretz regularly directs towards Arabs, why have Walt and Mearsheimer been pilloried, while Peretz gets a pass? Understand, Peretz as been at this for decades, yet his fanatical prejudice is treated by the commentariat, at worst, as an unfortunate tic. Why is this?

--Matthew Duss

SARKOZY SPEAKS. French president Nicolas Sarkozy made some worthwhile points at the morning's plenary on financing a global response to climate change. There is not, Sarkozy argued, a choice between financing it or not financing it. Rather, if you accept the broadly authoritative estimates of the Stern report (and others), the choice is between financing it with one percent of global GDP that's used to affirmatively avert a climatological catastrophe (i.e, carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, etc), or financing it with 5%-10% of global GDP that's shaved off as a result of climatological catastrophe. We'll pay one way or the other. The question is whether we'll exhibit any foresight or risk management in doing so.

This is the same Sarkozy, by the way, who the right is so deeply entranced by, whose hard-headed, market-driven attitude has been attracting admirers throughout the American conservative movement. And, indeed, Sarkozy's advice to pay less money and avert disaster does seem more fiscally conservative than to pay a lot more and try and endure disaster. The question is whether powerful American politicians and political figures like Nicolas Sarkozy more than they hate Al Gore. I'm not optimistic.

--Ezra Klein

NO REWARD FOR BEAUTY. I'm sure many of you have seen the cringe-inducing video of Miss Teen South Carolina struggling during the Teen USA pageant to answer the question, "Why can't Americans locate their nation on a map?"

Despite long-standing evidence that beauty contests are just that -- not serious intellectual competitions -- many parents who encourage their daughters to participate in these spectacles justify it by pointing to the college scholarships winners can earn. Whether the thousands of dollars families spend on coaching, gowns, and travel is really outweighed by the value of most of these scholarships is one question. But as the New York Times reports today, whether young women even receive the pageant scholarship money they're promised is another. Some winners are taking their greviences to the media and to court.

It makes all those years of caked-on makeup and strutting publicly in swimsuits seem a little less worthwhile, doesn't it?

--Dana Goldstein

BAN LEADER. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon started off Monday's summit on climate change – the first of its kind for the UN -- by attempting to reaffirm the importance of the UN in crafting a post-Kyoto plan. In his opening remarks, he made not-so-subtle jabs at the Bush administration's attempts to undermine today's meeting with talks later in the week between the heads of state from only the world's biggest economies.

"The U.N. climate process is the appropriate forum for negotiating global action," said Ban, who called today's meeting in hopes that it would push the nations toward targets and deadlines for December's meeting in Bali.

Bush, who has long-opposed any forced compliance on emissions targets, is not in attendance for today's meetings, but he will be at a dinner meeting tonight that Ban called with roughly 20 world leaders. The Bush administration has resisted any discussion of targets and mandatory cuts, which they maintain would be damaging to the U.S. economy, proposing instead that we rely on voluntary cuts and increased investment in technological innovations. He is expected to push this at his meetings later in the week, while most of the delegates speaking in the mitigation plenary session today will be calling for concrete, mandatory cuts, carbon trading schemes, and system that both affords flexibility to distinguish between developed and developing countries and locks major emitters into a series of cuts.

Ban argued that inaction will prove far more dangerous to both the U.S. and the world's economy than cutting emissions now. ''Inaction now will prove the costliest action of all in the long term,'' he said.

--Kate Sheppard

CAN URBAN SCHOOLS BE "TAMED?" Today the New York Times hails the new superintendent of the New Orleans Recovery School District, Paul G. Vallas. He has some good, basic ideas about what high poverty kids need from their schools; namely, what they aren't getting at home. That includes three square meals a day, eye and dental exams, and daily personal attention. Class sizes have shrunk at some schools from 50 students to 10.

But the article is typical of the rather spurious "new superintendent is a godsend" genre. Lauding Vallas as a "veteran tamer of hard-case schools in Chicago and Philadelphia," there is no real assessment of his successes and failures in those districts. In Philadelphia, smaller class sizes across the board never materialized, although elementary school test scores did improve. Vallas also presided there over a controversial plan that turned the management of some public schools over to for-profit companies. In Chicago, some public education advocates criticized what they saw as Vallas' obsession with standardized test scores at the expense of children's well-being.

It would be impossible to adjudicate between so many differing visions of Vallas, but isn't it better to present a reformer as a human being instead of a fix-all?

--Dana Goldstein

DEEP FRIED TWINKIES AND A COW MADE OF BUTTER? THAT REMINDS ME OF SEPTEMBER 11. For a brief moment, it seemed that Rudy Giuliani was laying off the September 11 references just a bit, perhaps out of an awareness that if he lays it on too thick, people might start asking whether walking down a street pointing dramatically while being filmed, and giving a couple of good press conferences, really qualifies one to be leader of the free world. But fear not: it’s always September 12 in Rudyville, particularly when confronted by a potentially hostile conservative audience. Speaking before the NRA, Rudy explained why his history of criticizing the group as extremists and his lawsuit against gun manufacturers are just bygones that should be bygones. Although he wasn't specific about whether he now favors providing every man, woman and child with an AR-15 to mow down the terrorists who could soon be crawling through our streets, he did say that September 11 put "a whole different emphasis on the things America needs to do to protect itself, and maybe even a renewed emphasis on the Second Amendment." Uh-huh.

Is this the most tortured shoehorning of September 11 into an unrelated discussion Rudy has ever managed? Not by a long shot. For my money, that would be this laugher, offered in February at the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California. A guy from New York City, out of place at an event known as “The Greatest Farm Show on Earth”? Worry not:

Amid the almond fields, overalls, and talk of irrigation reform, no place in America seems farther away from that gray, dark pit in lower Manhattan.

Still, five minutes into his speech, Rudy Giuliani, casually dressed in blue blazer, black loafers, and a V-neck sweater, finds his way to September 11. The mayor begins by admitting he doesn’t know much about ag policy, but that he’s a quick study. What he does know, he says, he learned on 9/11.

“We depend on each other. I always knew that, but that really got into my heart, my soul, in a way I’ll never forget, on September 11, 2001,” says Giuliani. “You realize how much we depend on each other. We depend on you a lot for food for sustenance.”

So true. This seems a message particularly well-suited to farmers in Iowa. Who among us can look at a field of corn or soybeans, and not think of September 11? Mitt Romney had better watch his back on caucus night. Come to think of it, when I think of the Iowa caucuses, I'm reminded of the passengers on United 93 ... I'll stop there.

--Paul Waldman

THE MINOT INCIDENT.Via Jeffrey Lewis: Walter Pincus and Joby Warrick have a fabulous article on the unauthorized transit of a dozen nuclear weapon on a B-52 last month. In true Dr. Strangelove fashion:

A former National Security Council staff member with detailed knowledge described the event as something that people in the White House "have been assured never could happen." What occurred on Aug. 29-30, the former official said, was "a breakdown at a number of levels involving flight crew, munitions, storage and tracking procedures -- faults that never were to line up on a single day."

--Robert Farley

STARTING THE GLOBAL CONVERSATION. Ezra and I are blogging live from the U.N. this morning, where there will be high-level meetings today to start the global conversation on a post-Kyoto plan. This comes on the eve of the official kick-off to the 62nd General Assembly, and at the head of a week one could rightfully dub Global Climate Showdown '07. Delegates from 160 nations are in attendance, and representatives from 80 of those countries will be addressing the General Assembly about their respective concerns and positions with regard to climate change. Thematic sessions include conversations on mitigating the effects of climate change, adapting to those effects, and financing the changes that will need to occur in order to do that.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Al Gore will all be addressing the Assembly at today's event, which is intended to build political momentum for the major climate talks in Bali, Indonesia in December. The gist is, now that all the important parties have come to agreement that climate change needs to be a global priority – even Bush has come around to at least a rhetoric that suggests it's a pressing concern – this event should help establish a common language on the subject so that December's meeting ends with some significant next steps place. Bush himself will be here this evening to attend a dinner with other heads of state, and later this week will conduct his own climate round table with the "Major Economies" – also known as the world's 16 biggest emitters. We'll be checking in throughout the day with updates on what the rest of the world is saying about climate change, and the prospects for a post-Kyoto world.

--Kate Sheppard

"MY OPINIONS ON THIS HAVE EVOLVED SIGNIFICANTLY." Via Feministing, San Diego's Republican mayor, Jerry Sanders, was expected to veto legislation supporting gay marriage this week. Yesterday, he decided he couldn't go through with it:

My opinions on this have evolved significantly, as I think the opinions of millions of Americans from all walks of life have […] The arrival of the resolution to sign or veto in my office late last night (pauses as he gets choked up) forced me to reflect and search my soul for the right thing to do. I've decided to lead with my heart, which is probably obvious at the moment, to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice. The right thing for me to do is to sign this resolution.

[…] I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of our community they were less important, less worthy or less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage than anyone else, simply because of their sexual orientation.

The video is wonderful, but, uh grab a tissue first.

Pam Spaulding and Rex Wockner have more, including comment from his daughter Lisa, who is gay, which he refers to later in the speech. Must-reads if you need some good news this Friday evening.

--Kate Sheppard

DINNER DATE I WISH I'D BEEN INVITED TO. In which Bill O'Reilly learns that black people eat in restaurants, too. Via Media Matters, we learn that O'Reilly recently dined with Al Sharpton at Sylvia's in Harlem, and reported back: "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." O'Reilly's raging bigotry aside (or, at least the raging bigot persona he affects in his television show), I wonder what he and Sharpton talked about?

--Kate Sheppard

TODAY IN TAP ONLINE. Terence Samuel asks why John Warner withdrew his support for the Webb amendment:

Warner was supposed to provide the exit ramp for other GOP senators seeking to abandon the president. In the coming months Senate Republicans, particularly those up for re-election may find themselves asking if John Warner took the high road only to lead them over a cliff in the end.

Ann Friedman argues that the problems faced by Planned Parenthood in Aurora, IL, are indicative of the larger infrastructure problems of the pro-choice movement:

When we talk about the physical space where abortions are provided, we're usually either referencing the pre-Roe era (the back alley) or the gauntlet of clinic protesters women must pass on the sidewalk outside. Rarely does the subject of the actual real estate of abortion providers come up. We don't like talking about how too few clinics look like clean, inviting places, because it props up the anti-choice movement's portrayal of all abortion clinics as dilapidated and riddled with health-code violations. But we should talk about the outward appearance of abortion clinics more often.

--The Editors

THE END OF THE QUARTER BLOW-OUT SALE. Not signed up for Obama Mobile? Well then, you probably didn't just get the text-messaged coupon for 20% off of "ALL store items by the end of the month" over at the Obama Store. It's an end-of-the-quarter fundraising spectacular! And also a pretty smart way to encourage existing supporters to make new purchases that can be added to the fundraising totals by the end of Q3.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

WONK ROUND-UP: "SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?" EDITION. Good afternoon, wonks. This week's edition of the round-up will focus on Iraq, and whether and how to leave:

• Is Keeping Troops in Iraq in America's Best Interests?: A debate between pitting the Carnegie Endowment's Jessica Matthews, along with former U.S Ambassador Chas Freeman, against Fred Kagan and Reuel March Gerecht. Both a transcript and the video are available.

