Yesterday, on the 60th anniversary of the integration of the military, the House Armed Services Committee held a the first hearing to review President Bill Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

One of the opponents to gays serving in the military that testified was Elaine Donnelly, the president of the Center for Military Readiness. Donnelly seemed more than obsessed with the "sex" part of "homosexuals," as she always made sure to say. She claimed that by allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, there would be an increase of "inappropriate passive aggressive sexual behavior common in the homosexual community."

Her definition of "passive aggressive" behavior is sexual conduct that "stops short" of sexual assault. She kept referring to the "close living quarters" military lived in and the "power of sexuality." In other words, Donnelly seems to think that gays and lesbians are unable to control their sexual conduct. She also seemed to think that by placing gays and straights in the same unit was some kind of undue hardship.

Congressman Chris Shays, a Republican from Connecticut who has called for the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" the acceptance of openly gay men and women in the military, sharply responded to Donnelly. He pointed out that there are already codes in place to penalize sexual misconduct in the military, so those who simply identify with a different orientation shouldn't be discharged. "Their conduct is what matters in the service," Shays said at the hearing.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) had introduced legislation that would repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the military. She compared the integration of openly gay men and women in the military to the integration of blacks into the military 60 years ago. It seems clear this legislation won't go anywhere before Bush leaves office, but perhaps the next administration will stop penalizing gays and lesbians for their identity.

--Kay Steiger

• Scott rounds up the relevant links pertinent to McCain's apparent ignorance of the basic chronology of the surge's effects. I think Ilan Goldenberg said it best: "As far as I'm concerned [this] disqualifies him from being President ... I have no choice but to conclude that John McCain has simply no idea what is actually happened and happening in Iraq." Even more disturbing, however, is the fact that CBS News deliberately edited the remarks out of the official interview. They have absolutely no business covering up McCain's obvious ignorance on a matter he has repeatedly claimed to be an expert on.
• With all the talk of Barack Obama's hubris/narcissism/etc., it's worth noting that McCain apparently suffers from the same affliction.
• Dave Weigel has been assiduously following the "Obama is foreign-born" conspiracy theory over in right-wing fantasyland, and doesn't disappoint with today's nugget.
• Patrick Ruffini, writing at the Next Right, takes Barack Obama to task for issuing fliers in German that advertise a speech he's giving...in Germany. Matt Yglesias' comments are worth reading on this matter, but I have to wonder what young conservative bloggers like Ruffini are trying to accomplish. The Next Right is supposed to be a first crack at organizing a formidable conservative Netroots, and while they do an admirable job of big picture strategy and analyzing politics at the district level, the best rallying cry they can come up with is to pander to the xenophobic? Seems to me that's the sort of sentiment you'd want to move away from in order to rebuild your shattered political coalition.
• John Sides at the Monkey Cage gives us a quick tour of an academic paper that concludes the so-called Wilder Effect -- when voters tell pollsters they'll vote for the black candidate, but don't at the polls -- has declined to irrelevance and that Obama is typically exceeding polling.
• Ron Paul's alternative convention in St. Paul appears to have the makings of a large distraction from the Republican National Convention, the NY Times Caucus reports.
• Gallup reports that Obama has increased his lead over McCain in purple states since clinching the nomination, and has extended his lead in blue states while closing the gap in red states. Meanwhile, Rasmussen has Obama up over McCain by 2 points in Florida, 49-47 (leaners included), and has him up 50-47 (with leaners) in Colorado. Public Policy Polling [PDF] has Obama up by two points in Virginia, 46-44. In New Hampshire, a Granite State Poll [PDF] has Democratic challenger Jeanne Shaheen beating incumbent Republican Senator John Sununu by 4 points, 46-42.
• George W. Bush will be a speaker at the Republican National Convention on September 1, Marc Ambinder confirms.
• And finally, The American Conservative asks, "Is California Keyes country?" And yes, that would be Alan Keyes.

