Squeaker
Looks like we still have a race on our hands. The special election down in Lousiana's 6th district had the Republican, Woody Jenkins, up relatively comfortably with about 45% of the vote counted. But it's now tightened substantially.
Watch the results in our scoreboard to the right.
10:46 PM ... Cazayoux sneaks ahead with 79% of precincts reporting. A 3 point margin.
10:48 PM ... Flips back to Jenkins.
10:49 PM ... with 99% reporting, Cazayoux back up. Looks like he took it.
Late Update: Here's DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen's release crowing about the win ...
"Congratulations to Don Cazayoux on his hard fought victory. Don's independence and commitment to putting middle class Louisianans first inspired people from across the political spectrum to support his fight for change."For the second time this cycle, Republicans were reminded that 'all politics is local.' House Republicans tried to nationalize this election, illegally coordinated with Freedom's Watch, used false and deceptive special interest smears, and funneled nearly a million dollars into a district that Republicans held for more than three decades. Don won by focusing on the concerns of LA-06 voters -- good paying jobs, affordable health care, and better education.
"Don Cazayoux will be a tremendous asset to our Democratic Caucus, as we continue fighting to strengthen our economy and ease the squeeze on America's struggling middle class families."
It's boilerplate. But this is a pretty amazing feat. This is a really, really red district.
--Josh Marshall
More on the Bucks for McCain's War Presence
Yesterday I noted how the long-term Social Security deficit which pundits commonly describe as a long-term fiscal crisis is projected not to cost that much more than the first 75 of John McCain's 100 years in Iraq. And to be clear, this is not factoring the costs of the present occupation out 75 years into the future. These are the cost estimates put together last year by the Congressional Budget Office for a South Korea model in Iraq, in other words, a much smaller number of troops remaining in the country with no actual hostilities.
So whether or not it's likely that Iraq is going to settle down into a situation like in South Korea, this is costing out precisely what McCain says he supports. Yesterday, I noted that even with the very conservative estimates the CBO used the price tag for 75 years came to $3 trillion. And that was compared to the Social Security deficit over the same period coming out to $4.7 trillion.
But that's not the end of the story.
Every year the Social Security Administration produces a series of estimates of the fiscal health of Social Security. And to the great chagrin of the major privatization supporters the forecast for Social Security has actually been getting better for about a decade.
Normally, I'm on top of when the new estimates come out. But I guess I've been otherwise occupied for the last few months. And TPM Reader BW writes in to note that since the 2007 estimates, which I used above, the long-term deficit has actually gone down again. Under the 2008 tabulation, the number is now down to $4.3 trillion.
So, cost of John McCain's long-term 'presence' in Iraq through 2085, $3 trillion. Social Security's predicted shortfall over the same period, $4.3 trillion.
But there's one other point worth noting, which BW raises. Each year, the SSA puts out optimistic, pessimistic and intermediate estimates for the program's long-term solvency. There's an long-standing debate about just how optimistic the optimistic scenarios are and whether the intermediate number is really the one that should serve as the baseline for political and policy discussions. But as BW notes, this year, under the optimistic or 'low-cost' scenario even in 2085 Social Security will still be running a small surplus.
In any case, this started as a comparison between two very distinct sets of numbers. But the take away is that even when understood precisely on John McCain's terms, the cost of his permanent 'presence' in Iraq is not that much less than the Social Security shoftfall, the budgetary consequences of which are supposed to threaten the bankruptcy of the entire nation.
--Josh Marshall
Bankrupt Our Kids
I'd also forgotten that back in September, when President Bush first rolled out the Korea model of the permanent occupation of Iraq which Sen. McCain (R) has now embraced as his platform, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office did a study of what a 50 year 'Korea model' presence in Iraq would cost.
The study was done with highly conservative estimates, figuring a much smaller contingent of troops, and basically all the best case scenario numbers, including everything being basically chill over there like McCain says it'll be.
They came up with an additional $2 trillion over 50 years.
Now, an interesting point of comparison is the projected shortfall in the Social Security budget, which is on the contrary tabulated on highly pessimistic assumption. That number over 75 years is projected at $4.7 trillion.
Now I hasten to add, again, that the Iraq numbers are highly optimistic and the Social Security ones highly pessimistic. If we do a simple back of the envelope calculation we get the 75 year cost of Iraq would be $3 trillion.
And remember that the Social Security number is the one that is supposed make the country curl up, collapsed in upon itself and supernova.
--Josh Marshall
Trickling In
The AP says that early voting patterns in Indiana look encouraging for Obama.
--Josh Marshall
A Marshmallow in Every Pot
Given how much money they're pouring into ads on it I'm thinking that the Clinton campaign must be seeing this gas tax holiday thing helping them a lot in Indiana -- even though virtually everybody agrees it's a bad idea that's basically a giveaway to the oil companies. Guess we'll see.