• What Does America Owe Iraq?: A roundtable discussion including foreign policy experts, political philosophers, and religious theorists on what America's ongoing responsibility to Iraq is.

• After The Surge: The Case for U.S Military Disengagement From Iraq: Steve Simon argues for a thoughtful withdrawal from iraq on our terms and at a time when we can orient it towards the goals we want to achieve. The alternative prospects -- muddling through, or being driven out by events we can't anticipate and in a fashion we can't plan for -- are likely to be far worse for both us, and the Iraqis. The best case I've read for withdrawal.

• Turning the Page in Iraq.: Barack Obama's recently released plan for ending the Iraq War, which distinguishes itself by offering a serious and thoughtful argument for how to guard against a humanitarian disaster as we withdraw.

• Examining the President's Comments on S-CHIP.: And because I can't resist a little bit of health wonkery, it turns out that Bush is doing a lot of lying on the Children's Health Insurance Programs bill. Big shock. CBPP runs through the numbers.

--Ezra Klein

RE: CONGRESS. When evaluating Congressional disapproval, I fear there's a tendency to conflate disapproval of Congress with disapproval of Democrats. So Congress gets low ratings, and this is considered proof that people don't like Harry Reid. But look: Congress spent yesterday voting against a MoveOn.org newspaper ad and failing to pass James Webb's amendment to guarantee troops as much time with their families as they spend in Iraq! I deeply disapprove of Congress! It's a lethargic, dysfunctional, opaque, byzantine institution that, at least on the Senate side, works well at its original function: Keeping change from happening. Since I don't approve of the anti-change bias, I don't approve of Congress, But that's not to say I'll be hoping for a return to conservative control anytime soon. I don't hate the playas, I hate the game.

--Ezra Klein

DON'T LET'S STAY THE COURSE. Victor Davis Hanson, promoting the carnival shooting game model of anti-terrorism:

"One of the untold stories is just how many of the al Qaeda kingpins who started this war on 9/11 are now dead, arrested, or in hiding. It is not just the likes of Zarqawi or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Mohammad Atef or Ramzi Binalshibh who are not longer free or alive. On August 31, the U.S. military announced that the Egyptian and Afghan veteran senior al Qaeda leader Abu Yaqub al-Masri was killed.

I think that this is the same al-Masri whom Sheik Mohammed, in a transcript of his testimony, said was responsible for setting up recruiting protocols for al Qaeda prior to 9/11 in Afghanistan. Although it is taboo to say so, it really is true that Afghan veteran terrorists like al-Masri and Zarqawi did flee from Afghanistan to Iraq where they often ended up dead."

It's not "taboo" to say that Masri and Zarqawi fled from Afghanistan to Iraq, it's just more relevant to point out that they did so because they saw the U.S. invasion of Iraq as a great opportunity to expand their jihad. Yes, they were both eventually killed there, but not before they'd facilitated the arrival, indoctrination, and training of scores of new Salafist mujahideen. I don't think this can be considered a success for the war on terror.

The lesson to be drawn from the "untold story" of the capture or death of various al-Qaeda kingpins (each of which is celebrated in Right Blogistan as proof that we've turned yet another corner) is how little effect each has had on the level of violence in Iraq, or on the growth of al-Qaedism internationally. The simple, unavoidable fact, which has yet to penetrate Hanson's secure bunker of a skull, is that Bush's anti-terrorism strategy is helping to create terrorists faster that the military can kill them.

--Matthew Duss

HILLARY TO EARN TEACHERS' ENDORSEMENT? According to Alexander Russo at This Week in Education, Clinton and her staff were seen at the National Education Association building for a meeting. "She's got the NEA endorsement all but wrapped up, it would seem," he writes.

I wonder how hard John Edwards lobbied for this one. He's certainly been careful -- unlike Barack Obama -- not to talk about merit pay for teachers, even in high poverty schools where great educators are badly needed. Clinton, on the other hand, opposes merit pay for individual teachers but supports school-wide incentive pay, meaning every teacher in a building would get a bonus if the school improved on state assessments.

--Dana Goldstein

DON'T FORGET NORTHERN HATE. Via Keith Boykin: LGBTQ advocacy groups in New Jersey have asked Newark Mayor Corey Booker and the U.S. attorney general for the state to consider investigating the execution-style shootings of four Newark college students as a homophobic hate crime. You remember the case: On August 4, robbers supposedly randomly approached the young people hanging out on a school playground, lined them up against the wall, and shot. Three of the victims were killed. It was a strangely vicious crime.

"After reviewing the myspace pages of several of the victims, I wondered if they might be gay," Boykin writes. He's not the only one. Despite a lack of media attention paid to the sexual orientation of the victims, black gay activist James Credle has written to Booker and the attorney general to inform them that "several sources including friends, boyfriends/lovers of at least one of the victims and perhaps one of the parents knew that one or more of the murdered students were gay. At the same time, failure to fully expose and examine this issue will mean that the clarity that comes with the truth is clouded with distortion and rhetoric."

Some of that rhetoric is coming from the right, which seized upon the fact that the killers were Latino undocumented immigrants. Newt Gingrich used the tragedy as a jumping off point in this National Review screed against immigration. If it turns out the perpetrators were motivated by hate, do you think Gingrich will pen an eloquent attack on homophobia?

--Dana Goldstein

IN PARTIAL DEFENSE OF OBAMA. Greg Sargent reports, with respect to Obama skipping the vote condemning MoveOn, that Obama "claims that by skipping the vote, rather than voting against it, he was registering his protest against the vote's triviality." If he's forceful about articulating what a silly kabuki this was, I think it's actually a reasonable position.

As a colleague at my other blog points out, though, the Democrat who mosts deserves criticism here is Harry Reid for letting this get on the calendar in the first place. One thing about controlling houses of Congress is that it's supposed to allow you to avoid forcing your members to choose between alienating a political ally and contributing to the Republican strategy of using the troops as a human shield to defend their catastrophically failed war in the first place.

--Scott Lemieux

EVERYBODY CAN TAKE IT EASY, WE GOT THE TOYMAN. Michael Goldfarb notes the killing of reputed al-Qaeda car-bomb specialist Abu Yaqub al-Masri, and links to this wonderful post that I think perfectly captures the deliriously triumphal macho-geek essence of the species warblogger:

"Important that we don't understate how important of a kill this was... if Al-Qa'ida Iraq was structured like the Legion of Doom, this clown would be sitting somewhere between Bizzaro Superman and the Black Manta. I bid a fond farewell to all terrorists, but for this guy I'd be willing to break out the champagne and party poppers, and hire a band to belt out the Axl Rose version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"..... all while steely eyed soldiers usher him along to meet Allah."

Yeah, remember when the we got AQI's Lex Luthor, and then the Iraq war was over? That was awesome.

It's great that we've gotten rid of a guy who was blowing up civilians. It's tragic that we created a situation where he could practice and perfect his craft, and teach it to others. Before popping the corks over the death of the Toyman, we should consider that he's created dozens of other Toymen, who will in turn create dozens more.

--Matthew Duss

CANDIDATES ON JENA 6. An illustration of the point I was trying to make last night that I failed to include was a comparison of statements from presidential candidates about the Jena 6 case. You don't have to look much further than these to see the different standard to which Obama would be held if he were to make a statement that overtly referred to race or racism. Obama can't come off as an Angry Black Man, but white candidates, without the fear that they will be deemed as single-issue and/or single-constituency, can say what they like and it will really only help their cause. Let's line up the official statements. Dodd:

The events in Jena, Louisiana are a sobering reminder that while segregation was outlawed long ago, de facto segregation in many parts of this country is still very real. No reasonable person would call what these young men have received 'equal justice.' I sincerely hope that Governor Blanco intervenes in this case and grants immediate reprieves should any of the Jena 6 be convicted.

Clinton:

I am deeply concerned about reports of potentially disparate treatment of white youths and African-American youths in the criminal justice system. I am troubled by reports that African-American students were initially charged and may be sentenced in a manner out of proportion to their wrongs. And I have long been troubled by a history of disparate treatment of African Americans in our criminal justice system.

Clinton, at an NAACP meeting:

This case reminds us that the scales of justice are seriously out of balance when it comes to charging, sentencing and punishing African Americans. This case reminds us that we have so much work yet to do.

Edwards:

As someone who grew up in the segregated South, I feel a special responsibility to speak out on racial intolerance. To measure our progress in the fight against racism, today our nation looks to Jena, Louisiana. Americans of all races are traveling to Jena because they believe that how we respond to the racial tensions in Jena says everything about who we are as a nation …When a 'white tree' stands outside a public school, marking a place where white students sit but black students are not welcome, there is something so wrong that the right words are hard to find.

And Obama:

Today I stand with those who stand for justice in Jena. The thousands of Americans from every race and region who have descended on this small Louisiana town carry forth the legacy of all those who sat at lunch counters and took freedom rides to strike a blow against injustice wherever it may exist. When a noose hangs from a schoolyard tree in the 21st century and young men are treated in a way that is not equal nor just, it is not just an offense to the people of Jena or to the African-American community, it is an offense to the ideals we hold as Americans. I renew my call for the District Attorney to drop the excessive charges filed in this case, and I will continue my decades-long fight against injustice and division as President.

Words that Obama can't use include, but are not limited to: segregation, black, white, racism, criminal justice system, racial tension, and intolerance. He has to temper his statement as an inclusive, all-humanity call to action against injustice, rather than a call to action against a criminal justice system that is inherently racist and a white-dominated society where cases like Jena are still too-common. As one commenter said, this is probably a decent reason to back off him on the Jena 6 issue, recognizing the realities of American politics today that he has to operate within, as disheartening as that might be.

--Kate Sheppard

WHEN CONFUSED, DISAPPROVE. Contemplating yesterday's discussion of exactly why Americans detest Congress so much -- even more than they disapprove of George W. -- I went in search of statistics on public knowledge about the legislative branch of the federal government. What I learned is that 76 percent of Americans know which party controls the House of Representatives. That's good news. But only 24 percent of Americans know Congress passed a hike in the minimum wage, the single biggest Democratic victory this year and a proposal that enjoyed overwhelming popular support.

My guess is that the message on Congress that has most penetrated through the mainstream media is "Congress has failed to end the war." If that's the case, then it's no surprise that, as J. noted, more Republicans than Independents or Democrats actually approve of the Democratic Congress. GOP loyalists are the last pro-war hold-outs, after all.

--Dana Goldstein

SCUDS. Via Jeffrey Lewis at ArmsControlWonk, Chris Nelson is reporting that the Israeli airstrike on Syria targeted Scud missiles and missile parts. As Jeffrey notes, this makes a lot more sense than the nuclear accusation, and explains the involvement of North Korea. Scuds are a relatively primitive form of ballistic missile, and North Korea has exported them to other countries in the past.

--Robert Farley

IT IS BLACK AND WHITE. As Dana noted, mainstream press coverage of the Jena 6 was pitiful at best, until it finally hit the major-media radar this week . And recent coverage seems to have disproportionately focused on Jesse Jackson's (possible) accusation that Barack Obama has been "acting like he's white" by not coming out more visibly on the Jena 6 issue. Jackson later backed down, saying that the statement doesn't really represent the way he feels about Obama, or that it was taken out of context. Obama put out his own statement on the case, saying it's not "a matter of black and white," but rather "a matter of right and wrong." He continued, "We should stand as one nation in opposition to this and any injustice."

