Today, Barack Obama said that when he goes to Iraq and meets with military commanders on the ground, he will use the information he learns as part of his continuing process of refining his policies. What he said wasn't anything new. He's always said we need to be as careful getting out as we were getting in -- but the important point is that he has consistently said we are getting out.

Nonetheless, Republicans predictably sought to portray Barack's comments as a flip-flop on Iraq. (Obviously, their goal is to drive a wedge between Obama and Democratic activists.) The GOP is merely parroting the McCain campaign, the original source of this meme.

The GOP spin is nonsense. Barack Obama has consistently supported ending the war in Iraq. He has not wavered, not one bit. There is no chance that he will change his position on it.

As for the question of how we withdraw (not whether), doesn't it make sense to listen to the commanders on the ground? Why should one be dogmatic about methods as opposed to goals?

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Update: The Obama campaign sent out some quotes of Barack Obama talking about this very issue in the past. The full list is after the jump, but here is one good example:

November 2007: Obama Said U.S. Has To Make Sure “We Are Not Just Willy-Nilly Removing Troops” And That It May “Take A Little Bit Longer” In Some Areas Where There Is Less Stability.  “According to all the reports, we should have been well along our way in getting the Iraqi security forces to be more functional. We then have another 16 months after that to adjust the withdrawal and make sure that we are withdrawing from those areas, based on advice from the military officers in the field, those places where we are secured, made progress and we’re not just willy-nilly removing troops, but we’re making a determination – in this region we see some stability. We’ve had cooperation from local tribal leaders and local officials, so we can afford to remove troops here. Here, we’ve still got problems, it’s going to take a little bit longer. Maybe those are the last areas to pull out.”  [New York Times, 11/1/07]

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A couple of days ago, Glenn Greenwald took Barack Obama to task for embracing "polices that are the precise antithesis of the values he espoused in the past" and for "promulgating toxic narratives" about the Democratic Party. Greenwald's litany and my responses:

*intervened in a Democratic Congressional primary to support one of the worst Bush-enabling Blue Dogs over a credible, progressive challenger;

RESPONSE: Like it or not, there's nothing inconsistent about Obama's endorsement of Barrow -- he's the party leader, and party leaders support their incumbents. Obama himself (along with most other Democratic senators) supported Lieberman in the 2006 primary. Similarly, Bush and the NRSC supported Lincoln Chafee in 2006 even though Chafee opposed most of the Bush Administration policies.

* announced his support for Bush's FISA bill, reversing himself completely on this issue;

RESPONSE: TPM today put together a timeline of Obama campaign statements on FISA. What struck me was that the two most clear-cut statements in opposition to to telecom immunity were not made by Obama himself, but rather his staff. The subsequent statements spotlighted by TPM indicated his opposition to telecom immunity, but then again, so to did the statement he released announcing his support for the compromise. The question, I think, is whether he personally promised to oppose or filibuster any bill that included telecom immunity no matter what. Such a statement might exist; I haven't seen it. That all being said, I accept the basic premise that this is something of a reversal for Obama, but more because of the logic of his positions than by actual statements that he has made.

* sided with the Scalia/Thomas faction in two highly charged Supreme Court decisions;

RESPONSE: This is at least half-silly. We can debate FISA, but you will never convince me that Obama would have been well-served to oppose the death penalty for the most violent child rapists. On the second amendment issue, though expressed support for the court's interpretation of the right to bear arms, his statement focused on the fact that regulation was still possible. Moreover, it's dishonest to note this without also noting Obama's support for the habeas decision (Greenwald does credit Obama for this, albeit later).

* repudiated Wesley Clark and embraced the patently false media narrative that Clark had "dishonored McCain's service" (and for the best commentary I've seen, by far, on the Clark matter, see this appropriately indignant piece by Iraq veteran Brandon Friedman);

RESPONSE: First, Greenwald's post came on Tuesday as the story was developing, so I'll cut him some slack. Still, before his post, Obama hadn't repudiated Clark; his spokesman had. Subsequent to the post, Obama managed to straddle the issue brilliantly -- I'd submit Obama has played the Clark comments as well as anyone could. He's gotten the best of both worlds.