--Mori Dinauer

The MSM likes to depict twenty-somethings as an elite, college-educated bunch worried about, well, nothing. But a new survey from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner finds that 18 to 34-year old Americans -- only about a third of whom hold a college degree -- are more worried about the daily costs of gas and food than just about anything else. On a scale ranging from 'freaked out' to 'slightly worried,' the 18 to 34 age group rank their anxieties as gas prices (43% are concerned), ability to pay bills (29%), finding a job (23%), and loans and debts (22%).

Roughly 21 percent of young adults are students. They have young families: 52 percent are married or living with a partner, and 45 percent have kids. Of course, like generations that came before them, most have likely not achieved their peak income. At the same time, they are entering their adult lives saddled with debilitating debt and a changing economy that offers fewer stable, good paying jobs, especially for young people without a college education. They simply do not know how they are going to make it all work out.

--Daniel Strauss

Jeff Lewis has a good article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on minimal vs. robust deterrence. The latter, advocated by folks like Albert Wohlstetter, asserts that nuclear deterrence is a delicate flower that will collapse if not nourished properly by thousands of warheads in multiple launch configurations. The former suggests that states that can be deterred from launching a nuclear attack will be so deterred by even a minimal chance of second strike response. Jeff Lewis is squarely in the latter category, as am I. The cost of absorbing a nuclear response from even a small nuclear power is so high, even for continent-spanning states, that a nuclear offensive will appear virtually suicidal. France, for example, could easily have destroyed the industrial heart of the Soviet Union if the Soviets (who had presumptive superiority) had launched an attack, even excluding the likely response of the other nuclear powers.

The question continues to have some policy relevance. For example, the irritatingly stupid arguments about how we need the RRW (Reliable Replacement Warhead) program in order to make our deterrent capacity credible vanish if minimal deterrence is taken seriously. Similarly, if minimal deterrence holds then there's no need for the United Kingdom to pursue ridiculously expensive replacements for its Vanguard class nuclear ballistic missile submarines; the need to hide from Soviet attack submarines has vanished, and no conceivable aggressor will be more deterred by the submarines than by some other, much cheaper delivery system.

--Robert Farley

Why, asks Mike Riggs at Reason, should people not be allowed to carry nooses around on public property when we let KKK members and flag burners do their thing in public?

I'll tell you why. Because people shouldn't have to live in fear for their lives. A rally is a political statement,  a noose is a threat -- just the same as a brandished gun or a burning cross. What other meaning could it possibly have? Riggs claims that the laws that ban nooses when used for "intimidation" are ambiguous, but I don't see how they possibly could be. Outside of a museum or a play, a noose in public is an explicit and clear suggestion of the possibility of racist violence.

--Sam Boyd

The increasingly Christian right-dominated Iowa Republican Party has banned Sen. Charles Grassley from being a voting delegate at the Republican National Convention. The speculation -- first fueled by the  Washington Times -- is that they're freezing him out because of his investigation of televangelists. Grassley later denied that his own party retaliated against him, and pointed out that other members of Congress won't be voting delegates either, including Rep. Steve King, long a favorite of the religious right.

Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee, whose own victory in the Iowa caucus was due to the Christian right political machine in the state, spoke at the state party's convention this month. Kenneth Copeland, the most defiant of the televangelists under Grassley's microscope, hosted Huckabee on his television program and helped raise money for Huckabee's campaign. Curious.

--Sarah Posner

Calling EPI today, I learned that the federal minimum wage is going up tomorrow, all the way to $6.55, but it's not going up that much: 23 states and the District of Columbia already have higher mandated pay rates. The raise only affects about 40 percent of the workforce.

This is not a living wage. Especially given rising costs, the trend in the past years[PDF] has been for wages not to meet productivity increases, much less inflation -- both important indicators of income inequality. A person working full-time at minimum wage cannot afford a non-government subsidized two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the United States -- and most low-income people live in non-subsidized housing. While any raise in minimum wage is a good idea in the current economic climate, it's important to keep in mind that this number is not pegged to inflation and still leaves a family of two below the poverty line.

