Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) is well on his way up the Kiel-Rood scale of corruption grief or whatever you want to call it (we call it the TPMmuckraker Political Scandal Process)…. He says he’s not a target of the investigation.

Question of the Day: Why are Bush and Rove so confident about November 7th? We’re discussing it in this thread.

Late Update: My vote? Falling for your own spin. So a mix of denial and bluff.

TPM Reader AM asks …

Does someone at the AP have it out for Harry Reid? Seems like they are pushing minor rule misinterpretations up to full scandal type stories. Is there a central figure behind this?

In a word, yes.

AP reporter John Solomon. We reported on this fairly extensively when Solomon first got cranking on this in June.

I know a number of people who know or have worked for Solomon. And I’ve never gotten the impression that Solomon has any political or ideological ax to grind. His rep is as an easy mark for oppo researchers peddling their wares — and from both sides.

Here’s what one former colleague of Solomon’s said last week: “I worked [X] years in the same office as Solomon, sometimes with him. The consensus: he’s lazy, and takes hit jobs handed him on a platter by opps research teams (and anyone will do.) And doesn’t do much to clean it up. I also know one of his fave and frequent sources is Barbara Comstock, former DOJ spxwoman and GOP attack dog.”

I’ve heard the same from numerous oppo researchers and journalists. (Here are some thoughts on legitimate and illegitimate ways journalists use material from oppo researchers.)

If you’re interested in finding out more about this, you might also look at this 2004 article in The Atlantic Monthly about how oppo researchers get their goods into articles. Look at the articles referenced and then go back and see the bylines.

On Reid, I think it’s a combination of two things. One, as I said, he’s an easy mark for oppo researchers peddling stuff that other journos didn’t think met the laugh test. And two, he hasn’t really landed a punch yet and Reid’s fought back. So now it’s a bit personal.

Sue, is that your final answer?

We referenced Rep. Sue Kelly’s blow-up at a editorial board debate in the district yesterday.

But look at this quote from Kelly in defending her tenure as chair of the Page Board between 1999 and 2001.

I was on the page board in 1999 and 2000. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that anything at all went on with the pages at that time. And as a matter of fact the evidence shows that mr. foley apparently began this in 2001 when I was no longer on the board.

Two points jump out at me here. One is that Kelly’s claim seems demonstrably false, in as much as she’s claiming that Mark Foley didn’t get into the page biz until 2001. But I believe there are reported instances of pages being warned about Foley prior to 2001, getting chatted up by Foley prior to 2001 and possibly even having sex with Foley prior to 2001.

Did all of this really disappear during the two year window of Kelly’s chairpersonship? It was known before. It was known after. Nothing ever came up during her time?

If you know of examples, let us know.

Remember the House intelligence committee’s investigation into the bribe-taking former lawmaker, Duke Cunningham? The panel finished its inquiry this summer, but sat on the results.

Today, the top Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (CA), released the executive summary. Check it out.

They’re not going down without a fight, no sir. Republicans hold the fundraising edge over their Democratic challengers in 41 out of the 60 most competitive House races.

The big winner in yesterday’s Lamont-Lieberman debate? Apparently, Alan Schlesinger.

Feel the Schlesingermentum.

This Times Herald article on the Weldon investigation says (emphasis added) …

After the Los Angeles Times first reported in 2004 on Weldon’s ties to Solutions clients, the congressman voluntarily provided the House Ethics Committee with the relevant documentation. He has refused to share that documentation with the Daily Times.

Weldon said Monday that the committee asked some follow-questions and eventually gave him a “written letter closing the case.” Asked if the letter cleared him of the current allegations, he responded: “I didn’t say clearing, I said closing the case. I’ll use their exact terminology.”

Weldon said he spoke to committee Chairman Doc Hastings on Sunday and Hastings said he “was not aware of any contact between the ethics committee and the Justice Department.”

So where’s the letter? Will Weldon release it?

Another update on Rep. Sue Kelly (R-NY).

In the debate we referenced below, when challenged on Foleygate, Kelly said: “There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that anything at all went on with the pages at that time. And as a matter of fact the evidence shows that mr. foley apparently began this in 2001 when I was no longer on the board.”

Kelly says she was chairwoman on the Page Board in 1999 and 2000, though Salley Collins, spokeswoman for the House Administration committee told a local paper Kelly’s service was from 1998 to 2000. (Not necessarily a significant difference, the cycle may have actually started when the new Congress was sworn in in 1999.)

But ABC News has reported that pages from the 1998, 200 and 2002 page classes have come forward to say they were hit on by Rep. Foley (R-FL). That is in addition to Tyson Vivyan, an ex-page who says he was approached in 1997 and other pages who report being warned about Foley as far back as 1995.

Also, retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) appears to have still been on the Page Board in 2000, when he was approached by a page who said he’d been sexually chatted up by Foley. Kolbe says he passed on word to the House Clerk, who is the fourth member of the Page Board. Kolbe’s spokesperson appears to have left open the possibility that this occurred in early 2001. But it seems probable that this occurred during the time that Kelly was chair.

Point being, there appear to be numerous points on which Kelly’s statement in the debate don’t square with the facts as they are currently known.

Wife of Rep. Sherwood (R-PA): I don’t like Chris Carney making a campaign issue out of my husband trying to choke his mistress.