* condemned MoveOn.org for its newspaper advertisement criticizing Gen. Petraeus;

RESPONSE: Barack's comments on MoveOn.org were 100% consistent with his prior statements. Moreover, it's unfair to attack him for this without also nothing that in the very same sentence that he criticized MoveOn.org, he also criticized those who have questioned the patriotism of Bush Administration critics.

In fact, I'm confident that Barack's position is the same as Greenwald's position: that patriotism should not be used as a political weapon.

Should Obama really have left this sentence out of the speech? Does Obama really want to imitate the IOKIYAR mentality?

* defended his own patriotism by impugning the patriotism of others, specifically those in what he described as the "the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties" for "attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself" and -- echoing Jeanne Kirkpatrick's 1984 RNC speech -- "blaming America for all that was wrong with the world";

RESPONSE: This reading of Obama's speech is both overly broad and overly narrow. It is too broad because he was not defending his own patriotism in the passage Greenwald quotes. (Greenwald is inferring that.) It is too narrow because Greenwald fails to note that the balance of that passage consisted of critiques of the right -- Obama did not single out the left.

* unveiled plans "to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and -- in a move sure to cause controversy . . . letting religious charities that receive federal funding consider religion in employment decisions," a move that could "invite a storm of protest from those who view such faith requirements as discrimination" -- something not even the Bush faith programs allowed.

RESPONSE: As Greenwald notes in an update, this was based on a flawed AP report. Any programs funded by Obama's proposal would comply with anti-discrimination laws. (Other non-federally funded programs in could use religion as a basis for hiring, which makes sense to me. When you're hiring a minister, isn't his or her faith an issue to consder?)

::: ::: :::

So here's my bottom line: with the exception of FISA, Greenwald's list is not very compelling.

And while I appreciate the efforts of those who are seeking to stop the new FISA bill, I do think there is a bit of FDS (FISA derangement syndrome) going on with relation to Obama.

He's just one vote, yet some folks aren't even thinking about Obama in terms of a legislative strategy. Rather, they want to take that one datapoint, and extrapolate a huge story from that one datapoint. Not surprisingly, one of the people doing this also happens to be a McCain campaign blogger. Can you say wedge?

Probably because I live here in Las Vegas (and tend to think of craps as the game degenerate poker pros play when they want to feed their gambling addiction), I missed what is probably for most people the biggest difference between Obama's $1-$3 poker games and McCain's high-stakes craps games: everybody plays low-stakes home poker games, not everybody plays craps in private rooms on the Las Vegas Strip.

In other words, it's a regular guy (Obama) vs. the out-of-touch elitist (McCain).

I live in Las Vegas so it shouldn't be a surprise that I've got nothing against gambling or those who gamble.

My game is poker, which I've played for years, and when I play, I play to win. I haven't played much over the last year or so, mostly because I've been more interested in the presidential campaign.

But I did find this article in Time about the Obama and McCain's gambling habits to be very interesting.

Obama, predictably, is a poker player in home games. McCain, as I've written about it in the past, is a craps player in casinos.

(Definitely check out my previous post, by the way, it's about how McCain played craps in 14-hour stints with gambling buddy who is now a lobbyist who helped get McCain to switch positions on the biggest land swap in Arizona history -- which benefited one of McCain's top contributors.)

Another way of putting this is that Obama is playing a game that he can beat over the long-run. (This is even easier because there is no house fee in home games.) McCain, on the other hand, is indulging in a game in which he has no hopes of winning.

Continue reading this blog entry »

Yesterday, I wrote about a story in which Barack Obama was visiting a group of kids and one of the kids held out his arm and asked Barack to sign his hand. Barack declined to sign the boy's hand, saying that he didn't want to get in trouble with the boy's mom for getting the boy's hand all marked up.

Barack had already been signing drawings and things -- everybody was happy including all the kids. Smiles all around.

Here's the video of that moment:

Somehow, an idiot reporter managed to turn this into a story about a fist-bump declined: "As he left, a boy tried to give him a fist bump. Obama said no."

The Washington Post was one of the publications to punk themselves by running the false report. So how do they correct themselves?

