DEMOCRATS FOR DOUG FEITH. With 81 percent reporting for the PA-10, Dem Chris Carney is leading incumbent wife-beater (alleged!) Don Sherwood, 54-46. It was an uphill fight for Carney, a first-time candidate and Naval Reserve lieutenant commander, as the northeast Pennsylvania district is heavily conservative, thanks in large part to the decline in Democratic stronghold Scranton: a March trip I took to the district featured the charming homemade roadside sign, EITHER YOU SUPPORT THE TROOPS AND THEIR MISSION OR YOU SUPPORT THE TERRORISTS. So -- hey, CNN just called the race for Carney -- it wasn't an easy fight for Carney, who campaigned on a platform of pulling out troops from Iraq, despite Sherwood's scandals. Of course, one thing needs to be said: Carney is a veteran of the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, a precursor of the infamous Office of Special Plans, and when I interviewed him in March, he continued to maintain the malicious fiction that a connection existed between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Obviously, it's way, way too early to know what committee assignments Carney will get. But in a Democratic House, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will surely take a fresh look at pre-war intelligence, and to have a Democrat making the case for the "connection" will be bewildering -- to say nothing of what will happen if Carney himself will be investigated.
--Spencer Ackerman