--Josh Marshall
The McCain Doctrine
Another TPM Reader chimes in ...
I haven't ever understood what context the famous 100 years sound bite is really lacking. When McCain is given a chance to provide the missing context it seems to me to boil down to, "I don't want you to picture it as staying in an Iraq like the present one, I like to picture it being easier and more fun."But if you look at each instance of the McCain 100 year boast, he is saying it to make the point that we mustn't leave the hard, deadly, actual Iraq. That's the whole context that he is, I think, being mercifully spared. The entire, nuanced version seems to me to be essentially this: There's no point to leave Iraq once we've turned it into Korea. (In fact, he says, it would likely prove a handy base.) But, furthermore, it is unconscionable to leave until then. So there exists in the McCain Doctrine, as I understand it, absolutely no level of violence, no level of stability, no turn of events under which he would advocate leaving.
For him to want to amend the 100 years sound bite by saying, "yeah, but picture it being much less awful" isn't really a substantive amendment when he means for us to stay in either event.
I'm going to try to put together a longer post on this for either tonight or tomorrow. But basically, it's not just all the horrible stuff going on in Iraq. It's the fact that McCain doesn't grasp that our weakening economic position is undermining our long-term national power -- not least our hard military power -- and that there are actual new great powers on the horizon that we're going to be dealing with in the coming decades. So pouring our national power and wealth down the drain to roust street gang jihadist in Basra just doesn't turn out to be such a hot idea. But he has Iraq myopia and he's McCain so he's absolutely sure that if we stick with this it'll get better and we may even eventually figure out a reason why we're there in the first place.
--Josh Marshall
Another Gas Tax Ad
Hillary launches a last-minute ad in Indiana declaring that her gas tax holiday would "save families $8 billion" -- "Barack Obama says that's just pennies."
--David Kurtz
Bill
From the AP ...
Former President Bill Clinton was in West Virginia on his wife's behalf. In Clarksburg, he called her a scrapper and contrasted her appeal among working-class voters with the elitists he said support Obama."The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it's by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules," he said. "In West Virginia and Arkansas, we know that when we see it."
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader NC ties together the threads ...
What should be noted about McCain's 100-year Scarlet Letter is the full context, beyond even the exchange in New Hampshire: He bet his nomination on Petraeus and improvement in Iraq. It worked. But now the myopic, hawkish bluster of "make it 100" (or "Bomb, Bomb Iran") that served him well in January is a doozy to deal with in the general. The vast majority of this country doesn't agree with him on Iraq and that is now paired with the momentary lapse in violence once again escalating. This isn't only an issue of McCain's careless word choice. It's about his painful shortcomings (and the Republican Party's) come November.
--Josh Marshall
Cry Me A River, Part II
There's a simple point behind the 100 years furor -- or perhaps I should say the 100 years GOP apoplexy. Now it's McCain and the Republicans who are adding words like 'fight' and 'war' and the like, which the ad does not use. But what's really driving them nuts is that all you really have to do is line up three words, or two words and a phrase. "Iraq" + "Stay" + "100 years". As Hillel might have said, all the rest is commentary. And as most voters would say, none of it really matters.
He said it. And more importantly, he means it. As Hertzberg aptly put it, "McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal--that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we'll stay."
--Josh Marshall
Cry Me A River
More complaining from John McCain about that DNC ad on his 100 years remarks. As I've argued here, the DNC ad is rigorously accurate. It quotes McCain saying just what he said.
Says McCain: "It's a direct falsification, and I'm sorry that political campaigns have to deteriorate in this fashion. Because there's legitimate differences between myself and Senator Obama and Senator Clinton on what we should do in Iraq."
Clearly, we need to keep things on the high road like calling your opponent the candidate of Hamas.
This seems to be the gloss that McCain believes the DNC should add to provide the proper context for his remarks: ""After we win the war in Iraq, and we are succeeding -- and it's long and hard and tough, with enormous sacrifices -- then I'm talking about a security arrangement that may or may not be the same kind of thing we had with Korea after the Korean war was over."
--Josh Marshall
War of Ideas
Greg Anrig, Jr.: It's time for Dems to press their advantage and make an aggressive case that conservative ideology has been an unqualified failure.
--David Kurtz
Worth Remembering
Deborah Jeane Palfrey's was the second suicide tied to the investigation and prosecution of Palfrey's escort service. Brandy Britton, a former sociology professor at the University of Maryland, who worked as an escort with Palfrey's service killed herself in January of last year shortly before her case went to trial.
--Josh Marshall
Game Changer
Hillary seems to suggest that as goes North Carolina, so goes the nomination.
