Before DK shows up, a couple quick thoughts on the new CNN poll. First, how’s this for a silly question.

The headline of the CNN article reads: “Americans foresee “more gridlock” in government if Democrats take over the House and/or the Senate after elections this fall, a CNN poll shows.”

How’d they come up with that …

Respondents were asked “next year, it is possible that the country will have a Republican president and a Democratic Congress. Do you think that is more likely to result in more cooperation between the two parties or more likely to result in more gridlock and stalemate in the government?”

Seventy percent expect “gridlock and stalemate” while 27 percent believe there would be “cooperation between the two parties.” Three percent had no opinion. Half the sample, or 502 people, was asked the gridlock question.

I don’t think I disagree with this. But isn’t this a textbook example of the question itself dictating the answer?

I mean, now Republicans control everything in Washington. Next year Democrats may control Congress and the Republicans the White House. Things will run just as smoothly? Or maybe we’ll get gridlock?

Are ya with me on this? Just seems like a silly exercise.

But further down there’s a very interesting number. And I think a pretty bad one for the GOP.

Fifty-seven percent of the respondents said they think it would be good for the country “if the Democrats in Congress were able to conduct official investigations into what the Bush administration has done in the past six years.” Forty-one percent said such probes would be bad for the country. Half of the sample was asked this question, also.

I’m actually pleasantly surprised at just how high that number is. A solid majority want a Democratic Congress to dig its teeth into real investigations of the administration.

The conventional wisdom usually has it that most voters don’t like bickering and investigations. They want to get things done, and all that. But this suggests that a clear majority of Americans realizes that what this country really needs to get done is get to the bottom of what’s happened to this country over the last half dozen years. It’s not a pretty picture.

Yep.

Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said “he would fire the next person” who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

Via Political Wire

Kevin Drum has more here.

I was beaten to the punch in lamenting the NYT story yesterday about Ned Lamont criticizing Joe Lieberman for criticizing Bill Clinton’s conduct with Monica Lewinksy. Tangential enough for you?

The initial NYT piece makes it clear that the paper steered its on-the-record dinner conversation with Lamont to the decade-old scandal. Who cares? It’s not as if Lamont is touring Connecticut talking about berets and cigars.

But the pathetic gotcha journalism continues today with–help us all–a follow-up story that Lamont actually praised Lieberman at the time for his criticisms of Clinton.

Isn’t this the sort of ginned-up news that was supposed to have been ushered out with Howell Raines?

Yesterday, we touched on the conservative evangelical credentials of the director of ABC’s 9/11 hackumentary. But Max Blumenthal has a rundown on the full scope of the right-wing apparatus behind the production and marketing of the miniseries:

A week later, ABC hosted LFF co-founder Murty and several other conservative operatives at an advance screening of The Path to 9/11. (While ABC provided 900 DVDs of the film to conservatives, Clinton administration officials and objective reviewers from mainstream outlets were denied them.) Murty returned with a glowing review for FrontPageMag that emphasized the film’s partisan nature. “‘The Path to 9/11’ is one of the best, most intelligent, most pro-American miniseries I’ve ever seen on TV, and conservatives should support it and promote it as vigorously as possible,” Murty wrote. As a result of the special access granted by ABC, Murty’s article was the first published review of The Path to 9/11, preceding those by the New York Times and LA Times by more than a week.

Murty followed her review with a blast email to conservative websites such as Liberty Post and Free Republic on September 1 urging their readers to throw their weight behind ABC’s mini-series. “Please do everything you can to spread the word about this excellent miniseries,” Murty wrote, “so that ‘The Path to 9/11’ gets the highest ratings possible when it airs on September 10 & 11! If this show gets huge ratings, then ABC will be more likely to produce pro-American movies and TV shows in the future!”

I figured ABC was mostly guilty of agreeing to air a boneheaded docudrama, but it’s starting to look like ABC was also complicit in a right-wing PR campaign.

You still don’t believe Social Security gets phased out next year if the GOP retains control of Congress? Then you definitely need to read this.

Widowed husband of former Disney exec who died on 9/11 writes Bob Iger, asks him to pull the 9/11 pseudo-doc.

In the earlier post about the NYT, Lamont and Lewinksy, I wrote: “Who cares? It’s not as if Lamont is touring Connecticut talking about berets and cigars.”

To which a TPM reader replies:

No. You’re missing this pretty badly (as did Drum). Lamont has been talking about this all spring and summer.

And this is a reporter doing a good job.

Lamont is being asked about it repeatedly because L’affair Lewinsky has long been a standard part of Lamont’s attack on Lieberman.

And since the Lamont camp has basically been repeatedly making a false charge, I don’t blame a reporter for wanting to pin the candidate down on the precise basis of the attacks.

If L’affair Lewinsky has been a standard Lamont attack on Lieberman, then I would be wrong to say the NYT was ginning up news on this. So, have berets and cigars been a part of the Lamont repertoire (I mean that figuratively, folks)? Shoot me the links, and I’ll eat some crow.

Late update: However, as a number of readers have pointed, the NYT‘s characterization of the email that Lamont sent Lieberman way back when does seem a tad misleading. You be the judge.

I have been particularly fascinated with the internecine war among Republicans being played out in the Rhode Island Senate race. Those who have been following along at TPM’s Election Central know the national GOP is spending a small fortune in the Republican primary to save incumbent Lincoln Chafee from a conservative challenger, the thinking being that the moderate Chafee stands a much better chance of winning the general election.

Especially striking has been how little coverage the race has gotten compared to the Democratic Primary in Connecticut, where the national party basically stayed out the way. You would think the GOP spending money in a tight election year to defeat a bona fide conservative candidate would get more attention.

For one, the GOP spending money against a pro-life Republican to shore up a pro-choice incumbent validates what religious conservatives have complained about for years: that the GOP only comes calling on Election Day. In this case, they’re being ignored on Election Day, too.

Earlier, I wrote that I was starting to think that ABC’s role in the “The Path to 9/11” was less about the network being boneheaded and more about it being complicit in a right-wing propaganda push. Says LA Times media critic Tim Rutten:

It is none of those things.

It’s an opportunistic and self-interested organization that somehow thought it could approach the most wrenching American tragedy since Pearl Harbor with the values that prevail among network television executives — the sort of ad hoc ethics that would make a streetwalker blush — and that nobody would mind.

TPM Reader BH checks in from New Zealand:

Just reading through the paper this morning in Christchurch, New Zealand, and I see that Channel 1 is planning to air “Path to 911” tonight. Thought everyone might be interested in the fact that this shameless propaganda isn’t limited to the states and has the potential to impact people (and history books) everywhere.

If I have my time zones correct, BH is reading the paper on Sunday morning New Zealand time.