"Congress should definitely review what workers really need to get by," Mary Gable, an EPI policy analyst, told me.

-- Tim Fernholz

This sad story just couldn't get any more D.C. Robert Novak is driving a black corvette on K Street. He hits a pedestrian crossing the street in a crosswalk with a "walk" sign. And then he speeds away...until a vigilante cyclist, who also happens to be a partner at lobbying/law firm Harkins Cunningham, uses his bike to block Novak from evading the police!

Politico recalls that this isn't Novak's first -- um -- run-in with the consequences of aggressive driving:

In 2001, he cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th Street N.W., for allegedly jaywalking.

“’Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!’ Novak snapped before speeding away,” according to an item in The Washington Post’s Reliable Source column.

Novak explained to the paper: "He was crossing on the red light. I really hate jaywalkers. I despise them. Since I don't run the country, all I can do is yell at 'em. The other option is to run 'em over, but as a compassionate conservative, I would never do that."

Two years later, the same column reported that Novak had gone to a racing school in Florida.

"I've wanted to be a race car driver all my life, and anyone who has watched me drive can tell you that,” Novak said.

Wow. Somebody has a complex.

--Dana Goldstein

The news that John McCain doesn't understand even basic facts about the strategy around which he's conducting most of his campaign is obviously extremely important. First, CBS's judicious editing demonstrates the extent to which the media is still willing to cover for Maverick McStraightTalk. But more importantly, is also reminds us that Wes Clark was right. McCain's war heroism is admirable, and can even be seen as some sort of qualification for the presidency, but it most certainly does not constitute foreign policy expertise. In fact, McCain has both awful substantive views on foreign affairs and frequently has no idea what he's talking about. Given that he can barely even bother to pretend to know anything about domestic policy, this makes his case to be president exceedingly weak.

--Scott Lemieux

A WaPo editorial today characterizes Barack Obama's Iraq policy as "eccentric" -- not sure I've ever seen that word employed in political discourse before, so points for that -- but bases that judgment on two unusual criteria. One, that General Petraeus opposes a timetable; however, it's up to the Commander-in-Chief to set strategic goals. Two, and much less credibly, that "neither [do] Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy."

Huh? Despite the Bush Administration's attempts to walk back Prime Minister Maliki's statement on withdrawal (the clarifying statement the Post refers to came from U.S. Central Command), it's clear that Maliki is sticking by his position. Reporters have listened to the tape of the interview to confirm the translation, and Maliki's office received a transcript to approve before the article went to press. It's clear that the Iraqi government supports Obama's strategic withdrawal along a very similar timeline. One wonders what word the Post will use to categorize McCain's policy when someone asks him whether he'll stick by his pledge to leave when Iraqi leaders request it. Peculiar?

-- Tim Fernholz

FEMA initially wasted tens of millions of dollars when it tried to aid Katrina victims. But now we find out that that one unknown federal offical's second-grade math skills aren't good enough to get people the aid they need. What was supposed to be $85 million in aid turned out to only $18.5 million due to a mathematical error which counted a single item as being worth as much as multiple items contained in a package of goods. For instance, in a package of sporks, each spork was counted as its own package, which inflated the value from $36,000 to $36 million. Many of the items were being stored in warehouses, rather than being distributed. A joint Congressional hearing on Thursday will examine the details of the give-away. Mistakes happen. But this is the second time in just a few weeks that FEMA officials embarrassed themselves. Basic competence, and learning from mistakes, doesn’t seem like much to ask for.

--Abby Rapoport

This has to be a joke:

Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons could be deployed to Cuba in response to U.S. plans to install a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, a Russian newspaper reported Monday, citing an unnamed senior Russian air force official.

The report in Izvestia, which could not be confirmed, prompted memories of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the United States and the Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear war after Nikita Khrushchev put nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island. The weapons were eventually withdrawn in an apparent Soviet climb-down, but President John F. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.