--David Kurtz
Hillary on O'Reilly
If you missed the two-night Hillary-O'Reilly lovefest extravaganza (as I did, deliberately), we've got an easier-to-digest six-minute highlight reel just for you:
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
Mark your calendar: It appears that Cheney's Cheney -- David Addington -- has agreed to testify to the House Judiciary Committee next Tuesday, May 6.
--David Kurtz
Oil Company Holiday?
The Clinton-McCain-proposed gas tax holiday is being panned by economists for any number of reasons, but this one may be the most persuasive:
Economists have a different take: They say the oil companies may end up the biggest beneficiaries, while the aid to families wouldn't be enough to buy a $35 backpack.The trouble with the plan, they say, is that oil prices are rising because of low supplies, and companies will continue to charge the average $3.60 a gallon and just pocket the money that would have gone to federal taxes.
``That's $10 billion, and it's going into the pockets of oil refiners,'' said Leonard Burman of the Tax Policy Center in Washington. ``The last time I checked, they didn't need it.''
Supplies are ``being cleared at the current price,'' said Donald Parsons, an economics professor at George Washington University in Washington. ``If you take away the tax, you'll have the same number of consumers willing to buy the gas at the same total price.''
On one level this makes sense. If the market will bear $3.60/gal, then oil companies will seek to charge $3.60/gal. But doesn't it also suggest a broken market? What the market will bear is only half the equation. In a functioning market, shouldn't competition drive the price down to what it costs to produce a gallon of gas plus, ideally if you're a producer, some profit? If the gas tax holiday were enacted, prices should settle at a level equal to the current price minus the excise tax, all else being equal.
I have a little familiarity with the retail gasoline business, and it is an extremely competitive business. So market dysfunction would have to be further up the pipeline. Is the gasoline wholesale market as resistant to competitive pressures as these economists suggest?
Late Update: A number of readers of responded with additional analysis, and the key point I didn't mention is the inelasticity of supply, as explained by TPM Reader CS:
Is the gas market "broken" as you suggest? The short answer is no. You're right that competition generally drives prices down, but that only works to the extent more product can be produced.Where supplies are fixed -- and oil/gas supplies, for all intents and purposes, are -- it is the demand that determines price. One oil company could cut its gas prices, but it can't sell anymore gas than it already is (because it already sells all the gas it has), so purchasers would have no choice but to get the rest of their gas from someone else. This leaves oil companies with no incentive for lowering prices. If I'm already selling out all my inventory, and I can't make any more, lower prices cannot boost sales or take sales from someone else. All they can do is cut my profits.
Your model posits suppliers bidding against each other to sell gas. But with supplies fixed and limited, in effect what is happening is that buyers bid against each other to purchase gas.
Later Update: Some readers have chided me for a lack of knowledge of basic economics. So let me be clear: I wasn't in anyway disputing the economists above, but rather noting that the dynamic they described spoke to a problem larger than merely the gas tax and whether you suspend it for time. Lack of supply, barriers to entry, and other non-competitive features of the market are what I meant by the market being "broken." They all contribute to supply being fixed in the short-term (and arguably in the long term as well). They also set the conditions which make a gas tax holiday counterproductive.
Still Later Update: TPM Reader GC:
Please state Hillary's position on the Gas Tax Holiday correctly. While McCain's plan is a giveaway to big oil, Hillary's plan imposes a "windfall profit" tax on oil companies to make up for the lost tax revenue. So Hillary's plan breaks even. Instead of customers paying the tax, the oil companies pay the tax. The price of gas will stay the same.But the bigger story is what a superior job Hillary did in neutralizing McCain's announcement. Everyone knows this is just politics; this idea will never become law. So examine it on a political basis.
Imagine this issue came up in the general election and Obama is the Dem candidate. McCain and the Media echo chamber start asking the question, "Is McCain actually the campion of the little guy? Is Obama really an elitist who doesn't understand the pain of poor folks?" Then Obama spends many news cycles "explaining" why it's better to not cut the price of gas, it wouldn't make much difference in the price anyway, this is just a gimmick,... You know the rule: If you are explaining, you are losing!
Clinton is focused on becoming the next president. Obama is overly concerned about being correct. Remember, this will NEVER become law. It is a political stunt by McCain and Hillary had the best counter punch.
Setting aside the political arguments GC makes, is there any reason to think that a windfall profits tax wouldn't be passed on by the oil companies to consumers in prices at the pump? The fact that GC acknowledges pumps prices won't change seems to concede the point.
Final Update: Let me bring this extended thread to a conclusion with this response from TPM Reader RS to my suggestion that the market is broken:
Actually, I would disagree on that interpretation. What exactly do you mean by a "broken market?" . . .Barriers to entry often are viewed as something like patents or unfair competition or ... However, the most common and most important barrier to entry is simply the size of the fixed costs and in a more general sense the shape of the cost curves. ...