I'm not going to endorse Jackson's race-baiting, but Obama's statement says a lot about the reality of racism in America today. Jena is about black and white. And if the actual events in Jena didn't make that clear enough, it's even clearer now that we have a black political candidate so worried about alienating white voters by identifying too closely with black causes that he feels he can't publicly call this a matter of racism, plain and simple. As our own Terence Samuel wrote just a few weeks ago, Obama might well be part of a new generation of African American political leaders that are post-civil rights. But even a post-civil rights candidate needs to be able to call out injustice fueled by racism when it exists. And in Jena, it exists.

But Obama is forced to operate as a presidential candidate in a country that's willing to accept his blackness, as long as he's not too black, which means he can't call it out. American voters are willing to vote for him as long as he doesn't try to challenge any of the underlying assumptions about who and what the United States is today, because the majority of Americans just don't want to think about the possibility that America is still a country hostile to its non-white citizens. They don't want to worry that a black president might make them cede some of the privilege they are afforded in white-dominated society. If they're going to even think about electing a black man to the presidency, he must assure them that he's not going to do anything to upset their sense of complacency and the illusion that America is a swell place for everybody nowadays.

And while the image of nooses hanging from a tree in Louisiana is a gut-wrenching reminder of the very overt racism that still exists in the United States, it's far more common to pretend to ignore race issues -- as is the case of Obama. It's easy to disassociate ourselves from Jena, to pinpoint that example of some of the very real, very major work that still has to be done, but then to write that off as an exceptional case. It's much harder to disassociate ourselves from the system of privilege and racism that Obama has to work within if he wants to win the Democratic nomination. Having a black political candidate among the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination serves as easy salve for the majority of well-intentioned, comfortable, middle-class white American voters. "Sure, there are still a few backwater rednecks in the South who hate black people," they think. "But us, we're good people. Look, we've even got an Obama '08 lawn sign!"

But the fact remains that if Obama came out with his proverbial guns blazing about the Jena 6, those same voters would probably do a little redecorating. And that is perhaps the most pernicious injustice.

--Kate Sheppard

COURT GOSSIP. From a (generally unfavorable) David Garrow review of Jeffrey Toobin's new Brethrenesque book about the Supreme Court:

Toobin devotes two chapters to Bush vs. Gore, the case that decided the 2000 presidential election. He asserts, based on unidentified sources, that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy was overly eager for the court to resolve the dispute even before it came to them. He also stresses that Justice Stephen G. Breyer felt that the Florida Supreme Court's decision to order a statewide recount "didn't pass the smell test." He relies heavily on not-for-attribution comments from law clerks who worked for the court that year, and he states that the clerks "set the tone in the building" each year, not the justices.

Meanwhile, like Michael O'Donnell, I have to admit that however dubious Toobin's analysis is I'm happy to have some good clerk gossip, and he passes along more of the book's dish: for example, "After Rehnquist died, Dick Cheney pressed for hunting buddy Antonin Scalia to be named chief justice." Apparently, the book also repeats something I've discussed before -- Ginsburg circulated an appropriately tough dissent in Bush v. Gore but immediately withdrew the passages that offended Scalia after he complained. (Coming from Scalia, these complaints about tough rhetoric exposing the illogic of a majority opinion are especially ridiculous, and I still can't believe that Ginsburg would give in to the bullying.) He also claims that Souter wept and almost resigned after Bush v. Gore, although as Garrow points out this has been rebutted by Warren Rudman and Souter is known for his relatively leak-free chambers.

--Scott Lemieux

WHO APPROVES OF THE CONGRESS? Kate's post on the dismal approval rates of the Congress in the Reuters/Zogby poll made commenter Eric state: "...this poll would be more useful if we knew why people didn't approve of Congress. " Indeed.

While we are waiting for that question to be added to all the polls it's interesting to note that the latest Gallup poll finds that more Republicans than Democrats or Independents now approve of the Congress:

Nearly all of the recent increase is due to improved ratings of Congress among Republicans. The percentage of Republicans approving of the job Congress is doing rose from 18% in August to 37% in September.

This is astonishing. As TPM Election Central notes:

This is odd, of course, considering that both houses have Democratic majorities. But on second thought, the current Congress has passed President Bush's funding requests for Iraq, passed his FISA bill, and has given the White House exactly what it wanted on a host of other issues. So what do Republicans really have to complain about?

Mmm. Don't you think that the Congressional Democrats are like an ice-hockey team getting the puck in the goal a lot -- but sadly the goal is their own?

--J. Goodrich

THOUSANDS PROTEST JENA SIX TODAY. Over at Pandagon, Pam Spaulding chides the progressive blogosphere for providing scant coverage of the controversy in Jena, Lousiana, where thousands of people from all over the nation have converged today to protest the fates of six black high school students who were charged with attempted murder for beating up a white student. The entire sad saga -- which began when white students hung nooses under a schoolyard tree to signify that black students weren't welcome to sit there -- is the subject of our top story today at TAP, so check it out. But fundamentally, Spaulding is right. White progressives arrived late to this story, which owes much of its national amplification to bloggers of color (and radio DJs). Sites like Racialicious, Dallas South, and Keith Boykin are great resources, and they should be better linked into the predominantly white progressive political blogosphere. I plan on trying much harder to do my part.

--Dana Goldstein

LIKE ANDY ROONEY, BUT WITH MORE EXPLOSIONS. Victor Davis Hanson is one hilarious dude:

”Bin Laden also sees how the rival Muslim theocracy in Iran has turned its oil profits into a nuclear-weapons program. He’d like to replace the present Gulf monarchies with self-professed imams and jihadists. Such a single, united Wahhabi theocracy could dole out its oil to subservient importers, and use the profits to acquire enough weapons to unite the Arab world and prepare for the final war against us.”

By gosh, bin Laden could sell enough oil to buy a huge, solid-gold gun that could wipe us out! Seriously, I'd like to replace my student debt with a car that flies, but that's about as likely to happen as a Wahhabi superstate. I feel I’m on pretty solid ground here.

--Matthew Duss

WEIRD PEOPLE WITH MONEY. I haven't weighed in on the growing scandals on the political fundraising front, partly because I barely recall the last round of controversies in the mid-90s and so lack the sense of deja vu that older political reporters keep talking about, and partly because I'm not sure exactly what to say. But for those who want to read a good round-up on the issue, this piece today in The Washington Post provides an excellent overview, and this piece in The New York Times on Norman Hsu unspools a wonderfully peculiar narrative. Someone should make Hsu's life into a movie, or at the very least an episode of Law & Order.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

OBAMA & SENIORS. Also worth noting is that Barack Obama will be holding his own forum with seniors tomorrow in Ames, Iowa, and that this week he released a plan to eliminate income taxes for seniors who earn less than $50,000. That promise is likely to end taxes for the vast majority of seniors in Iowa, considering that if you make $60,000 a year out there you're pretty close to rich.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

RE: THE AARP. To answer Ezra's query, my understanding was that so many people wanted Obama to attend so many different events that he decided he couldn't run his campaign the way he wanted to, so he instituted a blanket moratorium in August on attending non-DNC approved new events. This managed to get him out of a lot of politically pointless forums. Unfortunately, the moratorium also covered this AARP forum, which really matters. Attending this forum would seem especially important for a campaign that is strongest among younger people in a state where 64 percent of caucus-goers in 2004 were over 50 years old.

Obama has made the attack on special interests a big part of his stump speech, as have John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, but the critical difference between the candidates is that Obama has maintained a greater distance from traditional Democratic interest groups, as well, and his campaign seems less interested than either Clinton's or Edwards' in reaching out to people who are not part of its "transformational" strategy. He doesn't seem to mind dissing people who he doesn't think are useful or part of his master plan, and I have to wonder if, in Democratic primary politics, that's not partly responsible for his declining numbers, because it turns transformational politics into the worst form of transactional political organizing, where the campaign refuses to reach out to groups and people who they think won't matter on the ground. On the one hand, this shows an admirable discipline and focus on winning, but, on the other, is can be a bit off-putting and leave people feeling rebuffed by his campaign.

Edwards is running on a platform of policy change and changes in how our government works, but, unlike Obama, he's actually running a very traditional campaign (with the exception of not taking money from lobbyists). He's courting constituency groups, racking up union endorsements, and being everywhere anyone wants him to be (especially in Iowa). Clinton is a master of constituency-group outreach and politics, and while she may not get as much union support as Edwards will, she's in the lead in some of the other constituency contests, such as local legislator endorsements in Iowa. She's very, very old-school about trying to bring people into her orbit, whether they are part of her master plan or not, and, like Edwards, she recognizes that primary politics rewards the art of relationship building and constituency mobilization.

The Obama machine, on the other hand, is building its own army. It's a bit of a risky strategy, to try to change the rules of political campaigning during a primary, rather than to just set sights on winning under the existing rules. When you see that army, at things like Tom Harkins's Streak Fry, where several thousand Obama-supporters marched in unison into the audience before Obama spoke, it seems impressive and novel and like it could work. Other times, like Walter Shapiro, I have my doubts.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

WAXMAN GETS HYPE, SENDS LETTERS. Brian Beutler reported yesterday on Rep. Henry Waxman's letter to the EPA calling them out for ignoring the Supreme Court's ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA. Yesterday he also sent a letter to Condoleezza Rice, in his capacity as chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, demanding that the State Department come forth with "all reports prepared by the Office of Accountability and Transparency, whether classified or unclassified, relating to the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity," and make three officials from the Office of Accountability and Transparency available for interview, which they'd requested back on Sept. 10. So far, the State Department has only let one of the three officials available for interview, and let staffers come read the relevant reports, without providing copies of those reports. Waxman set a deadline for noon today, and says they'll issue a subpoena if they don't deliver. "I would like to avoid the need for the use of this compulsory process," he writes.

--Kate Sheppard

TODAY IN TAP ONLINE. In light of today's major protest in Jena, La., Courtney Martin says it's time to take a good, hard look at how prevalent racism remains in America.

The enduring white-brown-black, urban-rural, Northern-Southern, rich-poor divides are exposed here -- abysses that keep America from truly realizing its dream of equality for all. For those of us who live in urban centers where ethnic segregation, while common, at least appears self-imposed, the idea of a modern day "white's only" drinking fountain is shocking.

But our shock only further proves our denial. The children of Northeastern privilege go to Ivy League or small liberal arts schools, take courses in African American history, and pat each other on the back for knowing a few financial aid-strapped immigrant upstarts, while Southern frat boys beat their chests at the big game and remember their black nannies with patronizing fondness, though they would never bring a black girl home. This is our America. It is a place where overt racism -- like the kind we are seeing displayed so dramatically in Jena -- has mostly died out (at least publicly), but the complex dynamics of opportunities, relationships, and power still play out along an often denied, though undeniable, color line.

Read the whole thing here.

Also today, Shadi Hamid and Jeb Koogler analyze the results of the recent Moroccan elections.

