John McCain’s persistent criticism of third party attack groups shows signs of hampering creation of GOP counterparts to the 2008 line-up of Democratic-leaning outside groups.

Dean Baker wonders why progressives aren’t screaming about the federal bailout of the financial services sector.

Hillary uses bin Laden image in last-minute Pennsylvania TV spot.

Collapsing real estate market makes it hard for Duke Cunningham briber to make bail.

There’s a very odd splash headline that Drudge is running claiming that Sen. Clinton’s internals show her with an 11 point lead in the state. Now, Sen. Clinton’s campaign has taken some heat during the campaign for opening lines of communications with Drudge and even giving him some exclusives. And the way Drudge writes the updates suggests he’s gotten the numbers from them, even including some trash-talking quotes from Clinton “insiders”.

But this strikes me as suspicious for two reasons, the first of which isn’t particularly determinative. First, this margin is high for the range of the polls out today. But it’s not that far off. So it’s certainly possible that it’s what the Clinton internals are showing. And it could well be true. The second reason is where the problem is. Even if you assume that the Clinton campaign is getting numbers that are making them confident of a good night tomorrow night, it simply makes no sense for them to broadcast the numbers like this.

Here’s why.

The game is heavily about expectations at this point. And the public polls are showing a fairly close race. Far better for the Clinton camp to keep expectations right there and surprise people with a low double-digit win. Switching expectations to 10 points, only to meet those expectations makes no sense, especially since Clinton started 6 weeks ago with a 15 or 20 point margin.

Given the improbability of the leak and the unreliability of the source, I think we need to consider whether this is a set up rather than a genuine leak.

Late Update: The Clinton campaign is adamantly denying the existence of any such internal poll — and accusing Drudge of trying to inflate expectations for Hillary in Pennsylvania. —gs

How much substanceless absurdity and ridiculousness can be squeezed into this campaign before Tuesday’s big Pennsylvania Primary? Watch everybody cram like crazy in today’s Sunday Show Roundup episode of TPMtv …

High-res version at Veracifier.com.

I must confess that I don’t get this new ‘can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen’ line from the Clinton campaign. This is supposed to be a dig at complaints from the Obama and his supporters about the questions from last week’s ABC debate. But didn’t Sen. Clinton’s camp spend like a month complaining that the press, particularly debate questioners were being harder on her than Obama? She even complained about it during one of the debates.

Matt makes his triumphant return to TPMCafe this week to blog about his new book, Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats.

In his first post, he tackles the question of what kind of foreign policy will emerge in the post-Bush era:

[A] surprisingly broad swathe of opponents of Bush-style foreign policy object to it on oddly narrow grounds. Neither Hillary Clinton, who of course voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq, nor Barack Obama, who did not, have been willing to disavow the underlying doctrinal concept of unilateral preventive war as a tool of non-proliferation policy.

Participating in the Book Club discussion: David Shorr of Democracy Arsenal, Bryan Katulis of the Center for American Progress, and Justin Logan of the Cato Institute.

Infamous GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone is taking another stab at taking credit for the downfall of disgraced former NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D). In an interview scheduled to run tonight on NY1 (basically a sort of mini-CNN that runs in NYC) he claims he found out about Spitzer’s activities from a ‘high price call girl’ he met at an adult club in Miami. Stone’s basically told this story back in March — and we reported to you on it in this extremely popular episode of TPMtv.

Now, funny Stone should come up again. Because a few nights ago I’m walking back from my gym along 6th avenue at around 10:30 PM or so. And who do I see walking toward me but Roger Stone. And not just Roger Stone, but fully in character. Livin’-large pin striped suit, some fuzzy stuff covering his head, big chunky cigar clamped between two fingers, holding forth to two strapping young men, one at each arm.

Here’s a video of the old Bill I used to know and love. In the present context, it plays as a decent gotcha video. But it actually makes me sad to see. I wonder if he can ever come back …