A Bump in the Fist Bump Story

By Jonathan Weisman
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- During Barack Obama's visit to a Christian social service organization in Appalachian Ohio yesterday, the presumptive Democratic nominee appeared to shy away from a fist bump proffered by an exuberant young boy.

But the Obama campaign is trying to beat back that narrative, filed in a pool report from the tour and widely picked up elsewhere. That's not how it was, campaign aides say -- and forget any notion that he was cowed by a Fox News broadcaster calling his famous fist bump with wife Michelle last month a "terrorist fist jab."

Turns out, according to a tape of the event, the boy was asking Obama to autograph his outstretched fist, not bump it, jab it, or anything else.

Here is the actual exchange, as reported by the campaign:

Is it really that hard for reporters to admit they screwed up? Why does it take them until the third graph to flatly assert what actually happened? And why in the foruth graph do they ad the "as reported by the campaign" disclaimer?

Yes, this is meaningless story. Which is exactly why it is so weird that the WaPo cannot admit it was wrong.

It's your dishonest media, hard at work.

Last September, Barack Obama voted to condemn the "Betray Us" attack on General David Petraeus, but over the past few days, FOX News hosts have repeatedly made the exact opposite claim. In today's report, I expose FOX's lies and set the record straight with video from the Senate floor.

YouTube link

H/T: Media Matters for the Rich Lowry video.

Today, we received news that the McCain campaign will exploit a loophole in the public finance system that allows him to raise up to $28,500 from individual contributors to be used in television advertisements from now through the November.

This confirms what both debrazza (a commenter here) and I have already said-- the McCain campaign will be substantially funded by private sources even though he has promised to limit his campaign spending to public funds.

The loophole works like this: the RNC establishes what it calls an "independent expenditure committee." (Don't be fooled by the name, there's nothing independent about it.) This expenditure committee is a subsidiary of the GOP and McCain can directly raise money for it -- up to $28,500 per individual. (He can also raise money for the senatorial and congressional committees, but those funds can't be used on behalf of his campaign.)

The expenditure committee can spend an unlimited amount of money on ads either for McCain or against Obama -- and of course, every last dime of the money will be privately raised.

The only restriction is that the campaign ads cannot be coordinated with the McCain campaign. This, however, is a meaningless restriction -- since the standards for coordination are relatively high, there is no practical way to enforce it the restriction, and any attempts to do so would be unlikely to have any impact until after the campaign was over.

As I noted over the weekend, factoring in the RNC and DNC, McCain has already outraised Barack Obama in both April and May, and as of May 31 was sitting on nearly twice as much cash-on-hand as Barack.

I'll have more to say about this soon, but for now I'll just leave you with this: I think this is the most significant development for McCain so far this campaign. It absolutely proves that Barack Obama does not have an advantage over John McCain when it comes to fundraising for the general election -- despite the myth to the contrary.

For those on our side who have grown complacent, and are behaving as if Barack Obama has already won, this should be a wake up call. This campaign isn't nearly over. It's just beginning.

Related side note: My friend Justin Nelson wrote an op-ed today for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the problems with the public finance system -- it's good reading to understand why the system is broken.

Also on a housekeeping note: Some of you you may have noticed, I have removed the "Stuff I should have blogged" links. That's just temporary -- they will return soon.

Barack signs a drawing for one of the kids

This is a real trifecta -- cute kids, Barack Obama at his charming best, and a seriously demented press corps.

It goes like this: Barack Obama is visiting an elementary school classroom in Ohio and as he prepares to leave, one of the kids in the class asks for a signature -- on his outstretched hand.

Barack breaks out a grin says that if he signs the hand, he'll get into trouble with with the boy's mom.

So instead of signing the boy's hand, Barack signs his name -- using a crayon -- on a drawing handed to him by the boy.

Everything is cute, everybody is happy, but here's how the poll reporter assigned to the event said it actually went down:

As he left, a boy tried to give him a fist bump. Obama said no.
“If I start that …” his voice trailed off.

Not. Even. Close.

And you can watch it for yourself.

H/T: TPM.

Update: ABC, not one known for it's pro-Obama coverage, notes the false report was reported as fact by several media outlets.