A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry declined to comment on the report Monday, but did not deny it. Izvestia is often a forum for strategic leaks by Kremlin and other officials.

Via AG.

--Robert Farley

Some interesting stats, via Peggy Orenstein's Times Magazine essay on the normalization of assisted reproductive technologies over the last three decades:

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine has issued voluntary guidelines on the number of embryos doctors should transfer to help reduce the likelihood of multiples with their scary complications: prematurity, lung impairments, cerebral palsy. And death: twins are 6 times more likely and triplets 17 times more likely than singletons to die in infancy. Most reputable clinics observe the guidelines, but there’s always temptation to fudge. What if a couple has only enough money for one round of treatment and wants to be sure — really, really sure — that it works? Or a clinic’s success rates, which are posted on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control, begin to founder and need a boost to stay competitive? Such pressures may contribute to the high rate of I.V.F. multiples produced in this country. Only 1 percent to 2 percent of naturally conceived children are twins. Among I.V.F. babies, it’s 32 percent.

Fascinatingly, though, in Europe, where universal health coverage pays for the cost of fertility treatments, the rate of multiples born from IVF is just 5 percent -- a staggering difference. Opponents of government guaranteed health care like to argue that when the public sector is footing the bill, consumers overspend, paying for treatments they don't really need. This is a counterexample: Because Europeans know they will be covered if they seek a second or third implantation procedure, they don't take the risk of implanting 5 or 6 fertilized eggs during one procedure, which leads to those risky (and expensive) twin and triplet pregnancies.

--Dana Goldstein

• The Politico reports on the mounting number of gaffes John McCain has made on the campaign trail, observing, "Ironically, the errors have been concentrated in what should be his area of expertise: foreign affairs."
• The Trail reports that Bush bundlers have raised nearly $26 million for the McCain's presidential campaign, even while the presumptive Republican nominee has kept his distance from the unpopular president.
• Adding another level of uncertainty on the precise status of Phil Gramm in the McCain campaign, Steve Forbes, another McCain surrogate, admits to Larry Kudlow that Gramm's advice remains "critical" to the campaign.
• Latest McCain line on Barack Obama: "It seems to me that Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign." Marc Ambinder discovers a second instance of this new campaign meme on board the Straight Talk Express.
• Citizens United, a conservative non-profit group, is producing a documentary on Barack Obama set to air in October. Based on the previews, one doubts it will be flattering.
• The Boston Globe reports that Mitt Romney has written off the $45 million he loaned himself during his failed presidential run, and that by reclassifying the loans as contributions, it frees him to join a presidential ticket without the burden of settling personal debt. Hmm.
  
• Rasmussen has Barack Obama down 10 points (leaners included) in Ohio, 52-42, which is nearly the opposite of yesterday's PPP poll of the Buckeye State.
• David Plouffe is set to meet with the Democratic Congressional Caucus, according to the WSJ Washington Wire blog.
• And finally, J.P. Green has some thoughts on the impact of radio advertising to boost the Democrat's November GOTV drive.

--Mori Dinauer

Sarah Wildman has an excellent piece on the consequences of Bush's domestic and international commitment to abstinence-only ideology. It's worth remembering that restoring the "Global Gag Rule" was the first major action Bush took as president, underscoring the high priority the modern Republican Party puts on reactionary conceptions of gender and sexuality, with bad consequences for women both inside and outside of the United States. Wildman details these consequences, which are particularly dire for women in the worst circumstances:

By 2002 USAID had ended shipments of contraceptives to 16 developing nations in Africa and Asia as a direct consequence of the gag rule.

Instead of ending abortions, the global gag rule pushed women into back alleys and undermined, even closed, organisations that would have counselled women on how not to get pregnant in the first place. By diminishing access to contraception, it was actually laying the groundwork for unsafe abortions. The global gag rule didn't just gag healthcare providers about abortion. It gagged them on contraception and education. Since 2002, the Bush administration has also withheld funding - to the tune of $39.7m - from the United Nations Population Fund, claiming - despite evidence to the contrary - that UNFPA is connected to forced abortions in China. The shortfall from the US has also helped undermine the spread of contraception and education around the world, particularly in Africa.