Gershom Gorenberg expresses frustration that all of our information about the Israeli air strike in Syria has come from the usual unreliable sources.

And Harold Meyerson writes that Wall Street has discovered there's profit in investing in major surveillance programs by the Chinese government.

--The Editors

WHAT DO WE APPROVE OF THESE DAYS? We've been hearing about Bush's sinking public opinion ship a lot lately, and the Reuters/Zogby poll released yesterday put him at a mere 29 percent approval rating. But despite the glee with which we repeat that ever-shrinking figure, Congress has been getting bad marks too -- even worse then the man in the White House. Only 11 percent of Americans gave Congress a positive rating, down three points from the previous low of 14 percent in July.

Granted, the polling sample wasn't huge, but still, 11 percent is pretty unsightly. The low marks are likely tied to pessimism about the economy, the war, and a lack of any news of positive advancements coming out of Congress. Yesterday's failure to restore habeas corpus or limit time spent in combat probably didn't help, and neither does the perception of Congress as helpless as Bush threatens to veto positive moves like expanded funding of SCHIP or a comprehensive energy package. I'm leaning toward the public being generally unhappy about what's going on rather than having real beef with the current Congress, but either way, it seems that they won't be able to do much to improve that image anytime soon.

--Kate Sheppard

TRANS-DNISTRIA. Last night at the Patterson School, a pair of Caucasian scholars gave an in-depth discussion of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Long story short, the disputed area is helping to prevent any long-term Caucauses wide cooperation, and there doesn't seem to be much indication that it will be resolved soon. Armenia won the war over the area in the 1990s, but Azerbaijian probably holds the military advantage now. Azerbaijian is reluctant to press that advantage, however, because chaos in the area will threaten Western oil contracts. Azerbaijian and Armenia also have remarkably complicated relations with Iran, Russia, and Turkey. Russia also has conflicts with Georgia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway regions that are essentially occupied by Russian forces.

Trans-Dnistria, a breakaway region in Moldova, is in a different neighborhood but has some of the same problems. Fortunately, Doug Muir is beginning a series at Fistful of Euros on these "frozen conflicts," starting with the Trans-Dnistria region. A taste:

Trans-Dnistria, aka Transnistria, is a long sliver of land on the east bank of the river Dnistr, between Ukraine and Moldova. It used to be part of Ukraine, but Stalin grafted it on to Moldova because he wanted all of the lower Dnistr valley to be a single political-economic unit. Partly this was because he wanted to develop the lower Dnistr with all sorts of hydroelectric plants and heavy industry and stuff, and didn’t want two republics arguing over it; partly it was because Stalin had a tidy mind.

--Robert Farley

RE: OBAMA AND AARP. Garance, do you have any idea why Obama decided to skip the event? I get his campaign's desire to conduct fewer forums, but to pull out of an AARP event in Iowa? And right after doing an SEIU forum? It seems really weird. Has he been making this principled unwillingness to do most special interest forums a theme in his speeches or anything?

--Ezra Klein

OBAMA'S BIG MISTAKE.

(Photos: Divided We Fail advocates at Rudolph Giuliani and John Edwards events, Iowa, August 2007)

Tonight the AARP is holding a Democratic presidential candidate forum in Davenport, Iowa. Barack Obama, in what I believe is the worst mistake to date by his otherwise strong Iowa campaign, will not be there. The Des Moines Register's Thomas Beaumont summed up the stakes in August:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's decision to opt out of all but a handful of appearances with his opponents this fall means an influential Iowa audience will lose the chance to judge him alongside his rivals next month.

Obama plans to skip AARP's Sept. 20 forum in Davenport, where New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will address about 2,400 Iowa seniors and a national public television audience.

The decision to not attend the AARP event, aimed at issues important to people 50 and older, could nag at the Illinois senator, some Democrat activists and political observers said. AARP is a national association formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons.

"I understand what he's trying to do, and I guess I'll cut him some slack," said undecided Iowa City Democrat Anne Tanner, who is 68. "But the audience skews older in Iowa, and I don't think a lot of them are going to understand."

The AARP matters in Iowa this year more than it ever has, not just because so many older voters caucus, but because it is conducting a campaign along with the SEIU and the Business Roundtable called "Divided We Fail," which is giving the local Iowa chapters a great deal to do. My unscientific impression in Iowa was that the local AARP chapters functioned like social clubs for elderly women and were extremely vibrant, especially in the smaller towns. A substantial fraction of the candidate events I attended in Iowa featured a row of people, between middle- and old-age, seated right up front, wearing the red AARP Divided We Fail T-shirts, and ready to ask questions as soon as the candidates stopped speaking.

Obama's absence at the AARP forum is a real missed opportunity to reach that critical constituency, which will also be holding AARP-organized debate watch parties tonight.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

YOUR LAID-OFF WORKERS ARE LAUGHING. Circuit City, after laying off 17,000 of its most experienced, highest-paid workers last April, saw its stock lose 12 percent of its value and took a loss of $62.8 million in the second fiscal quarter. Predictably, this AP story about the company's finances doesn't mention the massive job cuts of less than six months ago.

--Dana Goldstein

"SO LONG, WHITE BOY." That's the title of our friend Tom Schaller's Salon column, in which he argues that Democrats are very close to giving up on white male "Bubba" voters in national elections, and should make the final break. Union members, Schaller points out, are the only white men still loyal to the Democratic Party -- and only by 7 points in the 2004 presidential race. Bill Clinton did not win white male voters in 1992 or 1996.

The risk, Schaller writes, is that once again the Democratic nominee, after the primary, will trip him or herself up trying to woo Nascar-dads who won't ever vote for them. Remember John Kerry goose hunting? So while it's fun to ridicule Mark Penn, it's encouraging that he's focused squarely on one of the growing demographic groups crucial to Democratic success: female voters, especially single white women and women of color.

--Dana Goldstein

FIRST RACES. NPR has been running a series on current presidential candidates and their first major campaigns. The pieces look at their first big races, and the lessons they learned by either winning or losing. It offers insight into this career-shaping era of the politicians as we see them today. Obama talks about how he got "spanked" in his run for the Democratic nomination for a House seat in Illinois in March 2000, largely because he was inexperienced. Huckabee's first loss, in a bid for a Senate seat in Arkansas, taught him that listening to political consultants isn't always the best choice. Giuliani's problem was that he seemed to change his stances too much. Clinton had to take on voters who couldn't swallow her persona, or at least a prevailing unfavorable public perception of her persona. The most fascinating element of the series is that many of the issues they had to confront in those first elections are the same they're facing today, and that most of the "problems" have little to do with their actual policies or positions. Most of them are about how they appear -- both on their resume and in physical traits or manner of speaking.

--Kate Sheppard

THE LOBBY QUESTION. While I appreciate the shout-out from Ezra, I think that it's still useful to make distinctions between a regional constituency and a lobby, even though those two can sometimes be functionally indistinguishable, and that the trotting out of the needlessly inflammatory language about American Jews we now find in the wake of the Jewish -- I mean Israel -- lobby controversies of the past few years does little to advance any positive foreign policy agenda. Clinton, for example, also broke with her husband's administration during campaign 2000 on the question of the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact, which benefitted many upstate New York farmers, and whose price supports the administration was hoping to sunset. I suppose one could argue that Clinton is a tool of the dairy lobby, but it's certainly just as accurate to say that she chose to promote the agenda of a regional constituency in the state she hoped to represent. (And if I have to get one more press release about those upstate New York apple farmers...sheesh.)

As I've tried to argue elsewhere, the reason some industries have power "isn’t just because of lobbyists and campaign donations or secret bundling — it’s because certain American industries provide a lot of jobs to voters in critical states, add a lot to the national economy, and have become important parts of regional identities." It is extremely difficult to fight a lobby that is organized as a regional constituency because you very quickly run into questions about the nature and purpose of representative government. I mean, if Tom Harkin won't fight for Big Corn, who will? Senators are supposed to represent and fight for the interests of those who reside within the boundaries of their districts, even though this system doesn't necessarily add up to policies that are good for the whole nation. Beyond pork there is policy pork. The Cubans in Florida are another example of a regional ethnic constituency that, because of the importance of Florida in presidential contests, has wound up having a significant impact on the national approach to an international issue. Yet even as people cheer Chris Dodd's efforts to shift our stagnant Cuba policies, they wouldn't expect a Democrat running to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate to get out too far ahead of the regional constituency's most vocal members. Not if he or she wanted to win.

All of that said, some of the commenters reacting to my item raised a point that I'd like to foreground here. Clinton is no longer running for re-election in New York, but for president of the United States. It's an eminently fair question to ask how she would reconcile her stated policy on Jerusalem with existing U.S. policy that the final status of Jerusalem is something that ought to be a matter of negotiation between the parties that lay claim to it.

As it happens, recent presidents have rather easily reconciled the two by asserting both, and using undivided (if I am reading the remarks correctly) to mean something more like "undivided by an internal, Berlin-style wall," rather than "a city under the exclusive control of Israel." From The Foundation for Middle East Peace:

"As to Jerusalem, we strongly believe that Jerusalem should be undivided, with free access to the holy places for all faiths, and that its status should be determined in the negotiations for a comprehensive peace settlement."

--President Jimmy Carter, "Explanation of the United States Vote for the Security Council Resolution on the Occupied Territories," March 3, 1980

". . . we remain convinced that Jerusalem must remain undivided, but its final status should be decided through negotiations. . . ."

--President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation, Burbank, CA, September 1, 1982

"Let me just say that our policy on Jerusalem remains unchanged. It must never be divided again, and its final status must be resolved through negotiation. . . ."

--President George Bush, press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Kennebunkport, ME, August 11, 1992

As president, Clinton has to represent a broader array of constituencies than she did in New York, and, one would hope, the power of certain New York activists and elected officials to hector her (cough, Dov Hikind, cough) would thereby be considerably diluted. Still, it would be nice to hear her say so.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

THE SNOWS OF IOWA. I think Mark Halperin is right to say that "if Hillary wins Iowa, she runs the table and wins the Democratic nomination. If Obama wins Iowa -- less likely, but not impossible -- he runs the table and wins the Democratic nomination. John Edwards could win Iowa and still not be the nominee. That does seem to be the dynamic of the race right now: In the case of Clinton or Obama, a win in Iowa will be unexpected enough to propel them through the rest of the early primaries. Either one could win Iowa and then get a Kerry-like boost from it. Edwards, by contrast, is the Gephardt of Iowa -- he needs to win it to stay alive, but it doesn't lock in any future primaries.

Incidentally, if I were the Obama folk, I'd be blanketing Iowa. I'd buy a house, sponsor a corn festival, marry a local. If he wins there, he simultaneously knocks out Edwards and shatters Clinton's momentum. If Edwards wins there, he continues to split votes with Obama, while a Hillary win propels her through to New Hampshire. Additionally, Obama's only behind by about 5 points in Iowa, while Hillary, in a build that I hadn't much noticed, is up by a staggering 20 percent in New Hampshire.

--Ezra Klein

RARELY IS THE QUESTION ASKED: Is Fred Thompson sexy?