I would argue that the market is actually working as economists would argue that it's supposed to under current conditions. That doesn't mean that we'll have cheap oil any time soon or that oil companies won't have high profits, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the market is broken.
Another part of the story here is that there are a number of different albeit linked markets. You have the market for crude (which you could break down into different types if you wanted); then you have the refinery market; and finally you have the retail market. The worldwide increase in demand for crude is driving the price trend upward and I don't think that's going to change any time soon. ...
There are major barriers to entry in this market that simply cannot be overcome. Those that come right to mind: ownership of the essential materials - e.g. oil in the ground - and the costs of getting it out. I don't think this market is broken. It's just that we don't like the results.
--David Kurtz
The Mystery of the Supers
A few factoids have emerged in the last few days that shed new light on just what's up with the remaining undeclared superdelegates. One was the claim of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), an Obama supporter, that all the congressional superdelegates have actually already made up their minds. All that's up in the air is when different representatives and senators are going to announce publicly.
Added to that is the fact that Sen. Obama routinely seems to be able to roll out solid superdelegate endorsements in the face of bad news for his campaign. There've been rumors or chatter for some time that the Obama campaign has a few dozen superdelegates basically on ice, ready to roll out as needed to juice momentum or change the headlines in the face of bad news. They deny it, for whatever that's worth. And I've always found the theory a little difficult to completely credit since it's dangerous to leave a endorsing superdelegate unannounced. They're liable to go all wobbly on you at some point in the future if things don't go well. But as I said above, stuff like Andrew's announcement and the other reps Obama picked up earlier this week make me wonder.
But here's one issue that we've been hearing about recently that sheds a little more light on the question: money. No, nothing nefarious. But if you're out there running a competitive race yourself and you need to raise money (or think you'll need to do so in the future) the endorsement game is a dicey business. By definition, when you endorse one or the other you piss off roughly half the Democratic party -- or at least half the big funders, the people write and bundle the big checks. So that's really not productive. And it's a good reason to keep your powder dry.
--Josh Marshall
Looking Ahead
A pro-Obama union has ponied up $1.5 million for TV ads to begin softening up McCain in Ohio.
--David Kurtz
Malpractice
I really don't get what it is with the Clinton campaign sometimes. Getting Joe Andrew's super-delegate endorsement is a minor coup for the Obama campaign. It certainly gives them some help in Indiana. But he's hardly a household name. So why is it that when Howard Wolfson gets asked about Andrew's switching his endorsement from Clinton to Obama on MSNBC, he questions whether Andrews is really from Indiana.
Why go there?
Just take it on the chin and move on.
It's not that big of an endorsement. And why don't these guys realize that this kind of dingbat sniveling does far more damage than it gains. I really think these kinds of Penn-esque jibes have done far more damage to Sen. Clinton than these folks realize.
(ed.note: I'm sure I'll hear from Obama supporters on this one. My point is not to diminish Andrew's significance. And this certainly isn't a dig on him. What I'm saying is that this isn't like Obama being endorsed by someone like Gore where perhaps you'd think the Hillary team was so flummoxed that they were grasping for something to say. It's just the kind of thing where it's difficult to understand why the public response can't be, "Joe's a great guy. It's his decision. We've had three other big superdel endorsements in the last two days", whatever.)
Late Update: A few of you have written in to say, 'Well, obviously you don't see how big a deal Andrew is. Otherwise they wouldn't have reacted this way.' Actually, no, that's not it. The truth is that it doesn't matter how big a deal he is because this sort of nonsense only makes him look bigger. It's not a matter of him being a small-fry. It's about the fact that in some situations talking trash -- especially when the trash is transparent nonsense -- just makes you look stupid. In itself, it's not a felony in the press/communications law book. But it's silly and counterproductive and, as I've said, has done them much more harm than they realize.
--Josh Marshall
Bad Call
Board members for Women's Voices, Women Vote are defending the group, but not its North Carolina robocall campaign.
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: So Long, Lurita!
With the parade of stuttering, parsing and forgetting witnesses that the Bush administration has produced, it can be easy to take such performances for granted. But we'll never forget General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan. That's because when it came to testifying before Congress, Doan was something special.
We count the ways in today's episode of TPMtv...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Paul Kiel
Today's Must Read
Under the theory that if you give an inch Congress takes a mile, the Bush Administration cedes a nanometer on releasing DOJ legal memos on torture.
--David Kurtz
Irony Alert
The President has declared today "Law Day, U.S.A.":
The theme of this year's Law Day, "The Rule of Law: Foundation for Communities of Opportunity and Equity," recognizes the fundamental role that the rule of law plays in preserving liberty in our Nation and in all free societies.