And everything about his record suggests that John McCain would continue Bush's awful policies.

--Scott Lemieux

Ah, here it is -- one of the first attempts to charge that the infamous New Yorker cover actually depicts the truth about Barack Obama.

Conservative media darling Brigitte Gabriel, author of the book Why They Hate and founder of anti-Muslim organization The American Congress for Truth, tells the Christian right American Family Association's (AFA) news service that in the Muslim world, the cover is seen as an accurate portrayal of Obama, because the Muslim world views Obama as one of its own. I've seen Gabriel a couple of times at John Hagee's Christians United for Israel events, and she's carved out quite a niche for herself peddling the idea that her experience as a Lebanese Christian surviving that country's bloody civil war qualifies her to declare Islam a violent religion bent on destroying Western Civilization.

The AFA has Gabriel, the "expert" on Islam, connecting Obama to al Qaeda as well, although it's difficult to tell whether she is saying that the Muslim world links him to al Qaeda or that she believes it herself. No matter. The AFA has managed to put the phrase "Obama has been sponsored by al Qaida" in print:

As for the picture of Osama bin Laden on the wall, she continues, Obama has been sponsored by al Qaida. "Al Qaida wants Obama to be president. The terrorist organizations around the world want Obama to be president," Gabriel notes. Gabriel also contends that in the Muslim realm Obama is portrayed as someone who has no loyalty to the U.S., and someone who will defend the right to burn the American flag. She says she finds it ironic that so many people in America are offended by the magazine cover when it is actually how the Islamic world views the Democratic presidential candidate.

--Sarah Posner

Ezra is right to call out Jason Zengerle on this:

There's no denying that liberals who once derided Maliki as a Bush administration stooge are now touting him as the authentic and sovereign voice of the Iraqi people; but conservatives are doing their own flip-flop as well.

The McCain campaign just sent me a statement in which Barack Obama acknowledges that "there's no doubt that General Petraeus does not want a timetable," as though that recognition of the obvious means the jig is up. But it raises this important question: If John McCain knows nothing about the economy and most domestic issues but wants to be elected based on his foreign policy, which is apparently 'do whatever David Petraeus says,' why not have McCain do a surprise endorsement of Petraeus and drop out? It would certainly be easier than crafting a coherent foreign policy. It sounds like a campaign tactic that would be about as effective as the ideas laid out here.

--Tim Fernholz

Because blond-haired, blue-eyed, white males might lose out on a job to a Finnish dude. So says Ed in '08, the Bill Gates and Eli Broad-funded drive to make education a top priority in the presidential election, with a particular focus on how math and science education could bolster the economy. Here is the group's new commercial:

It should be crystal clear to most thinking people that the American children most in need of school reform aren't white kids standing on docks (like the boy in this commercial), but rather the rural and inner-city children whose schools have the fewest resources and who tend to be taught by the least qualified teachers. Putting that obvious point aside, does it make much sense to link school reform to the broader success of the American economy, as opposed to the abilities of individuals to get better-paying jobs and climb the socioeconomic ladder? Consider Larry Mishel and Richard Rothstein's "Schools as Scapegoats," an essay from last October's Prospect print edition. They demonstrate that past periods of strong American economic growth (such as the Internet boom of the 1990s) were largely divorced from changes in the skill-level of the workforce, writing:

Rising workforce skills can indeed make American firms more competitive. But better skills, while essential, are not the only source of productivity growth. The honesty of our capital markets, the accountability of our corporations, our fiscal-policy and currency management, our national investment in R&D and infrastructure, and the fair-play of the trading system (or its absence), also influence whether the U.S. economy reaps the gains of Americans' diligence and ingenuity. The singular obsession with schools deflects political attention from policy failures in those other realms.