--Ezra Klein

BEST YET? Matt, along with The Onion's AV Club, is trying to convince us that 1997 was the best year for music. I'm going to avoid that debate, but it leads me to a similar question I've been pondering since a recent conversation: What has been the best year for domestic politics so far? What I mean is, the year where we really seemed to be getting things right at home, and doing well abroad, and America seemed to be on the high road to the end of history, or whatever criteria one might choose to qualify a year as the "best." I'm thinking of surveying thought-leaders in conservative, liberal, and all the other spheres about what that year would be, coming from their respective ideologies. Perhaps someone else has done this before? In the meantime, I'm soliciting thoughts from TAPPED readers on what that year would be for them. So, have at it.

--Kate Sheppard

EDWARDS WINS SEIU STRAW POLL. Leave it up to a blogger to spill the beans. As SEIU members predicted on Monday evening, John Edwards won the non-binding SEIU membership straw poll, according to a blog item posted by Robert Haaland, a political organizer for SEIU Local 790, on the group blog Left in SF. The SEIU leadership has refused to formally identify the straw poll's winner, but two less senior sources in positions to know confirmed the result Haaland reported.

SEIU president Andy Stern told reporters on a conference call following today's meeting of the union's executive board that "there are a number of people who were more than ready to make a decision," and some "who would have preferred we endorsed today." Other SEIU executive board members felt that they needed more information, however, so the entire 64-member executive board will be hearing presentations from the Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton campaigns -- the finalists for the endorsement -- in Chicago on Monday about what their strategies are for winning 270 electoral votes.

My sources tell me that there is and has long been great enthusiasm for Edwards at the level of the SEIU leadership, and, now, with the support of the membership running in his favor as well, the main concern some people have is that he may not be able to win the primary, let alone a general election contest. After the experience of endorsing Howard Dean last cycle, SEIU leaders want to back a winner as well as someone who supports their agenda.

(Marc Ambinder is reporting that Edwards and Obama were the top two straw poll vote getters.)

Monday will be a chance for Edwards to argue how he's going to win and to soothe remaining anxieties about endorsing him, and for Obama and Clinton to make more compelling cases for their own candidacies that would undermine support for Edwards. It's unlikely that the SEIU would endorse Clinton, and while there has been a surge of support for Obama, he has not courted the group as assiduously as Edwards and some board members are also less than clear on how he plans to win the primary, let alone the general.

The executive board "was as enthusiastic about supporting a pro-worker candiate for president as our members were," SEIU Secretary Treasurer Anna Burger said on the call with reporters. Added Stern: "Now we want to dig down on who is in the best position to win."

--Garance Franke-Ruta

WHAT'S GOING ON, SEIU? The union definitely polled its members here in Washington, D.C. on Monday to ascertain their presidential pick. Ballots were handed out and deposited outside the auditorium doors. The buzz in the hall after the speeches was all Obama, although Edwards support ran deep.

So why didn't SEIU announce the straw poll results? One obvious guess is that the executive board does not want its endorsement decision to be swayed by public knowledge of the possibly conflicting preference of rank-and-file members. The straw poll vote may have been very close. Perhaps no one candidate won a majority. And, to really go deep into the realm of speculation, perhaps members were so wowed by the afternoon's star that they chose Barack Obama, despite the fact that in recent years, it is John Edwards who has made the most concerted effort to woo organized labor.

--Dana Goldstein

IS CLINTON EVITABLE? To follow-up on Ezra or Dana, Matt said recently that he "feels like Clinton is drawing close to checkmating her opponents." I wish I could say that this would go down with Matt's "Dean is Inevitable" prediction ... but...

Taking Dana's point that it's early and a lot can happen, etc., and without quite being ready enough to say "lock," I think that it's pretty much over. What allowed Kerry to come out of nowhere was concerns about Dean compounded by the inept, undisciplined endgame to his Iowa campaign. Clinton, whatever else one can say about her, is a very disciplined campaigner; she'll be very, very difficult to haul down from behind. I'm also inclined to think, given her strong basic political abilities and her lead, that the fact that she was two viable opponents probably helps her more than anything; both Obama and Edwards will stay in long enough to prevent a single anti-Clinton candidate from emerging until it's too late. This is unfortunate, given that I think she's both the least progressive and the weakest presidential candidate of the three, but I would be extremely surprised if she wasn't the nominee.

--Scott Lemieux

SEIU PRESIDENTIAL PLANS. This is in real-time, people. I'm on the SEIU's press conference call to announce the outcome of their member straw poll here in D.C. on Monday. And it's...nobody?

SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger bragged about how the union successfully pushed every Democratic candidate toward universal health care. She said the SEIU executive board is as excited to make an endorsement as its members are, and will meet again this coming Monday in Chicago with members of the three top campaigns, Clinton, Edwards, and Obama. Burger said the union wants to hear each candidate lay out their "strategy" for winning the White House.

Andy Stern just called Hillary's health care policy a "totally solid, thoughtful plan."

Call over. I didn't get to ask about the results of the straw poll. Analysis to follow.

--Dana Goldstein

I'M NOT A RACIST OR ANYTHING, BUT… If you've ever wondered where mainstream media digs up some of their crackpottiest anti-immigrationites, look no further than this new piece put out by the Center for American Progress that digs into the back story on some of voices that have been, rather absurdly, making their way into the mainstream debate on immigration.

One of the examples they cite is John Vinson. As the head of the American Immigration Control Foundation, he's been quoted in that capacity in stories all over as simply your average citizen concerned about immigration policy. But he's also the author of The Greybook: Blueprint for Southern Independence, put out by the League of the South, the neo-Confederate secessionist group that still thinks they're going to rise again and retake the South for middle-class, white America. This part usually gets left out when he's quoted in the news.

Also among the anti-immigration crowd that gets quoted regularly are people backed up by organizations that support eugenics and publishing houses that print materials claiming that God prefers segregation, and folks that claim (outside of the mainstream media) that "just because one believes in white separatism that that does not make them a racist."

The study, put together by CAP's Henry Fernandez, is worth checking out simply for the fact that many of the sources they investigate have turned up in NPR, the Post, the Times, and CNN. And we wonder why we haven't passed comprehensive immigration reform.

--Kate Sheppard

TODAY IN TAP ONLINE. We kick off a regular Wednesday feature in which Sarah Posner counts down the week's top news about the religious right. In today's installment, the race for James Dobson's endorsement, select Huckabee quotes from the Values Voter Presidential Debate, remembering 9-11 with a TV special on the secret Bible codes that supposedly foretold it, Rick Santorum's new job: prepping for war with Iran, and televangelist domestic violence.

Also today, Dana notes that one of the reasons No Child Left Behind isn't closing the achievement gap is that it failed to require school districts to desegregate. So as Congress considers reauthorizing the bill, why is no one mentioning that separate is unequal?

And Paul Waldman argues that voters can't -- and shouldn't -- judge who has the best health-care plan without hearing a persuasive case for why each candidate can overcome the political obstacles that stand in the way of meaningful reform.

--The Editors

RE: OBAMA. Dana, what struck me about Dickerson's article suggesting the Obama campaign begin to panic about Clinton's apparent strength is how weak Dickerson's suggestions were. That's not necessarily his fault, as it's hard to make up 20 percent in the polls, and if there were an obvious way to do it, one of Obama's advisors would have mentioned it to the candidate and they wouldn't be in a distant second-place anymore.

But one thing the Obama campaign could do is start bringing out some bolder policy. Their health plan was less impressive than either Clinton or Edwards' offerings, their plan for withdrawal from Iraq was rather typical for the race, and their new tax plan is, well, incremental is almost too generous. It's just some giveaways and goodies -- giveaways and goodies that I support, to be sure, but that don't do much to reform or simplify a fairly mucked-up tax code.

As Kevin says, "[Obama seems] cautious to a fault. His big foreign policy speech was fine, but cautious and mainstream. His big healthcare speech was fine, but cautious and mainstream. And now his big tax speech is....just cautious and mainstream. I really want to hear something big and controversial from Obama, something that demonstrates a desire to shake up the status quo. But he just doesn't seem to be willing to take any chances." And it's hard to make up 20 points when you won't take chances.

--Ezra Klein

THE COALITION OF PEOPLE AND GROUPS WHO MAKE CANDIDATES SAY STUPID THINGS ABOUT THAT STATE NEXT TO PALESTINE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. I urge folks to read Garance's post arguing that Hillary Clinton's crazily rightwing perspective on the Israel/Palestine conflict isn't the product of sincerely held beliefs, but rather a pander to a coalition of savvy activist groups and wealthy advocates who're singularly committed to guaranteeing continual American support for a Likudnik view of Israeli politics, and are particularly powerful in New York politics. I'd suggest, for linguistic convenience, that we call this "coalition of activist groups and advocates" a "lobby," and distinguish them from other lobbies by saying the name of their issue (Israel) before we say "lobby," but then I'd get called an anti-Semite.

--Ezra Klein

THE IRAQI AIR FORCE. J. at Armchair Generalist has been talking to the USAF about rebuilding the Iraqi Air Force:

The Iraqis had started training with the Huey II helicopter in 2006, and have moved onto the Cessna Caravan fixed-wing aircraft for information, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. The Iraqi Air Force will move on to getting Mi-17 helicopters (the Russian improved Hip model) next year, which may include a "kinetic effect" capability. Translated -- they will be allowed to shoot things, planned for the end of 2008. There are plans to move to a fixed-wing fighter, but it's still too early to determine what plane is going to fill that mission. That decision (planned sometime between 2008-2010) will be very political and very expensive.

Eventually, however, Iraq will need an air force for external defense. This is a problem, because the capacity that Iraq acquires in this sphere will not be purely defensive. This problem isn't limited to the air force; rather, it's part of the entire project of rebuilding Iraqi military capability. This is the conundrum: We're told we can't leave until Iraqi forces stand up. However, we know that Iraqi forces are useless without sectarian reconciliation. We also insist that Iraq is in the middle of an extraordinarily dangerous region, and needs a defense. We can't give Iraq advanced military equipment, however, because in the absence of sectarian reconciliation in a form palatable to the United States, that equipment could be used against us or our friends. The result is that we get tied to the corpse of Iraq, because while weakness is a threat, so is strength.

The vision, in the end, is of an Iraq that is substantially under U.S. military control for the foreseeable future.

--Robert Farley

THE INEVITABILITY PROBLEM. Over at Slate we're seeing a big picture of Barack Obama looking very sad, accompanied by the headline, "Is it Time for Obama to Panic?" John Dickerson gets it right: As I reported, Obama rocked the house at the SEIU candidates' forum Monday, but that kind of soaring rhetoric and shouting, activist delivery isn't enough to get him elected. It won't translate to more general audiences, and while it proves Obama is an inspirational speaker, it doesn't prove he can govern. Dickerson suggests several tactics to help Obama overcome the growing feeling of inevitability around Hillary Clinton. First, he could attack Clinton more explicitly, or dig deep and publicize any dirt on her he can find. Alternatively, he could take the high road and let John Edwards roll in the mud with Hillary. Lastly, he could renew excitement by beating the rest of the field in fundraising again this quarter.

The problem is that we've seen Obama try all of these strategies already, to no concrete jump in his poll numbers. Then again, it's still early. It was around this time in 2003 that most pundits decided John Kerry would never be able to revitalize his campaign.