--David Kurtz
What's The Matter With Kentucky?
George Packer, who's blogging now at The New Yorker website, has a post this week about Kentucky -- Inez, Kentucky, specifically, the small town where Lyndon Johnson announced the War on Poverty more than 40 years ago and where John McCain made a campaign stop last week. Packer's point is how Democrats can and cannot appeal to the working class and rural white voters we've been discussing so much for the last two months. But the background of the piece is just how readily many white Kentuckians admit that they simply won't vote for a black man for president.
"I've talked to people--a woman who was chair of county elections last year, she said she wouldn't vote for a black man," J.K. Patrick told Packer. And he won't either. "I really don't want an African-American as President ... I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That's my opinion. After 1964, you saw what the South did ... There's a lot of white people that just wouldn't vote for a colored person. Especially older people."
With frankness like this, it was probably no accident that it was Kentucky Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) who got in trouble two weeks ago for calling Obama "that boy" at a GOP party dinner in his home district -- a comment for which he later apologized.
And the pattern Packer is as observable statistically as it is anecdotally, where I've been noting it for a month or more. SurveyUSA has conducted three polls of the primary race in Kentucky over the last month. In each Hillary Clinton beats Obama by roughly a 2-1 margin. That in itself I do not think tells us that much on the topic of racialized voting. Each candidate has states where they greatly outpoll the other, though that is a steep margin. Where the contrast becomes stark is in the match ups against McCain.
Again, we need to rely exclusively on polls from SurveyUSA. Each sounding shows Clinton losing to John McCain. That's not surprising since Kentucky is a strongly Republican state, though in mid-April, the most recent poll, she was in a statistical tie with him -- 48%-46%. But while Clinton is competitive, McCain beats Obama by a 2 to 1 margins -- 63% to 29% in the poll taken last week. I don't know any state where either Democrat runs that much better than the other. And I think the conclusion that race is the primary factor in the difference is inescapable.
Kentucky itself isn't that big a deal since it will almost certainly go Republican in November. But it will be a big win for Clinton later this month. And you only need to look at a map to see that Kentucky makes up the southern border of Ohio and Indiana.
--Josh Marshall
Cease and Desist
The attorney general for North Carolina has stepped into the "Women's Voices Women Vote" robocall controversy.
--David Kurtz
Muck From Down Under
Not sure we can match this for muck ...
TROUBLED WA Opposition leader Troy Buswell has broken down in tears at a press conference and admitted he sniffed the chair of a female Liberal Party staffer.With tears in his eyes, Mr Buswell had to compose himself before telling the media in Mandurah this morning that his behaviour had been unacceptable.
Mr Buswell said he had repeatedly refused to deny the allegations because he wanted to protect the woman involved.
But he broke down after he was asked about the effect of the reports on his wife and children.
With tears in his eyes, Mr Buswell said he needed a short break, turned his back and then asked his press secretary to bring him a glass of water.
--Josh Marshall
Keystone (cops) Voter Registration
We're continuing to dig into what's going on with Women's Voices, Women Vote, the DC non-profit behind those suspicious robocalls in North Carolina. We've looked into the group's activities in other states and at least outside of North Carolina it's really difficult to figure out whether the group was up to no good or just mind-numbingly incompetent. Purportedly, WVWV's aim was to register unmarried women. But in state after state (Virginia, Arizona, Colorado, Wisconsin, et al.) the group's mailings spurred investigations or rebukes from state election authorities for sending people registration forms after the deadlines, or sending mailings that suggested recipients were legally required to return them signed, to just freaking people out. (For more details, see Facing South, which pulled all this information together.)
That's not a good record. And secretaries of state offices in states around the country seem to have been complaining for months. But in these other states at least it's not clear that WVWV is guilty of anything more than really heavy-handed mailers trying to sign up unmarried female voters, even if the recipients were sometimes married.
Setting aside the incidents in North Carolina, that we're still looking into, it seems like in the rest of the country the group was involved in legitimate voter-registration efforts for a targeted group even though they went about it in heavy-handed way and sometimes confused voters by failing to note key registration deadlines.
Late Update: Mike Lux, who's on the group's board, vouches for the group and Page Gardner, who runs the operation.
Even Later Update: Seems the group flubbed the deadline in Oregon too.
--Josh Marshall
Ring Ring Ring
TPMmuckraker's Paul Kiel has been on the phone digging into this story of an apparent voter-suppression effort down in North Carolina. Paul spoke to the spokeswoman for Women's Voices Women Vote, the group behind the calls. And you can see what he came up with here.
According to WVWV, it's basically just a misunderstanding. But we didn't get any good explanation as to why the calls did not identify the group placing them or why the calls identified themselves as coming from a "Lamont Williams." (Hear the call here.) At the moment, it's unclear whether such a person even exists, but the group's spokesperson said there is no person with that name affiliated with the group and could provide no other information.