But while adequate skills are an essential component of productivity growth, workforce skills cannot determine how the wealth created by national productivity is distributed.

That doesn't mean there isn't a moral imperative to fix public education now. Every day in a failing school is a day a child can't live up to his or her potential. But above all else, school reform should be about enriching kids -- not enriching our financial markets.

--Dana Goldstein

Conservatives are in a lather about The New York Times' decision not to print an op-ed by John McCain that attacks Barack Obama's Iraq policy. (Apparently the paper would have considered a different draft). Putting aside the quality of the op-ed, which in typical style attacks Obama without putting forth any definite policy, there's some irony in seeing conservatives complain about being kept out of the media after years of bashing the FCC's old Fairness Doctrine, which requires "broadcasters to present opposing viewpoints on controversial issues of public importance"

Conservatives argue (often with comparisons to communist states) that the doctrine, which hasn't been in effect since 1987, forced the state to mandate speech. It really just provides for reasonable discussion of views, but the Right demagogues the issue to raise money and keep Rush Limbaugh on the air unopposed.

But now that McCain can't get his stuff in the Times, it's a terrible moment for American media! The FCC's regulation wouldn't affect a print newspaper, obviously, but it's rank hypocrisy for McCain to complain that he's not getting a fair shot, especially when he is co-sponsoring legislation to permanently ban the Fairness Doctrine. Apparently, equal time is only a bad idea when liberal views are being silenced.

--Tim Fernholz

Free movie tickets for the homeless, as well as passes to local zoos and museums and a voter registration drive? C-SPAN playing on big screen TVs at homeless shelters? Sounds like part of a progressive fantasy about how cities should respond to homelessness -- short of actually providing housing, that is.

But the city we're talking about is Denver, and the outreach to the homeless will take place only during the week of the Democratic National Convention, when the city will experience record media attention and an influx of high-profile visitors. Some homeless people and their advocates believe the extra effort to provide activities for the homeless during the convention amounts to little more than an attempt to shunt unsightly signs of poverty out of the spotlight. The Rocky Mountain News reports:

"It just sounds like another way to get rid of them," said Kayne Coy, 17, who volunteers feeding the homeless twice a week at Civic Center Park through the Food Not Bombs organization.

As for the convention, Coy said: "I've heard rumors that all the homeless people are going to be sent away to Aurora or somewhere else."

[Colorado Coalition for the Homeless President John] Parvensky vigorously denied that there will any attempt to hide the homeless during convention, which runs Aug. 25-28.

Tight security around the Pepsi Center means some homeless people will get booted out of their regular camps along the South Platte River. Then, there's the protests and parades.

"A person who typically sits under a tree in a park that is now occupied by 1,000 protesters won't have the peace and quiet they're desiring," Parvensky said. "Particularly those with mental illness can't cope with crowds."

Parvensky is confident Denver police won't target homeless people unless a law is being broken. Aggressive panhandling and begging for money in front of an ATM machine are both banned.

--Dana Goldstein

Once again, a foray into the white papers that make our world go round.

• Better than First Class. In addition to tax breaks, the super-rich are getting discounts when the take private jets, according to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies. While a commercial flight pays $2,014 in taxes to fly from New York to Miami, a private jet only pays $236, despite incurring the same cost to air traffic control. The number of private jets has grown slowly but steadily over the past 30 years and according to this report will double in the next ten years. 
• Terror and charity. OMB Watch has a comprehensive paper detailing how counter-terror policies have led to civil rights violations in the charitable sphere: "Lack of basic due process rights and use of secret evidence mean there is no protection against unsubstantiated evidence, mistake, or abuse. Organizations are unable to present evidence to an independent review body or hire defense counsel with seized funds. Challenging a designation in federal court is also problematic because the courts do not rule on the merits of Treasury’s evidence." While this issue got a good deal of attention following Treasury's initial crackdown after 9/11, the problems continue to drag on.
• Economic growth for Africa. Last week we heard that the Cato Institute wanted to help Africa by withdrawing all G-8 fiscal aid. This week, the Heritage Foundation outlines a plan for the U.S. government to support African nations by expanding policies favorable to private foreign investment on the continent. The memo lauds the results of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) implemented in 2000. Recognizing Africa's continuing struggle with poverty, the report calls for more U.S. involvement and a possible free trade agreement when AGOA expires in 2015.
• New American Heartland? Brookings issues a fascinating report on the economic growth and transition of "Mountain Megas" in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. Urban centers in these states are growing into huge super-regions conducive to job growth and sustainability, as well as the development of new infrastructure. The report suggests its time for a "new federal-state-mega partnership" to help these growing population centers address climate change, immigration, transportation and other regional and national challenges.