--Dana Goldstein

THE JERUSALEM QUESTION. As Tapped's resident Clintonologist, I'll just add to Ezra's item from yesterday that yes, Clinton's stated position on Jerusalem is to the right of longstanding U.S. policy and no, it's not new. She took the same position in her 2000 Senate contest. This New York Times piece from the summer of 1999 gets into some of the backstory leading up to Clinton's declaration that year that Jerusalem is the "eternal and indivisible capital of Israel'' -- a statement then disavowed by her husband's own State Department.

The single most important thing to remember about Clinton's foreign policy thinking is that she is the Senator from New York. She represents more Jews than any other politician in America except Chuck Schumer, as well as the second-largest Jewish population center in the world, and the meshuga politics (and really, that's one link that's worth clicking through) of New York turn the status of Jerusalem into a routine political hot potato there. Schumer has gone even further than Clinton; he sponsored the "Jerusalem Embassy Act," which would move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel's "undivided" capital of Jerusalem. Heck -- it was only the public pleas of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack that got Schumer to back off a 1999 effort to withhold $100 million from the State Department if President Clinton did not declare that "the United States now formally recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and that it is United States policy that Jerusalem should remain undivided." And, nota bene, Schumer had the votes to do so at the time.

The two sitting Democratic New York Senators' position on the indivisibility of Jerusalem was shared by Republicans Rudy Giuliani and Clinton predecessor Alfonse D'Amato, as well. "We are all united and Jerusalem will be and should remain the capital of the state of Israel undivided forever," said Giuliani in a 1996 speech. See also this D'Amato dig at Mark Green in 1986 for an earlier example of the politics of Jerusalem in New York.

Just as Alabama politics encourages and rewards politicians for being pro-life, New York politics encourages and rewards politicians for being pro-Israel. One of these days someone -- paging Mike Tomasky? -- is going to write a very smart article about the regional tics the New Yorkers in contest 2008 bring with them to the national stage, and the extent to which Giuliani and Clinton were shaped by similar forces.

I should also note that there is a uniform opinion among the people I know who follow or are part of Middle East policy making in Washington (both Arab and Jew) that Clinton does not really believe her stated position on Jerusalem, which would seem to preclude a peace process. Rudy Giuliani is a different matter, and the very pro-Israel New York Sun's Eli Lake details here why he thinks Giuliani is not sincerely committed to the idea of a two-state solution, let alone open to a peace process that would include discussion of the status of Jerusalem. As Giuliani wrote in Foreign Affairs, "Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians....It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism." That's a pretty stunning divergence from current U.S. policy, which, at least in theory, supports continuing efforts toward the creation of an eventual Palestinian state.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

GOP: MAGNA CARTA PLACED TOO MANY RESTRICTIONS ON EXECUTIVE POWER. The Habeas Restoration bill failed 56-43; Christy Hardin Smith has the tally. Unless I missed one, no Democrat voted "naye," including Nelson, Landrieu, and Conrad. The ever-more-disgraceful Joe Lieberman, of course, did. My question: Where exactly is the ongoing "Rebellion or Invasion"? Hopefully the Supreme Court will correct Congress's straightforward illegality, but it's the sign of debased politics that they have to.

--Scott Lemieux

CALLING ALL GENIUSES. TAP's tagline is, after all, "liberal intelligence," and I know you liberals are damn intelligent. So go get yourself on the teevee, and explain that the best way to snag a parking space, or get some action, is to turn the means of production over to the working man!

--Ezra Klein

STILL ATONING FOR THAT SUHA EMBRACE. Following up on Ezra's post yesterday on Hillary Clinton's statement acknowledging Jerusalem as Israel's "undivided capital," it's worth noting that this puts her to the far right of Israeli public opinion, of which a stable majority recognizes the Palestinian claim to East Jerusalem, and accepts that shared sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods and religious sites will be part of a final status agreement.

Honestly, though, I'd be interested to hear from Clinton how Israel's policy of demolishing Palestinian homes in Arab East Jerusalem to make way for Israeli settlements, in which non-Jews are prohibited from living, accords with her "liberal values," but, then again, I suppose no one ever lost an American election by ignoring Palestinian rights.

--Matthew Duss

(DON'T) BOMB BOMB BOMB, BOMB BOMB IRAN. In Salon, Steve Clemons explains why we won't attack Iran. Probably. It's pretty bizarre commentary on the state of the country that the caveat to his argument is Cheney and the NeoCons might sidestep the president and "engineer" a provocation, possibly by convincing Israel to launch some cruise missiles that will spark an Iranian retaliation. That said, the fact that their desire to do so has been made public would seem to hamper their actual capacity for such a move, as Bush -- not to mention Rice, Gates, etc -- would know, from the beginning, that they were being played, and would probably be rather unhappy about it.

--Ezra Klein

POOR PEOPLE ARE SHARKS! Via economist John Schmitt's blog I find this hilarious piece by the inimitable Michael Lewis, who is now a Bloomberg columnist, written from the perspective of a Wall Street trader about the sub-prime crisis.

As John says, "The...piece is so dry that some overworked and underpaid anti-poverty advocates in Washington initially thought the piece was for real. Maybe kinda the way that some far rightwingers' first impression might be that Stephen Colbert should be on Fox, instead of languishing away on some obscure cable TV station."

Enjoy it here.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS MITCH MCCONNELL! The mean man from Kentucky prevented me from being represented in Congress today. The Senate approved D.C. voting rights 57-42, but failed to overcome McConnell's filibuster.

--Dana Goldstein

LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION FOR ABORTION ACCESS. A good article here about the conflict surrounding a new Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, IL. The clinic has been delayed by zoning issues with the local government, which is also threatening to pass an inevitably useless parental involvement regulation. The tactic of arbitrarily using zoning or other regulations as a pretext to shut down clinics -- see also Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio -- is particularly important, with the potential to place far more severe burdens on abortion access than any of the regulations explicitly upheld in Casey. Such actions also attract much less attention than trying to ban abortion outright.

Obviously, using litigation is one important element of a strategy to counter these methods. However, local abortion regulations like parental notification have already been held to be constitutional, and given the current composition of the federal courts one can't be optimistic of an "undue burden" standard being applied with much teeth when it comes to states using regulations to shut down safe abortion clinics. In conservative states, this is a serious problem for the time being. But in pro-choice states, supporters of reproductive freedom should push for uniform access laws that prevent localities from obstructing poor women's abortion access and also prevent zoning laws from treating abortion clinics differently than other non-residential entities. Thinking about ways to legislatively protect abortion rights -- as Elliot Spitzer has done in New York -- should be an important part of the pro-choice arsenal.

--Scott Lemieux

NEWS ON NEWS. It had been rumored for a while now, but today the New York Times announced that as of midnight tonight, they'll be bringing down pay walls on their website, exactly two years after they started charging $49.95 a year for complete access to the site. The pay wall was deterring drop-in readers who came to the site from search engines, and it wasn't bringing in enough paid subscribers to justify its existence. There were only 227,000 paying subscribers, and the site gets an average of 13 million unique visitors every month.

Rupert Murdoch followed up on the announcement with his own public pondering about whether he should just take down the subscriber-only walls at the Wall Street Journal when News Corp. takes over in a few months. That site has fared much better in the pay-to-read realm, with one million paying subscribers who pay to get their news content. But Murdoch's betting that traffic at the site will increase to 30 million, and ad reps will come running for the chance to reach the generally educated, well-off Wall Street Journal readers.

This just illustrates what a bad idea the system was in the first place, especially for the Times. While their columnists have many faithful readers, not many of them are faithful enough to shell out cash to read what is largely lukewarm commentary. And legions of Googlers with their untapped potential page-views have been cast off into the internet abyss for the past two years, forced to find free information elsewhere, while the quality Times archive content languishes in obscurity. The WSJ had a slightly better model and prospects going into it, but not good enough to justify what they had to sacrifice in the process.

And what they had to give up was largely new readers, a terrible idea in an age when we spend a decent amount of time (and print space) bemoaning the fact that young people don't read enough news these days. It made zero short-term or long-term economic sense to cut off all of us young, potential readers in the place where most of us prefer to get our news, and get it for free. And these new readers bring more page-views, which brings more ad sales, which bring more money -- far more money than selling online subscriptions. So pay walls essentially add up to shooting yourself in the right foot, then shooting yourself in the left, and then going back and shooting the right foot again just to make sure you got it the first time.

Needless to say, I'm glad that's over.

--Kate Sheppard

RAISING THE STAKES. In the escalating war betwern MoveOn.org and Rudy Giuliani, MoveOn just saw Giuliani's latest attack -- a radio ad attacking the group that went up on the air in Iowa -- and raised it some national exposure, announcing that it would expand its buy for its tough-on-Giuliani "Betrayal of Trust" ad. MoveOn is increasing the play the ad will get by adding a $50,000 national buy, on CNN, to the $50,000 in local airtime they'd already committed to in Iowa.

It's impressive the way MoveOn has refused to back down in this conflict. I wasn't a huge fan of the original inflamatory ad, but instead of cowering in fear or issuing abject apologies for it, MoveOn kept escalating the fight and moving the story forward. This reminds me a bit of the whole Cindy Sheehan episode of summer 2005, when all of mainstream liberaldom recoiled in horror from her anti-war camp and naive foreign policy pronouncements, and the right attacked her viciously, and then she successfully did about as much as any lone mother could have to raise suspicions about the president, suspicions that hardened right after Hurricane Katrina. She helped turn the country against the president -- I have heard one of Bush's top strategists say so in a public forum -- and I wonder to what an extent this new "betrayal" campaign by MoveOn (and it has become a campaign now, rather than a one-shot thing) will ultimately have a similar effect of sowing doubts that will color how the public reacts to events we cannot yet forsee.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

CLINTON ON ISRAEL. Clinton's policy paper on Israel seems substantially worse than her policy paper on health reform. It says that Clinton "believes that Israel’s right to exist in safety as a Jewish state, with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, secure from violence and terrorism, must never be questioned."

Seems anodyne, but that bit on an undivided Jerusalem is actually quite radical. Even the Bush administration is pushing Ohlmert to continue talks with Abbas on a solution that would include some measure of shared sovereignty over Jerusalem, which neither side has ever been willing to give up. For Clinton to preemptively take that off the table -- assuming it's not just a disingenuous pander to AIPAC -- is to end any hope that American could help push towards a solution in the region.

--Ezra Klein

HEALTHCARE CONVERGENCE. Over at my other place, beloved commenter Jim from Portland writes:

In my optimum world, Hillary, Edwards and Obama would serve the nation and the party best by spending a weekend together (with some key Congressional and health-care leaders as well) and coming up with one unified plan - in effect saying this is what the Dems will do, not one of the candidates.

This is in stark contrast to 2004 when Edwards wanted to cover the kids, Kerry want a catastrophic coverage with a reinsurance component, Gephardt had a large-scale employer mandate, Lieberman wanted to create new programs for underserved populations, Dean wanted to use tax credits and subsidies to cover adults through current options, and so forth. Not only were those plans radically different from one another, but none of them even neared the comprehensiveness of the plans being offered this cycle.

