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August 16, 2008

Kerry on the VP Shortlist? Really?

Reportedly, John Kerry is being considered as Obama's VP.

I'm not buying it. This has to be a series of headfakes from the Obama campaign, right? Creating media speculation on different options — one week of Bayh, one week of Biden, one week of Kerry — keeps people talking about the choice for almost month. And ultimately, they can find a better choice than any of those three, meaning that even if the actual choice is flawed, people will still say, "Whew. Better than the other options, anyway."

But pretty soon they're going to be the campaign that cried wolf.

August 15, 2008

Veep Pick Sneak Peaks Sunday?

Check out this line up. Among other interesting match ups on the Sunday talk shows, Virginia governor Tim Kaine and Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal are slated to appear on "Meet the Press." Kaine tells the Washington Post that he was asked to appear by the Obama campaign.

Michael Ledeen Leaves AEI

Neoconservative historian and writer Michael Ledeen has left the American Enterprise Institute, his intellectual base for almost two decades, Mother Jones has learned. The decision for Ledeen, a veteran of the Iran contra affair, and AEI to part ways "has been in the works for a while" an associate who confirmed the recent departure describes. (Ledeen is no longer listed among the think tank's scholars).

For those who follow foreign policy events at the think tank, one might have noticed that Ledeen has been absent for the most part from many of AEI's public events for the past several months. From afar, one sensed that Ledeen may be too controversial for AEI's other scholars to want him to be the public face of the think tank in particular on Iran issues, an observation the associate described as reasonable. (See this and this for background). Ledeen did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

And yet, while AEI's in house team of foreign policy hands (Frederick Kagan, Danielle Pletka, etc.) has noticeably restrained itself from as aggressively publicly promoting a military option on Iran as might be expected, still it is home to those such as former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton who says whatever he wants -- almost always predictably disparaging of a diplomatic solution to any crisis from North Korea to Iran. And as a longtime loyal home for many who were associated with the most hawkish positions of the Bush administration (Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, Lynn Cheney and formerly her husband), it's hard to imagine that it was any extreme ideological position which would have prompted the departure. And Ledeen was described as always a good fundraiser for the think tank. So his departure is somewhat perplexing.

Ledeen is not alone in being scarcer at the influential think tank of late. Former Reagan administration Pentagon official Richard Perle is often in France and rarely makes public appearances at AEI any more; but there's no talk of Perle leaving AEI, although his role there is largely "emeritus" the associate described. Ledeen is now the Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a small Washington think tank headed by former Republican National Committee spokesman Cliff May.

Update: Turns out Ledeen already mentioned the move from AEI to FDD at his own blog, Faster, Please!:

... I always thought it was stupid to go to Alaska in August. I love August in Washington, I adore hot and humid and so Washington is a dream come true for me. Plus, no Congress, which means much less traffic, and you can get tables in restaurants. Plus, I moved my office from AEI after twenty happy years, to Cliff May’s rising Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. It seems a good fit, it puts me in the same sandbox as Andy McCarthy and other terrific people, and I love the email address: michael(at)defenddemocracy.org I mean, that’s what I’m all about.

So I’ve been packing and unpacking and cleaning out my files, throwing out two decades’ worth of notes, urgent to-dos that ended up at the bottom of a pile, highlighted clips, you know. And finally it got done. Just in time to start a new book and sign up for a new parking lot. I’ll be a better blogger for it.

In noting this post on Ledeen's move, Steve Clemons offers a priceless anecdote about how you can never really leave any of these think tanks.

The Rooskies Are Out to Get Us!

I noted in an AFP story about how Obama's vacation hasn't hurt his poll numbers that "59 percent of Americans regard Russia's actions in Georgia as a threat to US national security."

Seriously? I'm shocked by this. We have the strongest military in the world, albeit a bit overstretched at the moment, and the fanciest weapons in the world. We don't need to be afraid of a bunch of thugs performing a ritual chest-beating by pushing around their neighbors.

Here are my potential explanations.

(1) A wide swath of people will always have some degree of fear of an aggressive other and when egged on by a leading poll question will say answer in the affirmative to a query like this one. In this explanation, over 50 percent of people would have answered in the affirmative in regards to a similar situation 20, 30, or 40 years ago.