-- TAP Staff

Previous Round-Ups: 7/14/2008

During the most awkwardly conceived exercise of Washington Post self-promotion in recent memory, ace national security reporter Dana Priest responded to a question on Iraq's importance in the 2008 elections:

Obama started out more radical and, as we have seen, is moving to the center. My bet would be that McCain drops his surge idea--too difficult to pull off right now--and both candidate will end up with positions that are even more similar. Iraq will become less and less of a major election issue as this happens (except the left will disown Obama as they have begun to do. But they have no where else to go (exception Nader, like I said) so it won't matter.

Priest has broken some huge stories as a reporter, but this kind of analysis is ridiculous. Almost nothing in that paragraph is right. This Broderian fantasy that Iraq will lose its importance as these two candidates end up with similar positions, flying in the face of all fact, is of a kind with most pundits' refusal to admit that Hillary Clinton's position on the Iraq war had a lot to do with her loss in the primaries. Unfortunately, it's really driving the narrative. Thank goodness for this.

--Tim Fernholz

• John McCain threw everything but the kitchen sink at Barack Obama and Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki in response to the latter's endorsement of Obama's timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, including the claim that the original Maliki statement was poorly translated. And in a new campaign ad, McCain blamed Obama for high gas prices, which is pretty incredible given that Obama has never had any control over such matters.
• The New York Times has a piece on McCain's transformation from marginal player to key dealmaker in the U.S. Senate.
• The Virginian Pilot reports that 18-25 years olds, a key Obama demographic, are registering at twice the rate of all other Virginians in 2008.
• Matt Drudge calls media bias, uncovering a McCain op-ed rejected by The New York Times for being little more than a thinly-veiled attack on Barack Obama.
• As Dana noted earlier, John McCain spent more in June than he took in. Politico discovers that $25 million of Obama's $52 million haul was raised in a single day.
• The Boston Globe reports on McCain's meeting with George H.W. Bush in Maine, and quotes McCain on Obama: "He's been completely wrong on the issue [the Iraq war]. ... I have been steadfast in my position."
• Public Policy Polling has Obama up over McCain by 8 points in Ohio [PDF], 48-40, the University of New Hampshire [PDF] has Obama ahead of McCain by three points in the Granite State, 46-43, and Democratic challenger Mark Begich is beating incumbent U.S. Senator Ted Stevens in Alaska by 9 points, 50-41, according to Rasmussen
• And finally, McCain warns of the "very hard struggle" along the very non-existent Iraq-Pakistan border.

--Mori Dinauer

Adam Liptak has an interesting article about the exclusionary rule and how the American use of the rule differs from other countries. He begins with a comparison to Canada, which requires that evidence obtained in an illegal search be excluded only if admitting the evidence would cause greater harm to the integrity of the justice system then excluding it would. On its face, this seems unexceptionable, but of course this kind of balancing test is only as good as the judge applying it. Interestingly, the case Liptak cites -- which involved the admission of cocaine found in a search the trial judge conceded was unconstitutional -- is not a very attractive one.

I could accept the Canadian rule if it developed in a way that gave deference to the state when it comes to violent offenses but almost always excluded evidence in cases such as The War On (Some Classes of People Who Use Some) Drugs, which have both a strong tendency toward promoting unconstitutional police behavior and whose social benefits are much less clear. It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court of Canada rules.

