So Many Coincidences
Women's Voices Women's Votes has another "unfortunate coincidence" in the timing of its voter registration mailings, this time in West Virginia.
--Josh Marshall
That Didn't Take Long
McCain's convention chair gets tossed after Newsweek reported that he'd lobbied for the Burmese dictatorship.
McCain's pretty tight with a lot of lobbyists, isn't he?
--Josh Marshall
Guess That's A Bad Thing?
TPM Reader EW sent in this little snippet from that DOD document dump about the Times military analysts story ...
(ed.note: This would appear to be the post in question. And this is Dan Senor's WaPo Oped. Senor, you'll remember, originally didn't exist but (living out the old adage) was later created by critics of the administration's Iraq policy because of the felt need for a living caricature of the Bush White House political operatives and hacks sent to mismanage the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq.)
--Josh Marshall
Heckuva Job ...
McCain taps former lobbyist for Burmese dictatorship to run GOP convention.
(ed.note: For longtime TPMers, also note that Doug Goodyear is CEO of the DCI Group, the pioneering GOP astro-turf organizing outfit.)
--Josh Marshall
Top Line
LA Times/Bloomberg poll, conducted May 1-8:
Clinton 47, McCain 38, Undecided 11.Obama 46, McCain 40, Undecided 9.
Margin of error: +/-3%.
--David Kurtz
Clock Ticking for Vito?
WNBC reports:
Several top New York Republicans said that Congressman Vito Fossella's resignation will come within the next 72 hours -- if not late Friday then certainly by Monday.There was political concern about how best to preserve the seat for the Republicans -- questions about immediate resignation versus finishing out his term and retiring -- but the calculation is there's nothing to be gained from Fossella sticking around. While Staten Island Republicans believe Fossella could at least serve out his term (the rest of the year) national Republicans want him gone. Now.
--David Kurtz
Tea Leaf Reading
One of Hillary's most prominent independent backers -- the American Leadership Project -- is not spending any money on Tuesday's West Virginia primary. There's an ostensible reason for it: Hillary has a commanding lead in the polls, and Obama has all but conceded the state. But it will be interesting to see whether the indy groups who have been supporting Hillary continue to plow money into her race. We'll keep an eye out.
--David Kurtz
Beirut Blogging
A little bit of on-the-ground blogging from Beirut, where things today are still very much in flux.
Late Update: A reader points me to another Beirut blog.
--David Kurtz
We Hardly Know You Anymore
Add Joe Conason to the list of those dismayed by the direction of Hillary's campaign.
--David Kurtz
"Swimmingly"
The Vice President today, in a Mississippi radio interview with an obviously friendly host:
INTERVIEWER: . . . You know, I look at this, and every once in a while, we'll see a story, Mr. Vice President, things like an amusement park opens in Iraq or in Baghdad, which is totally counter to what we're hearing over here, as far as the marketplaces being open, the schools, and things such as that. But I saw a story several weeks ago about an amusement center maybe over there, and I'm thinking this is not what you get in today's media.VICE PRESIDENT: No, that's true. It's -- what gets covered obviously is bad news. That's -- you know, if everything is going swimmingly, then that's not news, so it doesn't get the kind of attention.
--David Kurtz
Hard Sell
TPM Election Central has posted the power point presentation distributed to House Democrats by the Clinton campaign making her case for why she is the better nominee to help Dems hold on to the toughest swing district seats in November.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
A second land swap deal takes a little more luster off the McCain myth.
--David Kurtz
Never Thought I'd Say It
How far off track is Hillary's campaign? It's so bad even Peggy Noonan is making sense, painful as that is to say.
--David Kurtz
Pretty Black and White
TPM Reader AB is having a hard time reconciling Hillary's remarks on Obama's support among working class whites:
It seems to me that every progressive voice in this country should be outraged - jumping up and down - shouting in print and word - to repudiate Hillary Clinton's remarks that Obama is having trouble winning over blue collar "white" voters... "white Americans"...It is a disgraceful, shameful tactic to justify her own non-candidacy. This is a remark I would expect from a politician from Mississippi or Louisiana - not from our New York State senator... I am outraged, I am deeply embarrassed that my children have heard this reported on the news...and I regret that have I ever gave her one hard earned nickel.
All the while she touts the glass ceiling as a woman but when her chips are down, the racism springs forth fully formed.