(2) America is spooked. Eight years of terror warnings, supposedly imminent threats , unchecked terrorist watch lists, draconian security measures, ~~rouge~~ rogue nations getting or pursuing nuclear bombs, and stuff like this has turned us into a bunch of pusillanimous ninnies. We're jumping at shadows.

(3) Everyone or most everyone in the 59 percent mentioned above was born before 1980 and thus has strong memories of the Cold War. These people, unlike their younger countrymen, will always be distrustful of the Russians and ascribe devious but nonsensical motives to them.

If you were liberal arts student in college, you know the answer is some combination of (1), (2), and (3).

Also, I should add that Americans think lots of bizarre things. A poll from the late '90s showed that 65% of Americans think an alien spaceship crashed at Roswell in 1947. Further, 80% think the government is hiding knowledge of space aliens.

The Return of Foreclosure Phil

Phil Gramm, booted from the McCain campaign for calling struggling Americans a "nation of whiners" in a "mental recession," is back in the mix.

Reportedly, Gramm was seated in the front row of a McCain speech at the Aspen Institute. Gramm told the press, "I am a supporter of John McCain. I am helping him with fundraising. We have a fundraiser today and I will be with him today and tomorrow."

And John McCain responded, "Phil Gramm and I and Wendy (Gramm) and Cindy and I go back many, many years, and I’m always grateful to see my friend, Phil Gramm. Thank you, Phil, for all your friendship and support."

I think it's safe to say everyone has kissed and made up. That's only possible because the media, the McCain campaign, and the American public believed the problem with Gramm was a few intemperate remarks. But that's not true. Gramm believes in a radical form of economics that bulldozes the concerns, needs, and rights of everyday people in favor of corporate profits. He is, in large part, responsible for the foreclosure crisis facing America.

He doesn't need to be taking a few weeks off from the campaign. He needs to be taking a few years off from public life altogether.

John McCain Has More Odd Things to Say About Russia/Georgia

This Russia-Georgia conflict is really producing some weird comments from John McCain. You probably saw his statement that "In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations." Now he's saying this:

My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression.

I just don't know what is going on in John McCain's brain. The Iraq War is undoubtedly a crisis. It was a crisis for the military, which was underprepared for the fight, lost thousands of young men and women, and is now so spent it cannot address problems elsewhere in the world. It was a crisis here at home, because of how much money it cost the American people ($3 trillion, by one estimate). And it was a crisis of credibility. Black sites, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, rendition, warrantless wiretapping... Iraq and the greater war on terror has led to an implosion of our moral authority abroad. John McCain may not consider all that a crisis, but I sure do.

Oh, and PS — 9/11?

Oh, and PPS — McCain wants to throw Russia out of the G8. Take a moment to learn how insane that is.

The Campaign Goes Christian

The first joint appearance of the general election season is tomorrow night. You've probably heard nothing about it. You'll probably hear nothing about it.

Barack Obama and John McCain will both travel to Lake Forest, CA, tomorrow night for the Saddleback Civil Forum at Saddleback Church, one of America's preeminent megachurches. (Today is the last day of the Obama family's Hawaiian vacation.) The candidates will sit down with Rick Warren, Saddleback's pastor and the author of The Purpose-Driven Life, to talk about global poverty, HIV/AIDS, and climate change. The topics will be a welcome departure, from Obama's point of view, from the standard "values voters" issues of abortion and gay marriage.

The forum should be interesting for two reasons. First, it will be an opportunity to test my theory that Obama should do well in head-to-head events with McCain, and that, as such, regular town hall events would have been good for Obama, in contradiction to what the Obama camp apparently believes.

Second, the Christian demographic is very much in play in this election. John McCain is crushing Barack Obama among evangelicals, who seem to think that being a Democrat and being a respectable Christian are mutually exclusive. Last month's NBC/WSJ poll put the gap at 64%-24%. (In 2004, Bush won that demo 8-2 over Kerry.) But Obama is doing surprisingly well among other Christians. The Washington Post and the Washington Times report that young evangelicals, concerned about global poverty, social justice issues, and the health of the planet, are considering Obama seriously. This, despite the fact that they probably don't know Obama has introduced a bill to address global poverty and is one of the Senate's leaders on the issue.