See our report here.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: McCain's Yes, No, Maybe on Iraq
Behind the recent "100 years" brouhaha has been Sen. McCain's claim that we should be seeing our occupation of Iraq following the model of our long-term troop deployments in Germany, Japan and South Korea. But yesterday, the Huffington Post noted that McCain actually hasn't been consistent on this point either -- sometimes saying we need to leave soon and that Iraqis will never accept a permanent US presence and other times that he thinks they'll be fine with it and that he'd be happy staying for 100 or 1,000 years.
In today's episode of TPMtv, we go back to the TPM video archives to put the whole back and forth on the Korea model together. Let's go to the tape ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Josh Marshall
By Hook or By Crook
Does that group doing voter-suppression calls in North Carolina have ties to the Clinton campaign?
Late Update: I'm leaving this post up. But this was over-hasty and at least partly unfair. There appear to be several staff and board members in this group who are either big dollar donors to the Clinton campaign or associated with it in some fashion. But this doesn't amount to any Clinton campaign complicity in the group's activities. I should have been more clear on that.
--Josh Marshall
Porkers of a Feather?
Sen. Daniel Inouye (D) is headlining a fundraiser (sub.req.) for corruption-probe-hobbled Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (R).
--Josh Marshall
Moby Dick
The Vice President's office has been quietly doing its own research on ship collisions with whales in the North Atlantic in an effort to overrule government scientists seeking to restrict the speed of ships near American ports.
--David Kurtz
SuperDel Bingo
A flurry of superdelegate endorsements this morning:
Indiana Rep. Baron Hill and Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley each go for Obama.
Pennsylvania AFL-CIO president Bill George announces for Hillary.
--David Kurtz
Breaking: McCain Ups the Ante
It turns out that a hundred years in Iraq really is for wussies. TPM video czar Ben Craw has just dug up this January appearance in which Sen. McCain upped the ante to a million years in Iraq ...
--Josh Marshall
Cobol
Scot Paltrow has a new piece out for Portfolio on a Pentagon accounting system that is so antiquated that it is unauditable. This graf perhaps captures it best:
To enter the Indianapolis center is to pass through a time warp, to a place where the most critical software programs date from the dawn of the computer age. They run on old-style I.B.M. mainframes and rely on Cobol, the ancient Sumerian of computer languages. "This was a bunch of systems patched together," says Greg Bitz, a former director of the center. "I never went home at night without worrying about one of them crashing." Bitz predicts a crisis as older programmers retire. "Try to find somebody today who knows Cobol," he says.
Late Update: Who knew so many COBOL programmers read TPM? Here's a sample of the response, from TPM Reader MP, who is not a programmer per se, but it captures the reaction:
Just a comment re: the DoD COBOL item (I work in the IT industry):While I have no doubt that the Pentagon's IT systems and processes are awful, it's worth noting that the use of IBM mainframes and COBOL for core computing is by no means unique. The primary backend applications of nearly every major business run in these types of environments: think core banking systems, insurance claims processing, shipping logistics applications. As a coworker says, with only mild exaggeration, every "regular" PC and server could blow up one day, and it would be an inconvenience; if every IBM mainframe stopped working, the world would basically shut down.
--David Kurtz
I Gotta Be Me
McCain reintroduces Bush health care plan in effort to show he's his own man.
--Josh Marshall
Why Him?
Noam Schieber has an interesting take on why Obama chose Trinity United as his church and Jeremiah Wright as his pastor.
--Josh Marshall
Doan Done
I've seen plenty of people fired from the Bush administration. But I'm not sure I can remember one who sent out an (immediately leakable) email to her department announcing she'd been fired. But that's pretty much what the comically unethical chief GSA did tonight.
The first line of her email reads ...
Early this evening I was asked to submit my resignation, and I have just done so. It has been a great privilege to serve with all of you and to serve our nation and a great President.
Let's go through the list.
Had already been caught in numerous unethical acts which caused the administration great embarrassment? Check.
Firing comes Tuesday night to guarantee substantial mid-week press attention? Check.
Canned appointee miffed enough to act out and say she was fired? Check.
What's up?
--Josh Marshall
Holiday
In a new TV ad in Indiana, Hillary hits Obama for not supporting that model of reactive, politically expedient, election year tax policy: the federal gas tax holiday.
--David Kurtz
Another Solid Republican Candidate ...
From the Northwest Indiana Times ...
A congressional candidate is defending his speech to a group celebrating the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth, saying he appeared simply because he was asked.Tony Zirkle, who is seeking the Republican nomination in Indiana's 2nd District, stood in front of a painting of Hitler, next to people wearing swastika armbands and with a swastika flag in the background for the speech to the American National Socialist Workers Party in Chicago on Sunday.