--Ezra Klein

SHOWING UP STILL THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN ABILITY TO WIN THE GAME. After all but John McCain declined invitations to participate in a Spanish-language debate, the GOP front-runners have now decided not to talk to black voters, either. McCain, Giuliani, and Romney had already opted out of the Sept. 27 debate at historically black Morgan State University in Baltimore, and yesterday Fred Thompson decided that he couldn't be bothered to show up, either. All cited other obligations for the evening.

The other five candidates have agreed to take part in the debate, but the fact that four of the Republican candidates don't think black voters are worth reserving a night for doesn't just look bad; it's bad politics for the GOP. And turning down two consecutive forums designed to talk to voters on the brown end of the spectrum is in exceptionally bad taste. Maybe black and Latino voters aren't the biggest contingent Republicans are hoping to pull in this year, but down the line (and not even that far down the line) these votes will be absolutely imperative to winning a presidency.

I can't put it any better than Cornel West did yesterday: "At this moment in American history, it is clear that either the Republican Party wisely embraces people of color, or it chooses to be a losing political party in the future."

--Kate Sheppard

HABEAS CORPUS, PLEASE. On the same day that Chris Dodd gave a notably rowdy speech at the SEIU Political Action Conference, he and Patrick Leahy announced that they would be introducing the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. Last year's Military Commissions Act effectively stripped it away by giving the president the power to determine who qualifies as an "enemy of the country" and eliminating their right to due process.

The elimination of habeas corpus in last year's bill is pretty widely recognized as a problem that should be corrected, even by conservatives. It was rushed through before the November elections, and pretty much everyone who likes the Constitution has decided it's a bad idea. Now to do something about all the other problems with the Military Commissions Act...

--Kate Sheppard

CONFIRM MUKASEY? Scott Horton makes the case, which I think is correct. I certainly agree with Kate that Mukasey isn't someone I would prefer to see appointed as AG. But the relevant universe of options here is not "people qualified to be AG," but "people George Bush would appoint as Attorney General." Given that last time Bush managed to select someone far worse than John Ashcroft, I think it's pretty clear that Mukasey as as good as we're going to get. (The fact that many conservatives aren't happy with a clearly qualified candidate tends to reinforce this.) I also agree with Horton that with respect to the cabinet -- as opposed to lifetime appointments to an independent branch of government -- the President is entitled to considerable ideological deference. This doesn't mean that he shouldn't be subject to tough questioning at his confirmation hearings, of course, but it seems clear that Mukasey is far better than anyone could reasonably expect of this administration.

--Scott Lemieux

BLACKWATER RUNS DEEP. The thing I find most interesting about yesterday's terrible news of the killing of civilians, allegedly by the hired guns of Blackwater USA, is that it actually made news. In fact, it seems that the matter of the military's outsourcing of tasks ranging from security to interrogation is finally finding its way into the public conscience, and the public is apparently not at ease with this state of affairs.

I've long wondered why the phenomenon was so taken for granted by media and ordinary citizens. While working for a labor union that represented federal employees, I got a glimpse at the extent of the government's outsourcing of security and procurement operations to for-profit corporations, but had a hard time finding a reporter or editor who found it as troubling as I did. Here's a brief and incomplete synopsis of contractor complicity in -- or instigation of -- torture and murder: Abu Ghraib prison (interrogations -- see Tara McKelvey's Monstering for more info), Afghanistan detention (killing of suspect who voluntarily surrendered), and an "extraordinary rendition" of a German citizen that resulted in his being tortured (by CIA contractors in this case).

In last night's pilot of K-ville, an extraordinary new cop show set in New Orleans (at TAP Online, Christine Cupaiuolo covers the bases), the evil security contracting company is named "Black River." Any resemblance to Blackwater, I presume, is purely coincidental.

--Adele M. Stan

THE FURTHER TRAVAILS OF THE MCCAIN CAMPAIGN. Hold that talk of a comeback, says The Washington Times:

Sen. John McCain's troubled presidential campaign organization is imploding in Michigan, senior Republicans in the state say.

Attorney General Mike Cox has told state party officials that he is resigning, possibly today, as Michigan chairman of McCain campaign, several top Michigan Republicans told The Washington Times.

Mr. Cox wanted to withdraw his support because of a "disagreement in the direction of the campaign," a state Republican activist close to the campaign confided. "He has a call into him to personally talk to him, but I'm not sure if he has heard back or not."

A meltdown in Michigan could presage the early demise of the McCain effort nationally because Michigan was the one big state that the Arizona senator won, with independents' help, in his 2000 Republican nomination contest with George W. Bush. The McCain campaign is also struggling nationally, having overspent early and been forced to fire most of its staff.

"The organization is nonexistent — it's not raising money," Mr. Cox complained to a fellow Michigan Republican, who in turn spoke with The Times.

The smart money in Democratic circles is on the G.O.P. contest narrowing into a Rudy Giuliani vs. Mitt Romney race.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

MUKASEY AND MERITS. Since his nomination was announced yesterday, many writers have been fairly gleefully touting Michael Mukasey's independent streak (see: Lithwick, Greenwald, NYT, WaPo). Heck, even Chuck Schumer likes him. But despite his laudable ruling that Jose Padilla had a right to a lawyer, he also determined that American citizens detained in the U.S. can be considered "enemy combatants" and don't have to be charged with any crimes. There are also questions about his role in secret detentions and his suggestion that we create "national security courts" outside the federal court system and not necessarily beholden to the same standards.

So even if Mukasey far outshines Alberto Gonzales as AG, it's not like we're going to see daisies and sunshine coming from the DOJ if he is appointed.

--Kate Sheppard

STEADY AS A ROCK. Jonah Goldberg on the inconstancy of President Bush's war critics:

"Perhaps the answer is that when it comes to bashing Bush about the war, no accusation is inaccurate -- even if it contradicts all the accusations that came before. Some say it's all about the Israel lobby. Others claim that Bush was trying to avenge his dad. Still others say Bush went to war because God told him to.

Which is it? All of those? Any? It doesn't seem to matter. It's disturbing how many people are willing to look for motives beyond the ones debated and voted on by our elected leaders."

Right. On the other hand, President Bush's justification for invading Iraq has always stayed the same: Saddam has WMD. Or, Saddam has connections to al-Qaeda. Or, Saddam wanted to develop WMD, and might could possibly have had connections to al-Qaeda. Or, we're building democracy in Iraq. Or, now we're fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here. Or, now we're fighting Iran in Iraq.

Why can't Bush's critics be more consistent?

--Matthew Duss

TODAY IN TAP ONLINE. Ezra weighs in on the Hillary Clinton health care plan, which he notes would have never been this bold if John Edwards hadn't already released an extremely progressive health plan:

The mixture of a progressive, transformative health care plan and a credible candidate instantly reshaped the politics of health care in the Democratic primary. Any politician who proposed an overly cautious or incremental plan would lose voters to Edwards. Barack Obama's plan, which was decidedly broad and ambitious by the standards of 2004, received criticism (some of it from this writer) for merely getting near to, rather than actually achieving, universality. In the absence of Edwards' plan, it would almost undoubtedly have been lauded for its vision. (Though without the leftward pressure exerted by Edwards' plan, Obama's proposal may have been yet more cautious than what he released.)

Hillary Clinton was the wild card. After failing to enact health care reform in 1994, many speculated that she'd be too cowed to try again. Further evidence appeared to come from her Senate career, where she didn't attach herself to many high profile initiatives on the subject, and said things like, "I [have] learned some valuable lessons about the legislative process, the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done." To most, that sounded like an admission that she'd push for the safe changes but avoid the transformative battles. Meanwhile, she became the second largest recipient of medical industry money in the Senate -- a record that seemed to fit with her apparent reticence on the issue. While Edwards released his plan in February and Obama offered his in May, it was only in September that firm word emerged from the Clinton camp that there would even be a plan.

Yesterday, the details came out, and lo, they are good.

Read the whole thing here. Also check out Ezra's previous commentary on the Obama, Giuliani, and Romney health care proposals.

Plus, Spencer Ackerman writes that last week's intense focus on whether the surge was working obscured the real Bush agenda -- a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq.

Kay Steiger reviews Paul Haggis' new film, In the Valley of Elah, a portrait of returned Iraq soldiers which critiques not just the war, but the way we treat our veterans.

And, from our September issue, Jared Bernstein offers his take on Bryan Caplan's Myth of the Rational Voter and Richard Freeman's America Works: Critical Thoughts on the Exceptional U.S. Labor Market.

--The Editors

SNUBBING THE "VALUES VOTERS." Yesterday's "Values Voter" Presidential Debate forged ahead even after all of the top-tier Republican candidates declined the invitation. The sponsoring social conservative groups set up podiums for Giuliani, Romney, McCain and Thompson anyway, and then addressed questions to the spaces where the candidates would have stood. (Is that kind of like leaving an empty seat for Jesus at the dinner table?)

I'm not really surprised Giuliani and Romney didn't want to face this crowd, but it's interesting that Thompson didn't attend -- even though he was passing through Florida, where the event was held. Wasn't he supposed to be the candidate who was going to rally the support of all segments of the Republican base -- including the Christian right? In any case, the ultraconservatives are pissed off:

"They will regret the decision," said Jan Folger, president of Faith2Action and a member of the debate host committee. "Because they snubbed us, they will not win, because we will not follow their lead."

--Ann Friedman

BLACKWATER UPDATE. It can't be good news for the occupation that the one thing the Iraqi government can agree upon and act swiftly to do is ban one American paramilitary corporation and now, launch an investigation into the others. If you're interested in learning about the corrupt and foolish outsourcing of the war, I highly recommend the documentary Shadow Company.

--Dana Goldstein

CITIZEN LOBBYISTS. John Edwards has made it very clear that he thinks lobbyists are the bane of the American political system, and will prevent needed healthcare reform. He said so again at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Political Action Conference yesterday, warning that if you give industry lobbyists a seat at the table, "they'll eat all the food." So it was with some amusement that I looked up, after Edwards finished his remarks yesterday, to find a man on the stage jazzing up the crowd for the SEIU's "Lobby Day."

"We're going to lobby, and then we're going to lobby some more," he shouted at the crowd. "And then we are going to rally."

And that, indeed, is the SEIU's Political Action Conference's agenda for today. From 10:30 to 11:30, the group is holding "Lobby Day Briefings" at the Washington Hilton, after which participants will be ferried to Capitol Hill by bus. And then, at 1:45, they will hold a "Money for Healthcare, Not War" rally.

In addition to citizen lobbying efforts like today's, the SEIU works with registered federal lobbyists to forward its agenda and weigh in on legislation critical to its members. Since just 2000, Senate records show, the SEIU has worked with: Bond & Co.; Clark & Weinstock; Colling Murphy Swift Hynes Selfridge LLC; Robert Giroux; Jennings Policy Strategies; the Nueva Vista Group; Bill Lynch Associates; and Tighe Patton Armstrong Teasdale.

Additionally, the SEIU has its own in-house registered lobbyist, Alma Henderson, according to Senate disclosure records.

These are likely the sorts of efforts Hillary Clinton was defending at the Yearly Kos conference when she said: "A lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans."