Furthermore, the Barna Group, a Christian research group, recently found that of the 19 "faith segments" it polled, only evangelicals lean toward McCain. Non-evangelical born-again Christians lean Obama 43% to 31% — if those numbers hold, it will be the first time in two decades the born-again vote has gone to the Democrat. "Notional Christians," folks who consider themselves Christians but are not born again, favor Obama by an even wider margin, 44% to 28%. Obama also wins non-Christians, atheists, and agnostics. This represents a massive opportunity for Obama.

An additional factor: John McCain is unwilling to talk about his faith publicly, is less vocally pro-life than President Bush, and supports stem cell research, all factors that could depress evangelical turnout. McCain may own evangelicals as a religious group, but they may be smaller this year than in the past.

But let's be frank. Who wins which religious group is unlikely to be affected by Saturday evening's forum. It's a Saturday after all, meaning that even the day-after coverage won't leak into the work week. And the Olympics are on, with Michael Phelps' quest for a record eight gold medals culminating on Saturday night. How much oxygen will there be left over for a forum on religion, AIDS, and global poverty? Not much, I suspect. It may take a gaffe, a lie, or a heated argument to really make news at Saddleback.

August 14, 2008

Troops Abroad Give to Obama 6:1

Interesting...

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.

Despite McCain's status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall -- whether stationed overseas or at home -- are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008, by a $55,000 margin. Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel has gone to Republicans this cycle, of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama.

It's a relatively small sample size, for what it's worth: 134 members of the armed services deployed abroad have given to Obama, to the tune of $60,642. And just 26 members of the armed services deployed abroad have given to McCain, for a total of $10,665. Ron Paul's numbers fall roughly halfway in between. That's a stunningly low number for McCain, isn't it?

Oh, and I should point out that this isn't new.

Why is HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt Blogging About Abortion?

I can't decide which end of the latest abortion kerfuffle is more inappropriate:

The US Department of Health and Human Services's ill-fated (I hope) attempt to redefine birth control as abortion,

OR,

the fact that HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt is blogging about it on my dime:

"I'm delighted to announce that with the help of Planned Parenthood, my blog—for the first time—received more visits than my teenage son's MySpace page. Perhaps I'll address the subject of physician conscience one more time."

Tough call. Either way, I want my tax dollars back.

Read more about the Medical Right's latest volley in the choice wars here, here, and here.

Partition in Iraq: A Serious Problem With Biden as VP?

The chattering classes are buzzing with the possibility of Barack Obama choosing Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), the six-term Senate veteran and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as his running mate. While the consensus seems to be that Biden would be a safe pick because of his foreign policy credentials and his long history of accomplishment, the question of whether or not he still supports the Biden Plan, a proposal for the partition of Iraq that was the centerpiece of Biden's presidential campaign and is at odds with Obama's withdrawal plan, is a potential stumbling block for the campaign.

When Biden, who initially supported the war, was running for president, he repeatedly insisted he was the only candidate with a workable plan for ending it. His campaign created a video, featured in the YouTube debate, that said, "Joe Biden is the only one with the experience and the plan to end this war responsibly so our children don't have to go back."

That plan was widely seen as calling for the partition of Iraq. It read, in part, "The United States should actively support a political settlement in Iraq based on the final provisions of the Constitution that create a federal system of government and allow for the creation of federal regions, consistent with the wishes of the Iraqi people and their leaders." Despite Biden's occasional objections, that wording was read by other politicians and the media as calling for the division of Iraq into three regions, one for Sunnis, one for Shiites, and one for Kurds. For that perception, Biden has himself to blame. An op-ed Biden wrote in 2006 described his plan this way:

The idea, as in Bosnia, is to maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group -- Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab -- room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests....

The first [point of the plan] is to establish three largely autonomous regions with a viable central government in Baghdad. The Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions would each be responsible for their own domestic laws, administration and internal security. The central government would control border defense, foreign affairs and oil revenues.

The Biden Plan, as it was called, proved remarkably popular in the Senate — in September 2007 it faced a Senate vote and passed with the support of 75 senators, including 26 Republicans. The non-binding measure did not compel the President to act, only expressed the will of the Senate. Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd voted with Biden; Obama and McCain did not vote at all.