The biggest question I've had about McCain's new plane, the Straight Talk Express Lap Dog Express, is how he could afford it.

I know he's got the cash to pay for it now -- he actually outraised Barack Obama in both April and May (we don't know about June yet) -- but the problem is that unless he plans to abandon the plane before the convention, he's actually going to need to allocate the costs for its renovation to his general election campaign fund, which is theoretically limited to $84 million.

(In truth, the RNC can spend unlimited sums on his behalf, so this limitation is mostly meaningless if he breaks his promise to limit himself to public financing.)

John Kerry faced this problem in 2004. Last May, the FEC ordered the Kerry campaign to repay $1.3 million to the U.S. treasury for having exceeded spending limits imposed by the presidential public financing system, a decision which is currently under appeal.

FEC auditors found the campaign spent nearly $1.4 million more than federal rules allowed, primarily on customizing two planes and on payments to its media firm. ... The repayment includes more than $500,000 in labor costs associated with reconfiguring the Boeing 757 that jetted Kerry around the country and the Boeing 727 that carried Edwards. But those expenses could be the subject of a tussle between commissioners if the appeal by the Kerry-Edwards campaign results in an administrative hearing, as expected.

The campaign had sought to bill those labor costs to Kerry’s primary campaign committee, but the auditors invoked accounting rules known as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP, to argue the labor costs should be considered part of the cost of the planes – and thus should be charged to the general election campaign.

Weintraub and FEC Chairman Robert Lenhard, both Democrats, expressed a willingness to reconsider the labor costs, while two Republican commissioners seemed to agree with auditors.

From everything that I've learned about the new Lap Dog Express, it seems likely the costs will outstrip those incurred by the Kerry campaign.

In the end, I suspect that what will actually happen is that McCain will do whatever he darn well pleases -- even if he knows it's not in keeping with the rules -- and he'll beg for forgiveness later.

After all, it's okay if you're a Republican.

Yesterday, I noted that contrary to the views expressed by some, Barack Obama has been consistent on the MoveOn.org/Petraeus ad, voting to condemn it when it first appeared. But as I also noted, he didn't stop there -- he also made it clear that he felt the attacks on John Kerry's patriotism were every bit as vile.

But it's not just that some folks are falling for right-wing narratives about Obama, it's also that they are taking a selective view of campaign developments over the past few weeks.

Take, for example, the case of offshore drilling. Keep in mind that Barack's position is far less popular than John McCain's -- according to Rasmussen, 67% of voters nationwide support offshore drilling. In Florida, a poll released on June 30 showed that 59% of Floridians supported offshore drilling.

But Barack didn't shrink -- he went straight after McCain. No fear. No apology. It's something that I wish more folks would remember when they accuse Obama of bad behavior.

The docile MSM loves its new Straight Talk Express Lap Dog Express:

YouTube link

Presenting the true story of Phillip "Icky" Frye:

YouTube link

H/T: The Daily Show for archive footage and WV Public Radio's Scott Finn for his broadcast report.

Without naming names, Barack Obama yesterday criticized MoveOn.org for having accused David Petraeus of betrayal. (Edit: I fixed the typo in the spelling of "Petraeus" -- it was a classic, I had used a B instead of P.) Predictably, some were outraged, but lost in their fury was the fact that Barack had also criticized the Bush Administration for having challenged the patriotism of those who dissented from its war policies.

Here's what Barack said:

All too often our politics still seems trapped in these old, threadbare arguments – a fact most evident during our recent debates about the war in Iraq, when those who opposed administration policy were tagged by some as unpatriotic, and a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal.

Somehow, many on the left latched onto the final clause of that sentence and declared that it to be another Sista Souljah moment (as if there had already been a first).

The accusation fit their manufactured narrative that Barack Obama is spurning the base, but it just wasn't true.

Not only did they ignore Obama's clear denunciation of the right-wing's manipulation of patriotism -- including in the very sentence they crticized -- they also overlooked the plain truth that this has been Barack Obama's public position for quite some time, since at least September 20, 2007, to be exact.

