John Stauber weighs in on MoveOn.org: MoveOn’s accomplishments are good, but its limitations are becoming more and more glaring and, in the case of the continued Democratic funding of the war in Iraq, problematic.

CQ changes Alaska senate race rating from “toss-up” to “leans Dem.”

Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) becomes the first to disgorge Stevens-tainted contributions.

Who will follow?

My favorite part of the 2008 presidential campaign is watching normally sentient reporters tell me how John McCain is either reticent about talking about his POW experience, or ambivalent, or reluctant, or one of about a hundred other adjectives meant to tell me he doesn’t talk about it very much and doesn’t like doing so.

Five years as a POW involved a kind of suffering and terror I think very few of us can even comprehend. McCain has every right to talk about it constantly. But let’s get real. He does talk about it constantly.

Where to start? Probably half of John McCain’s ads contain photographs of either his time as a POW or his home-coming from Vietnam POW captivity. (That says quite a lot.) Those that don’t refer to it explicitly refer to it implicitly by referencing sacrifice, heroism, etc. He and his campaign frequently talk about his days as a POW. The candidate frequently makes pseudo-self-deprecating jokes in campaign appearances about his time as a POW.

Beside his 2000 presidential run, it’s been a very long time since McCain was in a competitive election race. And it’s not too much to say that McCain’s POW status — both in explicit telling and in implicit references — is the dominant theme of his entire campaign.

I understand why the campaign pushes this line: having McCain being ‘reluctant’ to talk about his heroism but then be a hero twice over by overcoming his reluctance to share the story with us is the ultimate spin twofer. But for the reporters, please don’t treat us like we have the intelligence of field mice by trying to dump this nonsense on us.

How ‘ambivalent‘ is John McCain about running on his POW record, as claimed by the Times. Check out this from December in the Post …

Most presidential campaigns warm up the crowd for their candidate with some pop music, some remarks by a local supporter, or instructions by a staffer on how to go about volunteering or getting to the polls on election day.

John McCain has the film. At many of his events, his campaign sets up a screen and plays for the crowd a three-minute film called “Service with Honor,” telling the story of McCain’s more than five years of captivity in a North Vietnamese prison after his Navy plan was shot down in 1967. As sonorous music plays in the background, McCain’s mother Roberta recounts her reaction on hearing of his capture, images of McCain in captivity are flashed on screen, and two fellow POW’s describe his comportment. “He was offered early release and he told ’em to shove it,” says one, Paul Galanti. “He has been there, he’s done that, he’s been miserable he’s been tortured, beaten to a pulp and yet he still comes up with that patented McCain smile.”

McCain himself concludes the film with these words: “The only reason I am here today is because I believe a higher being has a mission for me and my life.”

How does any reporter with an ounce of dignity get caught retailing this malarkey?

If you’re just catching up on the case of the first U.S. senator to face federal criminal charges since ABSCAM, we’ve got a handy dandy guide to the basic contours of Alaska muck.

Yglesias does a micro-bio on one of DC journalism’s rapidly-rising young bullshit artists.

It got some notice yesterday when Sen. McCain had what was described as a “mole-like” growth removed during a routine exam. Turns out to have been benign. This statement just out from the campaign …

“Senator McCain visited the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, yesterday for a routine check of his dermatological health. The biopsy that was performed did not show any evidence of skin cancer. No further treatment is necessary.”

A while back the McCain put a new rule in place that no one involved in their campaign could be a federal lobbyist or foreign agent. But CBS has an interview out with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis that appears to say that rule is no longer in effect. Asked how many lobbyists work on the campaign, Davis tells Katie Couric: “We don’t make it a litmus test for employment at the McCain campaign.”

The Obama camp is flogging this tonight. But how is this not a reversal of their rule?

From the Politico …

Before Ron Fournier returned to The Associated Press in March 2007, the veteran political reporter had another professional suitor: John McCain’s presidential campaign.

In October 2006, the McCain team approached Fournier about joining the fledgling operation, according to a source with knowledge of the talks. In the months that followed, said a source, Fournier spoke about the job possibility with members of McCain’s inner circle, including political aides Mark Salter, John Weaver and Rick Davis.

Salter, who remains a top McCain adviser, said in an e-mail to Politico that Fournier was considered for “a senior advisory role” in communications.