The problem? Partition does not figure into Obama's Iraq plan, which calls for withdrawing one or two brigades a month until all have been removed in 16 months. Under his plan, a residual force would remain "to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions against al Qaeda in Iraq and to protect American diplomatic and civilian personnel." A diplomatic effort bringing together all of Iraq's neighbors would seek to maintain stability in the region. Partition is not mentioned. Obama was ambivalent about the Biden Plan in the primaries before Biden dropped out, suggesting that any partition plan originating in the US would be viewed with suspicious by the Iraqis.

In a July 2007 town hall event, Obama said, "[Partition] may end up being the best solution, but here's the thing. We can't impose it on the Iraqis. The Iraqis have to make the decision themselves…. If the Iraqi government believes that it can form a unified government they should do that. If they want a soft partition, they should do that. If they want us simply to leave, we can do that too. But they have to make a series of decisions."

Biden seems to understands the conflict this situation could create. Speeches he gave on the Senate floor before his plan was put to a vote in September 2007 are not available on his website. The portion of the "Issues" page of Biden's website devoted to Iraq acknowledges that the plan existed and was approved by the Senate, but makes no mention of partition along sectarian lines. Biden's office did not immediately respond to questions about whether the senator still supports a partition approach. I will update this story if and when I hear back.

Evan Bayh, a Democratic senator from Indiana and the last VP option to experience a boomlet of expectations, was seen by many on the Left as an impermissible choice for Obama's VP because he choose the wrong position on the Iraq War — he supported it when Obama didn't. Biden seems to have the same problem and then some. He disagreed with Obama on going in, and may disagree with Obama on how to get out.

Update: Biden's office confirms that Biden still supports the plan outlined in the New York Times op-ed. They refuse to use the word "partition," however. If you like, you can read the op-ed and judge for yourself.

End of War!

On this day in 1945, Japan surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II. The original New York Times article from that day, available here, contains this interesting tidbit about the events of that day:

The Navy canceled nearly $6,000,000,000 of prime contracts.

That's $6 billion. In 1945 dollars. ($72 billion in today's dollars, according to this site.) Will there ever be an August 14, 1945 for the "War on Terror"?

Social Security: Message of the Day!!!

I've received ~~five~~ ~~six~~ ~~seven~~ eight emails from the DNC and the Obama campaign since 11:00 pm last night about Social Security. Most of them attack John McCain.

"DNC Releases New Web Ad Highlighting the Threat John McCain Poses to Social Security."

"MCCAIN WATCH: SAME-AS-BUSH PLAN TO PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY."

And so on. McCain has suggested in the past that he supports private savings accounts, but he has always fudged on what they would look like and whether or not they would mirror exactly the ones in the controversial plan President Bush pushed several years back. Moreover, McCain has called the basic funding mechanism of Social Security a "disgrace," meaning he doesn't philosophically agree with the program or doesn't understand how it works. The Democrats are right to hit him for all of that.

But there's a distinctly lame feel to the Democrats excitement here — You're not supposed to talk about Social Security in campaigns because it pisses people off! McCain is talking about it! Let's nail him! You can't claim the guy is a fake maverick and then attack him when he talks out of school.

August 13, 2008

So Much for McCain's No-Lobbyist Policy

John McCain's declared policy of not having lobbyists as part of his campaign team has always been full of holes and contradictions. But the fact that his top foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann arranged a phone call between his longtime lobbying client, the Georgian president, and the Republican presidential candidate on the same day that Scheunemann's lobbying company Orion Strategies signed a $200,000 lobbying renewal contract with the country really takes the cake for conflict of interest. With the Caucasian nation's territorial integrity in jeopardy after five days of fighting with Russian forces, it's hard not to wonder whether the Georgian leadership thinks in retrospect that it got its money's worth from its lobbying investment.

"In the 21st Century, Nations Don't Invade Other Nations"

McCain today, speaking about Russia and Georgia.

I don't even have to say it. Easiest blog post ever.

