Bill Richardson campaign claims internal polls show he’s gaining in Iowa. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.

In case you missed it, Todd Gitlin started rounding up a posse last night to support Rahm Emanuel’s effort to cut off funds to Vice President Cheney unless he stops making absurd constitutional claims.

Get your hat and lasso and saddle up!

Today’s Must Read: The Washington Post‘s Dick Cheney, Part 3. Cheney finally finds an exertion of executive power he doesn’t like.

On the subject of safeguarding classified information, TPM Reader MF walks us down this memory lane …

That encrypted cable, intercepted and read by the United States, tipped off U.S. officials to the fact that Chalabi had betrayed the code-breaking operation, the U.S. officials said.

The U.S. sources said that, in the cable to Tehran, the Iranian official recounted how Chalabi had said that one of “them” – a reference to an American – had revealed the code-breaking operation, the officials said. The Iranian reported that Chalabi said the American had been drunk.

…

The account of Chalabi’s actions has been confirmed by several senior U.S. officials, who said the leak contributed to the White House decision to break with him.

The FBI has opened an espionage investigation seeking to determine exactly what information Chalabi turned over to the Iranians as well as who told Chalabi that the Iranian code had been broken, government officials said.

The inquiry, still in an early phase, is focused on a very small number of people who were close to Chalabi and also had access to the highly restricted information about the Iran code.

Via Andrew Sullivan’s site, I looked at this new article at TNR about a recent turn on the National Review cruise. It’s quite informative in as much as you may think you know how the hard redoubts of the American right have completely lost their collective mind. But, truly, you have no idea.

When we last checked in with ur-neocon Norman Podhoretz, he was suggesting that the British should have “bomb[ed] the Iranians to smithereens” for recently detaining that group of British sailors. It turns out that Podhoretz appears to be one of the growing number of ‘wingers for whom deepening denial of reality must be compensated for, in equal measure, by escalating genocidal fantasy. Here we join Podhoretz locking horns with fellow conservative luminary Bill Buckley …

He is a bristling gray ball of aggression, here to declare that the Iraq war has been “an amazing success.” He waves his fist and declaims, “There were WMD, and they were shipped to Syria. … This picture of a country in total chaos with no security is false. It has been a triumph. It couldn’t have gone better.” He wants more wars, and fast. He is “certain” Bush will bomb Iran, and “thank God” for that.

…

“Aren’t you embarrassed by the absence of these weapons?” Buckley snaps at Podhoretz. He has just explained that he supported the war reluctantly, because Dick Cheney convinced him Saddam Hussein had WMD primed to be fired. “No,” Podhoretz replies. “As I say, they were shipped to Syria. During Gulf war one, the entire Iraqi air force was hidden in the deserts in Iran.” He says he is “heartbroken” by this “rise of defeatism on the right.” He adds, apropos of nothing, “There was nobody better than Don Rumsfeld. This defeatist talk only contributes to the impression we are losing, when I think we’re winning.”

The audience cheers Podhoretz. The nuanced doubts of Bill Buckley leave them confused. Doesn’t he sound like the liberal media? Later, over dinner, a tablemate from Denver calls Buckley “a coward.” His wife nods and says, “Buckley’s an old man,” tapping her head with her finger to suggest dementia.

Nuanced?

It certainly was a hard blow when Rumsfeld left. No doubt about that. And I would probably be remiss if I didn’t mention that some of the other National Review writers noted in the piece do seem roughly in touch with the reality of the situation in Iraq, if reluctantly so.

Coming next, how far will conservatives go in aping the rightists of inter-war Germany (1918-39) in their efforts to duck responsibility for Iraq?

There’s been a lot of discussion of late about Vice President Cheney’s unwillingness to abide by the rules followed by the rest of the executive branch when it comes to safeguarding and handling classified material — particularly his claim that his office is, all appearances to the contrary, not part of the executive branch. And many have noted that the Libby case shows that the VP’s office has some serious deficiencies when it comes to handling classified data.

But this isn’t the only case.

It seems now largely to have been forgotten. But let’s not forget the case of Leandro Aragoncillo, the naturalized US citizen of Filipino descent who engaged in espionage on behalf of opposition leaders in his native country while working as a Marine security official in Vice President Cheney’s office. To the best of my knowledge this is the only known case of espionage taking place within the White House. And it happened in Cheney’s operation.

Perhaps even more revealing, Aragoncillo was originally tasked to the Veep’s office in 1999 when Vice President Gore was still in office. But he apparently only began snatching classified documents after Cheney showed up.

In any case, two observations. The first is that this isn’t a on-off affair. The Cheney OVP seems to have a serious issue safeguarding classified material — one so serious it has led to two felony convictions. So Bill Kristol may think it’s annoying to have government ‘bureaucrats’ checking on how classified material is being safeguarded. But the Cheney crew could really use the help.

Second, I think we see here a hint of a too-little noted pattern — the connected and mutually-reinforcing bonds of authoritarianism and incompetence. The Libby case (and the Plame case generally) is somewhat separate in that it was the intentional breaching of national security secrets. But is it a coincidence that the most paranoically secrecy obsessed office in the executive branch is the one that actually managed to have a spy working in its midst?

Sigh … Not lookin’ good for our old pal Rep. John Doolittle (R-Final Act)

From the AP …

California GOP Rep. John Doolittle’s former chief of staff is providing documents to federal prosecutors investigating Doolittle and his wife in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, the aide’s attorney told The Associated Press on Monday.

The aide, David Lopez, who was Doolittle’s longtime chief of staff until 2005 and continued to work for him as a campaign consultant for about a year after that, has turned over several hundred pages of campaign finance records to the Justice Department under subpoena, said his attorney, Bill Portanova.

Corporate CEOs swoon for Hillary, Obama. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.

Uh oh. Rudy’s new South Carolina campaign co-chair has a history of making, shall we say, “racially charged” remarks.

Trying to parse out Vice President Dick Cheney’s argument regarding exactly which branch of government his office falls under can be a taxing endeavor, even for a White House Press Secretary…