On that day, Barack Obama cast a vote in favor of a resolution to "strongly condemn" not just the "unwarranted personal attack on General Petraeus" and but also the similarly scurrilous attacks on John Kerry and Max Cleland. Here's the text of the resolution that Barack supported:

Continue reading this blog entry »

Via Andrew Sullivan, Stephen Bainbridge debunks the fallacious argument that George W. Bush's GWOT has been a success because there hasn't been a terrorist attack in the seven years since 9/11.

That reminds me of a similar inconsistency in the case Joe Lieberman is making for a McCain presidency. On Sunday, Lieberman credited McCain with helping to keep America safe from terrorist attack since 9/11:

We're in a war against Islamist extremists who attacked us on 9/11. They've been trying to attack us many, many ways since then. We've been very fortunate as a result of 9/11 reform legislation, which Senator McCain championed; a lot of good work by people who work for our country that that hasn't happened.

Lieberman's argument is powerful, at least superficially, but in the very next breath he undercuts it dramatically, warning of an early 2009 terror attack (the White House echoed his warning the next day):

But we need a president who's ready to be commander in chief on day one. Senator McCain is. Incidentally, Senator Clinton said that over and over again, and she was right. She's ready--she was ready to be president on day one.

Why? Because our enemies will test the new president early. Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. Nine-eleven happened in the first year of the Bush administration. John McCain is ready to take the reins on January 20th, 2009. He doesn't need any training.

Here's what Lieberman is saying. (1) John McCain deserves credit that there hasn't been a terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 and (2) We need McCain as president because there will be a terrorist attack on U.S. soil in early 2009.

Obviously, these two arguments are incompatible. You can't have it both ways on terror. (Though I suppose you can try.)

I step away for a little while and when I return, I find that Jonah Goldberg has delivered me the following lovenote at The Corner:

Something called the Jed Report goes after me with moonbatty gusto for my USA Today column. You can judge the caliber of the guy from his writing and style yourself (I don't know anything about him beyond this sophomoric bile). But he says that I'm attacking Reagan because Reagan said "the exact same thing" as Obama.

Actually, just to be clear, I was saying that Jonah wasn't attacking Reagan, and that his (absolutely reasonable) failure to do so betrayed his (utterly unreasonable) attack on Obama.

Jonah rests his initial counter argument on Reagan's use of the word "again."

But the two quotes he uses aren't, you know, exact. Reagan was talking about making America "great again." In the quote I highlighted, Obama is talking about making America "great," full stop — as in we can make America great for the first time.

To which I might respond: art thou inferring too much?

But let's take him seriously for a second. Jonah says he rests his interpretation at least in part on Barack's nomination clincher speech in St. Paul:

For example, I note that Obama also said in his nomination-clincher speech that his victory marks the moment when America finally took care of the sick and the jobless — as if America never did these things before (and as if the government and the country are the same thing).

Okay, let's take a look at what Barack actually said in St. Paul:

Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes. And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again.

So it was for that band of patriots who declared in a Philadelphia hall the formation of a more perfect union; and for all those who gave on the fields of Gettysburg and Antietam their last full measure of devotion to save that same union. So it was for the Greatest Generation that conquered fear itself, and liberated a continent from tyranny, and made this country home to untold opportunity and prosperity. So it was for the workers who stood out on the picket lines; the women who shattered glass ceilings; the children who braved a Selma bridge for freedom's cause.So it has been for every generation that faced down the greatest challenges and the most improbable odds to leave their children a world that's better, and kinder, and more just.

And so it must be for us.

If that's what Jonah is trying hang his hat on, well, I think he's out of luck.

Ultimately, Jonah's defense for his column is that Reagan had different policy views (smaller gov't, bigger military) than Obama, and that's what makes him better. Fine -- then why not just say that, instead of dipping into the unpatriotic pool?

And as for my sophomoric bile, if you read this blog regularly you know I don't often mock someone as harshly as I mocked him. But I do reserve a special sort of scorn for those like Jonah Goldberg who are smart enough to know what they are doing when they challenge Barack Obama's patriotism.

And yes, there is some satisfaction to read Jonah's admission that "I feel like a fool responding to this yutz at all." Good -- I'm glad he's getting in touch with his inner self.