"I'll speak before any group that invites me," Zirkle said Monday. "I've spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta."
...
The event was not the first time Zirkle has raised controversy on race issues. In March, Zirkle raised the idea of segregating races in separate states. Zirkle said Tuesday he's not advocating segregation, but said desegregation has been a failure.
--Josh Marshall
TPMCafe Book Club
I just got my copy of Arianna Huffington's new book Right is Wrong and I wanted to let you know that Arianna's going to be joining us in early June at the TPMCafe Book Club. So read up to be part of the discussion.
--Josh Marshall
Snake Oil
We go through the same routine every few years when oil prices rise. Republicans and their big oil benefactors assure us that opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas production will cure whatever ails us: dependence on foreign oil, high oil prices, soaring gasoline prices.
The drumbeat has started again as gasoline prices have pushed toward $4 per gallon. Here's the President in his Rose Garden press conference this morning, where he made ANWR the centerpiece of his political and policy arguments for our energy dilemma:
So in the interest of once again knocking down this bamboozlement, here's a decent Reuters rundown on why, independent of any environmental protection considerations, the President's arguments don't add up.
--David Kurtz
Obama on Wright
Here's the opening statement (joined slightly late) that Obama gave at his presser a little while ago in North Carolina:
We'll have the Q&A section of the press conference shortly . . .
Late Update: You can watch Wright's appearance yesterday at the National Press Club here.
--David Kurtz
NC in Motion
New SurveyUSA poll, Obama 49%, Clinton 44%.
The last SurveyUSA poll from April 22nd had a 9 point margin. 10 points on April 8th.
--Josh Marshall
Wright Redux
Obama may be addressing Rev. Wright again shortly, in a press conference in North Carolina.
Late Update: We'll have video shortly, but here's the key passage from Obama's opening statement at the presser:
The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church. They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Rev. Wright thinks that that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well I might not know him as well as I thought, either.
Later Update: Here's the video of the Obama presser. And here's what all the fuss is about: Wright's appearance yesterday at the National Press Club.
--David Kurtz
Don't Fence Me Out
Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) suggests running the border wall north of Brownsville.
--David Kurtz
Todd Gitlin: Wright is a clear and present danger to Obama's candidacy that Obama had better address.
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: In His Own Words
100 Years in Iraq? Yes, he really did say it. Again and again. We explain the whole story in today's episode of TPMtv ...
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
The former chief prosecutor at Gitmo testifies under oath that the military commission framework is a sham.
--David Kurtz
Winter (Spring, Summer and Fall) of Their Discontent
As I've mentioned before, one thing running TPM affords us is a barometer, a unique window into the collective minds of the different candidates' supporters. Those most apt to hit the panic button are often those most ready to hit the send button. So it's important not to over-interpret the evidence. But we do seem to have come to some sort crisis of confidence for a number of Obama supporters. It all seems to have come together in the last few days, even the last 48 hours. Certainly Pennsylvania has something do it with it; and I think Rev. Jeremiah Wright's new kick Obama in groin-athon is playing a big role too. Perhaps yesterday's SurveyUSA poll showing Obama still markedly behind in Indiana is somewhere in there as well. There's very little I've seen from this admittedly fragmentary sample that shows Obama supporters buying into the critique of Obama, more a sense of exhaustion and frustration or fear that he can't get the onslaught to stop or isn't responding to it vocally or forcefully enough.
--Josh Marshall
Bush Speaking at 10:30 AM
Is it just me, or does the rate of the president's press conferences seem to be increasing as he has less and less to say and fewer and fewer people to listen?
He's getting nostalgic?
We'll be watching.
--Josh Marshall
Hook, Line & Sinker
It seems the AP has fallen for the McCain campaign's and the RNC's effort to prevent anyone from using McCain's own words against him during the 2008 presidential campaign. As noted earlier, what the McCain campaign is pushing for here is a standard in which any negative ad targeting McCain must be delivered with the McCain camp's own spin included in order to be within bounds -- a standard few politicians, to say the least, have ever been granted. And even though the political press has been highly indulgent of the McCain campaign on this issue, I don't think I've seen any news organization so egregiously buy into McCain's false statements as the Associated Press.
The AP article lede reads: "The Republican National Committee demanded Monday that television networks stop running a television ad by the Democratic Party that falsely suggests John McCain wants a 100-year war in Iraq."
So, as you can see, the AP begins by stating as fact the McCain camp's claim that the ad is false. Then it actually directly misstates what the ad says.