I seriously doubt that the Edwards campaign has a problem with any of this SEIU activity, either, despite his anti-lobbying stance.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

REDNECK CHIC. Is there anything more pathetic than the spectacle of the wealthy conservative pundit, that creature of millionaire-funded think tanks, TV studio green rooms, and catered symposia, trying to establish some red-state cred by pretending to be down with redneck culture?

Michael Ledeen:

"Barbara and I went to Indianapolis for a Toby Keith concert, where we partied with something like 25,000 happy rednecks, most of them young, most of them wearing boots and cowboy hats (and cheering Keith's great song "I Should Have Been a Cowboy"). It's a great show, and he's a wonderful performer, not least because of his deeply moving patriotic songs like "American Soldier," "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue," and " The Taliban," etc.

It's great to get out of the Washington culture of narcissism and spend some time with the rednecks, a.k.a. real Americans. And it's simply great, as the encores end, and a downpour of red, white and blue confetti covers the crowd, to see Toby say "don't ever apologize for your patriotism," and then lift the middle finger of his right hand to the skies and say, "F*** 'Em!"

Which, after a week of disgusting anti-Americanism in Washington, nicely summed up our feelings.

You ought to try it. Does wonders for the spirit."

The condescension of Ledeen's little paean should be obvious, as he writes about his visit to flyover country as if he had just been swimming with the dolphins ("Does wonders for the spirit"!) There's also a pretty clear racist element to his statement about "real Americans" (Read: white, conservative Americans.) What, Michael, the people who cater your speaking engagements, clean your office, and park your car aren't "real American" enough for you? (I wonder if, when, at long last, his very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care is finally released, Jonah Goldberg will have anything to say about the tendency of fascist propagandists to locate the authentic soul of the nation among the rural volk, away from the corrupting, cosmopolitan intellectualism of the cities, and, if so, whether this tendency is more characteristic of Democrats or Republicans?)

Bottom line, rednecks and caterers: Whether he considers you a real American or not, Michael Ledeen has no problem with your being sent to fight and die in his next war.

--Matthew Duss

THIS DOESN'T SOUND GOOD. Noah Shachtman of Danger Room has recently visited Iraq, and will be blogging in stages about his experiences there. In the course of a post on IED countermeasures, he mentioned the following:

Sunni political and tribal leaders are increasingly throwing in their lot with U.S. forces here against Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent types. But, to get them to come over to our side, the American military has fed them a steady diet of anti-Shi'ite propaganda.

Arrests and killings of Shi’ite militants are announced from loudspeaker blasts; President Bush’s bellicose rhetoric towards Shi’a Iran is reported on friendly radio programs. But the majority of this country is Shi’ite. Are we setting ourselves up as the enemies of the majority here? Are we priming the pump for an all-in sectarian battle royale? It seems like a possibility.

Huh. That doesn't sound good; in fact, it sounds really, really bad. I've written before about how the Anbar alliance amounts to anti-state building, but I hadn't realized that the efforts to support and legitimize groups hostile to the central government was accompanied by an effort to make them even more hostile. In return for a brief truce and some talking points for Republican candidates, we're laying the groundwork for an even more devastating civil war than we could already have expected.

--Robert Farley

MISSING FROM THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE is a national conversation about the work we have left to do to combat HIV/AIDS right here in the United States. I can't mention this statistic enough: In the city of Washington, D.C., 1 in 20 people is HIV-positive, an infection rate higher than that of many African nations. Other American cities are fighting comparable battles. Communities of color are most at risk, with the infection rate growing exponentially among black and Latino young men who have sex with men, many of whom have sex with women as well.

Yesterday, as Hillary Clinton released her universal health plan, John Edwards talked about health care political strategy, and SEIU members met in D.C., a group of 100 HIV/AIDS organizations released "A Call to Action" for "A National AIDS Strategy." It states, "The wealthiest nation in the world is failing its own people in responding to the AIDS epidemic at home." The group urges cooperation between federal agencies, states, NGOs, and the private sector to improve prevention and treatment; attack the underlying social factors, such as homophobia and lack of access to contraceptives, that increase vulnerability to infection; invest more into HIV/AIDS medical research; and establish clear goals and timelines to improve prevention and treatment outcomes.

Here's hoping they can influence the health care debate. You can sign the statement here.

--Dana Goldstein

THE BATTLE IS JOINED. For years, I've been arguing that what the left needs to do is wage all-out war not just on particular problems or Republican screw-ups, but on conservatism itself. As I wrote on this very web site way back in 2005:

Unlike liberals, conservatives don't simply criticize specific candidates or pieces of legislation, they attack their opponents' entire ideological worldview. Tune into Rush Limbaugh or any of his imitators, and what you'll hear is little more than an extended discourse on the evils of liberalism, in which specific events are merely evidence that the real problem is liberal ideology. Liberals may write best-selling books about why George W. Bush is a terrible president, but conservatives write best-selling books about why liberalism is a pox on our nation (talk radio hate-monger Michael Savage, for instance, titled his latest book Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder).

Indeed, large portions of the conservative movement can be understood as an effort to crush liberalism in all its manifestations. Conservatives understand that their main enemy is not a law, government program, or social condition they don't like. Their main enemy is a competing ideology, and that is what they spend their time fighting.

In contrast, liberals spend very little time talking about conservatism. They talk about their opposition to President Bush or the policies proposed by the Republican Congress, but they don't offer a critique of conservatism itself. When was the last time you saw a book-length polemic against conservatism? Liberals have failed to understand that a sustained critique of the other side's ideology not only defines your opponents, it helps to define you by what you are against.

As a consequence, while there are "movement conservatives," there are no "movement liberals" for the simple reason that there is no coherent entity we could call the "liberal movement." Instead, there are a dozen liberal movements -- a pro-choice movement, an environmental movement, a labor movement, and so on. Whether cause or consequence, the conservative campaign against liberalism has been accompanied by a sharpening of conservative identity, not only in the public mind but in the hearts of conservatives themselves.

But just two years later, there is much more of something we could call "the progressive movement" than there was before, and a deeper understanding that the problem is conservatism itself. We have efforts like Rick Perlstein's excellent blog, and now Greg Anrig has come out with just the kind of book I was talking out. It's called The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing. Anrig discusses it over at TPM Cafe. Although I haven't read the book yet, I endorse it wholeheartedly!

--Paul Waldman

IRAQ WAR "LARGELY ABOUT OIL." That's the conclusion Alan Greenspan comes to in his new memoir. I've always thought that argument deserved to be taken more seriously, not as the only reason for the push to war, but as the major economic rationale motivating the idealistic neocon project of "democratizing" the Middle East by force. Remember that the Project for a New American Century, the group that included Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Zoellick, and many other future Bush appointees, published reports and open letters urging war in Iraq well before Sept. 11, 2001. PNAC's goal, first and foremost, was always to maintain American military and economic dominance globally, in large part through domination of key oil reserves.

--Dana Goldstein

SEIU MEMBERS PREDICT EDWARDS ENDORSEMENT.

(Photos: SEIU members in John Edwards T-shirts provided by their SEIU locals. Washington, D.C., Sept. 17, 2007.)

It's hard sometimes in the heat of the moment to distinguish enthusiasm for a politician's rousing speech from enthusiasm for the politician himself. So in the cool of the evening I headed out to the courtyard of the Washington Hilton, where the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Political Action Conference attendees were mingling over drinks and nibbling on breaded shrimp, roast beef, and veggies. Despite the tremendous outpouring of enthusiasm for Barack Obama from the conference's audience of union leaders and regular members earlier in the day, member after member predicted that loyalty would trump enthusiasm, and that John Edwards, the candidate who has most assiduously courted labor, would win the SEIU's straw poll, and eventually the powerful and activist union's nod.

"I will fall off my chair tomorrow if he don't get it," said Tamekia Robinson of California's Local 1000, predicting a win for Edwards in the SEIU's straw poll, whose results will be announced tomorrow. "If he don't get it, I will be highly, highly, highly surprised."

Robinson, who described herself as an Obama supporter, said she was pleased that the membership was included in the endorsement process, even though she thinks the outcome is already foreordained. "I think it's nice they did their little fluff, their go-around, even though it was already concluded," she said. Three of the five largest SEIU locals have already called, at the conference, for an endorsement of Edwards, she noted. It would be hard for anyone to trump that.

"We had a meeting," explained Laurene Mackay of the United Long Term Care Workers, Local 6434, which she says endorsed Edwards in a membership vote "at the union." Mackay sported a T-shirt with the John Edwards campaign logo on it, printed in the SEIU colors of yellow on purple, that her local had given her. "We had already chosen who we were going to vote for," she explained. "Then we got the T-shirts."

Those T-shirts were a matter of some controversy with one of her table-mates, Larry Perkins of Local 1000. "I was O.K. with the presentations today with everyone until they got to John Edwards," he said. "Then I saw all these purple and yellow T-shirts with "John Edwards" on them and I didn't see shirts for anybody else. It was like they were steering people to John Edwards." Of course, Perkins himself had been an Edwards man until he saw that. "It was like, man, this was engineered," he said.

Others ranked the support of the crowd as putting Edwards in the lead, with Obama in second, and Hillary Clinton a close third or even with Obama. "Edwards was number one in there, to people responding to him," said Rita Stephenson, also of Local 1000, who personally liked Clinton and Edwards best. "Obama was second. She was maybe third." Her dinner companion, Attila Gabor of Local 1021, agreed about Obama. "I think he got a very good reception but I think Edwards was on top of him," he said, lifting his hand up to his face to demonstrate how high the support for Edwards stretched.

Jason Morales, of Local 1199 United Healthcare East (one of the three which has called for an SEIU endorsement of Edwards at the conference, according to Robinson), said that he came out of the day most pleasantly surprised by Chris Dodd's performance. "I thought he was going to be dull and boring," he said, but "the energy that he had and that he brought to the table" was impressive. Morales had kind words for Obama, too, whom he called "unbelievable, a great speaker." But when pressed about where his support lay, Morales eventually gave the most frequently heard answer.

"I like Edwards," he said. "He's a labor man."

--Garance Franke-Ruta

DEAL OR NO DEAL. Robert mentioned it this morning, but another important aspect of the Blackwater issue is that the company was awarded a no-bid contract to work in Iraq. Blackwater USA is (well … was) a private firm providing security for U.S. Embassy personnel in Iraq. There had been multiple complaints about the firm over the past years, and a recent incident in which at least eight Iraqi civilians were shot to death after a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy prompted the Iraqi government to revoke their license to work in the country.

But as others have delved into before, Blackwater's contract was a no-bid deal awarded to a major Bush supporter, pretty much on the virtue of being a major Bush supporter. The firm was granted a no-bid contract worth tens of million of dollars at least in part because the owner, Erik Prince, has been a donor to the Bush's campaigns, as well as those of other leading Republicans. Naomi Klein gets into this in her new book, The Shock Doctrine, and it was also examined in Jeremy Scahill's Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, published last winter.

The other major problem: nobody can really say who's in charge of these contractors that American tax dollars are paying to send over to Iraq. From the Post article:

It was not immediately clear whether Iraq or the United States holds the authority to regulate Blackwater's operations. A regulation known as Order 17 established under the U.S.-led Coalition Prov