As we noted at Election Central yesterday, Newsweek‘s big cover story on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama mysteriously failed to contain any mention of a poll the mag had commissioned showing excellent numbers for Clinton. Rather than putting the numbers in the piece, the mag inexplicably put the poll out on the PR Newswire, ensuring that virtually all of the mag’s readers wouldn’t see it.
Now Camp Hillary is privately demanding an explanation from Newsweek‘s editors for the glaring omission.
That should do the trick. From the AP: “The Defense Department is thinking about a major buildup of U.S. Navy forces in the Gulf as a show of force against Iran, a senior defense official said Tuesday.”
Just for the sake of discussion.
Say we ‘surge’ up 30,000 or 50,000 troops into Baghdad. And then after 3 or 6 or 9 months, nothing has changed or, more likely, the security situation is even worse. If both those things happen, will we then be told that ramping back to the pre-surge levels is something we can’t do for fear of showing weakness to the enemy or admitting defeat?
In other words, is this a surge or a ratchet?
WaPo floats the friggin’ obvious in the ‘some people say’ package: “Despite that lead, conservative party strategists and activists in key primary states are skeptical and warn that the socially liberal Republican faces a difficult campaign. They question whether a Republican who has had one marriage end in annulment and another in divorce, and favors abortion rights, gun control and immigrant rights, has much retail appeal in the evangelical and deeply conservative reaches of the GOP.”
How quickly things change …
“Republicans do understand it is political suicide to keep this red-state, blue-state thing going any longer,” said Barry Wynn, former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and a recruit to Giuliani’s banner. “We need someone competitive in all 50 states.”
But, but, just those little islands of blue and so much red …
From TPM Reader I …
You are so right on about McCain’s erosion of support. Two years ago I probably would have chose McCain over Kerry, had he been running. I’m a straight ticket kinda Dem so it was huge for me to come to that decision. I respected the man. I’m ex-military and so McCain’s bravery and independence was absolutely appealing to me. I also appreciated his ability to work with his Democratic colleagues…he seemed a wise rebel and a real kind of patriot.
No so anymore. The very last straw for me was the “agreement” on Military Tribunals that McCain tried to front end. He bailed and obviated a principled position on an issue he should have owned. Cozying up to Bush was hard enough to bear. During the last Presidential campaign, McCain looked sleazy and weak during those “man-hugs” with the President.
As 08 evolves I’ll be, as you say, watching that slow disconnect and “lookin’ for a leader” (props to Neil Young).
Comedic highlight of the day: Donald Trump doing a symoblic laying on of hands to impart morality forgiveness/absolution to Miss USA pageant winner who did some underaged drinking.
Go forth and whore no more!
TPM Reader MD games out the Bush strategy …
It hit me the other day that what the surge is going to accomplish for Bush and Cheney is to take them through these next two years. By the time they can claim to have the extra troops in Bagdhad it’s gonna be May or June. They’ll be there a few months till everyone has to admit that it isn’t working (though in the interim I would predict the first really horrendous event in which our troops suffer a big loss, like 200 men in one blast), then it will be the end of 2007 and the argument will be about whether we should remove some of the surge troops. That will take a few months, at least, and we’ll be in the throes of a presidential election. Bush won’t want to do anything too “political” at that point, of course, so he’ll happily leave it to the new prez to make shitcakes out of shit. And Bush and Cheney will spin it for all it’s worth for the rest of their lives…
This is really a beaut. VA Congressman Virgil Goode (R-VA) tells his consituents that a new congressman holding his swearing in ceremony with a Koran is the first step to the USA getting overrun by Muslim hordes.
You’ll wanna see this one.