AB is right. Maybe it's general campaign fatigue, or the sense that the race is all but over now, but a month ago her remarks would have been a huge story, the dominant political story of the day.
The political press spent weeks trying to divine whether the Clinton camp was really attempting to cast Obama as the black candidate, a favorite son candidate of the African American community. The Clinton camp vehemently denied it then and even as recently as a few days ago Bill Clinton claimed it was the Obama camp playing the race card against him.
Race has been the subtext of much of Hillary's argument for her own electability. But now she's thrown it right out there in the open: Obama can't win because he's black. Vote for me instead.
You don't have to believe that Hillary's a racist (I don't) to conclude that a combination of the rigors of the campaign trail and her own powerful ambitions have clouded her judgment and curdled her spirit. It has certainly soured what had been a historic relationship between the Clintons and the black community.
Hers is not an appeal we'd tolerate from a Republican candidate, nor should we from a Democrat, no matter how sterling her progressive credentials might otherwise be.
There's been a lot of talk about the damage Hillary will do to the party by staying in the race this long. Perhaps she should consider the damage she's doing to herself.
--David Kurtz
Super-Duper Delegates
Our Election Central team has been tracking developments all day in the superdelegate primary. Obama has been working them especially hard, trying to use the momentum from his Tuesday showing to peel off a few more undecideds -- with mixed success. We've got the rundown here.
Late Update: Greg Sargent interviews Obama's chief superdelegate whip, Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL), about the state of play, and she makes a surprising assertion: Not only has Rev. Wright not posed a problem for superdelegates, but it's actually encouraged them to come out for Obama sooner. Surprising and counterintuitive. Count me as skeptical.
--David Kurtz
Dismissed Without Prejudice
The Senate Ethics Committee takes a pass on Sen. David Vitter's acknowledged use of the late DC Madam's services.
--David Kurtz
Rummy and His Sycophants
The Pentagon has now made public all the documents it turned over to the New York Times for the paper's blockbuster story a few weeks ago on the cozy relationship between the Pentagon and the ostensibly independent military analysts retained by the networks and cable news channels to provide on-air expertise.
Among the documents were audio files of some of the regular meetings between the analysts and then-Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, where egos were massaged and favor curried. We've pulled some of the highlights from those tapes and have then posted at TPMmuckraker.
Meanwhile, as the Politico reports, there has been deafening silence from the networks about their complicity in Rummy's domestic psy-ops campaign.
--David Kurtz
Judge: Turn Over Torture Evidence
Things not going so well for the prosecution in one of the Gitmo trials:
A military judge in the trial of Canadian captive Omar Khadr threatened Thursday to suspend the terror trial unless the prison camp releases a detailed log of Khadr's treatment in more than five years of detention as an alleged al Qaeda terrorist. ...His attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, wants the log in a pretrial effort to limit the scope of evidence given to a jury of U.S. military officers at his upcoming trial, expected in late summer. He argues the circumstances of some interrogations would exclude some of his statements from the trial.
Thursday morning, the military judge, Army Col. Peter E. Brownback III, agreed with the defense that it should get copies of the log entries from the prison camp's Detainee Information Management System, or DIMS.
Brownback is believed to be the first war court judge to threaten to ''abate'' the proceedings if the prison camp's command staff does not turn over the evidence.
Just goes to show how much difference an independent tribunal -- even one as flawed as this one -- can make.
--David Kurtz
Hillary In Private Call With Super-Dels: "I Know This Is Not Easy"
In a conference call Saturday with super-delegates, the former frontrunner assured her supporters, "Despite what some in the media are saying, this race is not over," and predicted that the party will unify in the end.
Hezbollah To Withdraw Fighters In Beirut
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- McAuliffe: Don't Alienate Clinton Voters
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- Rasmussen: GOP Sen. Dole In Dead Heat Against Dem
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- Boat Carrying Aid To Myanmar Sinks
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- Jenna Bush Gets Married In Low-Key Ceremony
- Government Says Sharpton Owes $1.5 Million In Back Taxes
- Military Adds More Armor to Mine-Resistant Vehicles as Roadside Bombs Surge
- Conservative Group Enlists Pastors to Defy IRS, Preach About Candidates
- Canadian Train Quarantined For Mysterious Illness; One Dead
- Citigroup Shedding Nearly $500 Billion in Assets
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