One puzzle I have with the article is that I'm not sure how meaningful it is to claim that Canada has "balancing" with respect to the exclusionary rule but the United States does not. As Liptak mentions towards the end, the Supreme Court has developed various exceptions to the exclusionary rule: inevitable discovery, "good faith," 2006's "no knock" exception. Perhaps the balancing in the United States is more tilted towards defendants, but I don't think that it makes much sense to discuss a "mandatory" American exclusionary rule; judges have plenty of tools to admit evidence they feel should be admitted. It's also highly unlikely that a judge's perception of whether excluding the evidence would affect the integrity of the justice system is irrelevant to her considerations about whether evidence should be excluded (or, for that matter, about whether a search is "reasonable"); it's just more explicit in the Canadian case.

I've discussed the question of whether a strong exclusionary rule makes sense before -- in the actually existing political circumstances of the United States, I favor it. One thing to add, though, is that American exceptionalism in terms of formal civil liberties has to be considered alongside American exceptionalism in terms of the harshness of punishment (both in terms of the time people convicted of various crimes spend in jail, how often they're convicted, and the economic and social consequences of having been in prison). It's hard to argue that the overall balance in the United States is excessively tilted in favor of the individual against the state.

--Scott Lemieux

Remember how last week, documents leaked to The New York Times showed that the Bush administration was attempting to redefine many contraceptive methods as abortion, thus making contraception much more difficult to access? Today Hillary Clinton steps out as the most outspoken elected opponent of the plan to date, publishing a statement at RH Reality Check. Clinton writes:

The regulations could even invalidate state laws that currently ensure access to contraception for many Americans. In fact, they describe New York and California's laws requiring prescription drug insurance plans to provide coverage for contraceptives as part of "the problem." These rules would even interfere with New York State law that ensures survivors of sexual assault and rape receive emergency contraception in hospital emergency rooms.

We've seen this kind of ideologically driven move from the Bush Administration before. Senator Patty Murray and I went toe to toe with the Bush Administration to demand a decision on Plan B by the FDA. We won that fight and we need to win this one too.

When I learned about these proposed rules, I immediately joined with Senator Murray to call on the Bush Administration to stop these dangerous plans. I am joining with New York family planning and healthcare advocates to spread the word. Now is the time to raise our voices.

Where is Obama on this issue? He hasn't yet responded to this lame duck lameness.

--Dana Goldstein

I appreciate that Jesse Singal took the time to respond to Courtney Martin's TAP Online piece about marriage today, but his response seems weak -- and privileged to boot. Let's take this one piece at a time.

Today Courtney Martin writes about how her gay friends’ enthusiasm for marriage has caused her to rethink her own aversion to the institution.

What am I to make of my commitment to not participate in a sexist, historically racist institution when my own gay friends are flocking to the coasts so they can join in the gift registry and the white-dress hoopla? Of course they deserve all the legal protections and economic benefits of a legalized marriage; according to the Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, there are over 1,400 state and federal rights guaranteed by marriage, while there are only 300 state benefits and no federal protection for civil unions. But do these rights really trump the woman-as-property history and discriminatory present (on a state by state basis, of course)? Why do so many of my gay friends have such faith that they can transform the institution when I’m still so unsure?

And Matthew Yglesias examines Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s endorsement of Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw troops from Iraq:

Politically, Maliki’s statement is devastating for John McCain, who has endorsed an American presence in Iraq for 100 years or more. And, further, McCain has repeatedly argued that any fixed timeline (or, indeed, any policy based on the idea of leaving Iraq to the Iraqis) would constitute a form of surrender.

But there is a larger problem for Obama’s critics — the Iraqi embrace of something like Obama’s schedule highlights the foolishness of condemning a 16-month timetable as arbitrary. The 16 month figure, of course, is somewhat arbitrary. But that is simply in the nature of any schedule — shift things around a month or a week or a day or an hour in one direction or another and it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference.

Subscribe to our