As you'll remember, there was some jousting a few weeks back over whether it was accurate to say that McCain is willing to continue the 'war' in Iraq for 50 or 100 years. This is because McCain adds the caveat that it's fine with him because he thinks that the occupation will soon be like our longstanding presence in Germany, Japan and Korea in which we have a substantial troop presence but no soldiers dying in hostile action since the population and governments are content to have us there. So is it really 'war' or only 'occupation' or 'presence'?
The truth is that McCain's wishful thinking doesn't change the fact that he's saying he's happy to have US troops stay in Iraq essentially forever (a century, in political terms, is essentially forever), something very few Americans think makes any sense. But the ad doesn't even get into this question of definitions or McCain's special pleading about whether it's 'war' or 'occupation' or 'presence' or whatever. The ad literally just has McCain speaking in his own voice.
In case you haven't seen it, here's the ad ...
The ad begins with a questioner at a New Hampshire townhall saying to McCain, "President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years ... " McCain responds, "Maybe a 100." And then later, "That'd be fine with me." It doesn't get into 'war' or 'presence' or any of the second or third order spin. It just has McCain's own words. And not only does the RNC and the McCain campaign say that's false and unacceptable but the AP agrees it's unacceptable too.
If you have questions about the full context and the multiple times McCain made this pledge, I encourage you to watch this episode of TPMtv from earlier this month where we play the full video of his different statements with every word of context ...
The rub here is this: McCain does not want to leave Iraq. Period. He wants tens of thousands of troops to stay in Iraq permanently. He made a big point of this during the primaries when it was politically advantageous to do so. And he followed up with a qualifier explaining that it's okay because our occupation of Iraq will soon be like our presence in Germany and Japan where nobody gets killed. But there's little reason to believe our occupation of Iraq will ever be like that. We tried this in Lebanon; the French tried this in Algeria; the British even tried it in Iraq. Western countries have a very poor history garrisoning Muslim countries in the Middle East. Iraq isn't like Germany or Japan, not simply because of the history of the country but because both countries accepted decades-long US deployments as a counterweight to threatening neighbors. The relevant point is that McCain believes American troops should stay in Iraq permanently. His pipe dream about Iraq turning into Germany doesn't change that. It just shows his substitution of wishful thinking for sound strategic judgment.
If there is an unfair supposition at work here, there is a simple way to find out. Someone should ask McCain how long he's willing to have us stay in Iraq even if we are sustaining casualties. Since he believes it is in our strategic interests to stay there on a permanent basis I doubt very much he'll say that in that case he'd only be comfortable staying two or five or some other relatively short span of years. That is because he believe we should stay there on a permanent basis, ideally with no casualties but with casualties if that's what it takes. The New Yorker's Rick Hertzberg put it all quite elegantly back in January just after McCain started saying this. "McCain," he wrote, "wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal--that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we'll stay."
McCain's position is miles away from where the American people are on Iraq. It's no mystery why his campaign doesn't want the Democrats to be harping on this point. But the AP doesn't need to spin or fib on McCain's behalf.
Beyond all this there is still a simpler point. There is a way foreign policy questions are hashed out in quiet symposia and a way they are fought over in political campaigns. They are not the same. McCain and his surrogates are demanding something no one else gets: namely, the right to have their words repeated only in their fullest context and most generous, most amply spun interpretation. He wants his own set of rules, an election with a stacked deck. If the Democrats have any intention of winning this race, that's not something they can possibly accede to, or accept reporters going along with.
--Josh Marshall
Hillary polls better among independents against McCain than Obama does, according to the latest AP survey.
--David Kurtz
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
The pro-Hillary 527 -- American Leadership Project -- is putting $700,000 into a new Indiana TV ad targeting Obama on the economy.
--David Kurtz
Flubs Even the Small Facts
At the end of today's TPMtv Sunday show roundup episode, Howard Dean and Tim Russert are going back and forth about the DNC's McCain 100 years ad and after Dean's made his point, Russert comes back at Dean saying "and yet Sen. McCain is tied or beating both Clinton or Obama in most of the national polls."
The truth I think is that he's basically tied against both Democratic candidates. But 'basically' is just an issue of the margin of error. I could run you through all the most recent polls. But a good shorthand is simply to look at the composite numbers put together by Prof. Charles Franklin at pollster.com, which shows both Clinton and Obama slightly ahead of McCain.
It's a minor point. But false facts to spin an argument is always worth calling out.
--Josh Marshall
TPMCafe Book Club: Peter Scoblic
U.S. Versus Them: How a Half-Century of Conservatism Has Undermined America's Security, by Peter Scoblic, is up for discussion in this week's edition of the TPMCafe Book Club.
Scoblic kicks things off arguing that neo-conservativsm isn't an aberration, but an extension of basic manichean conservative foreign policy.
Jacob Heilbrunn, author of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, responds that Scoblic is too quick to exculpate the left for perpetuating American exceptionalism.
--David Kurtz