Flier Spotted in DC: "BEWARE" of Montgomery McFate

The Washington City Paper reports that fliers have begun cropping up in northwest DC warning locals to "BEWARE!" of Montgomery McFate, the daughter-in-law of Mary Lou Sapone, the gun lobby spy who infiltrated the gun control movement. As we reported in late July, McFate, an anthropologist who currently serves as a senior social science adviser to the military's Human Terrain program, once played a part in her mother-in-law's intelligence gathering business. So did her husband, Sean McFate, who until recently served as a program director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

The City Paper snapped a pic of the flier, which, coincidentally (or, perhaps, not), was spotted in Adams Morgan, around the corner from where Sean and Montgomery McFate reside.

Russia, China, India: Traces of Coming Power

I'll confess I missed the opening ceremony of the Olympics — pretty grand from what I hear — but what I didn't miss was Harold Meyerson's excellent meditation on what that ceremony meant for the future of global power. "The summer of '08, historians will most likely tell us, signaled the rise of a multi-power, non-Western-dominated planet," Meyerson writes. "It also was the time when it became clear that the American Century would not lap over from the 20th into the 21st." Read the whole thing.

More on Obama and Africa: the Global Poverty Act

In a web piece that published yesterday, I note many of the enlightening conversations about Barack Obama that I had on my recent trip to Africa.

I should add one thing: Kenyans and Tanzanians I spoke with rejected the idea that they support Obama (and they almost universally do) because he will usher in a more favorable foreign policy toward Africa. "All Americans presidents have the same policy on Africa," one man told me. "We do not know if Obama will be different."

In actual fact, however, Africans have reason to be optimistic. Obama is the primary sponsor of the Global Poverty Act (S. 2433), a bill that would commit the United States to "the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day." (Full text of the bill here.)

Critics of the bill allege that binding ourselves to the UN's goals would also bind us to its aid targets. The United Nations asks every nation to contribute 0.7 percent of its GDP to foreign aid. Currently, the United States is missing the mark by a substantial amount:

The 27 EU nations spent 0.38 percent of their gross national income on development aid in 2007, compared with 0.41 percent in 2006. Statistics showed that only the Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden and Norway were able to meet the 0.7 percent U.N. aid target. The United States spends 0.16 percent on development aid.

Those critics argue that boosting American aid to UN-approved levels would cost $845 billion over 13 years, meaning the apparently horrifying prospect of waging a global war on poverty that costs along the lines of the war in Iraq, which the Congressional Research Service estimates [pdf] has cost $653 billion in the six years since its initiation. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Iraq War will cost an additional $440 billion over the next ten years, assuming troop levels fall to 30,000 by 2010.

Defenders of the bill assert that it establishes no specific funding source and does not commit the United States to anyone else's standards. They note that the bill calls on the president and the secretary of state, not the United Nations, to develop an action plan.

The bill does appear to be more a statement of priorities than a detailed set of policy solutions. In President Clinton's last year in office, the US joined more than 180 countries at the United Nations Millennium Summit and agreed to reduce global poverty by 2015. This bill, however, actually makes achieving the the UN goal of cutting extreme global poverty in half in the next seven years official US policy. It requires the president to develop a comprehensive strategy to carry out that policy using aid, debt relief, trade policy, and cooperation with international organizations. Furthermore, it requires the president to outline specific benchmarks and timetables that will allow the public to track progress.

The bill, which has a bi-partisan list of co-sponsors, is a recipe for reintegration into the world community, which suggests Obama sees aid not just as charity but as part of his foreign policy vision. Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, suggested in the press that the bill is about more than the 2.7 billion people who live on less than $2 a day. "For every dollar the U.S. spends on poverty-focused aid, it spends almost US$33 on defense," he said. "When aid is effective, it builds a safer world for everyone."

Bad Idea of the Day, Week, Month...

Apparently, Jeremiah Wright is going on a book tour in October.

Update: Possibly not true. Did you know Rev. Wright got banished to Ghana?

Tom Friedman Catches On to McCain's Missed-Vote Hypocrisy

I've seriously hated on Tom Friedman in the distant and near past, but I have to admit he gets it right on energy most of the time. Yesterday's column is a good example. Maybe I just like it because it touches on one of my favorite topics, absenteeism in Congress.

John McCain recently tried to underscore his seriousness about pushing through a new energy policy, with a strong focus on more drilling for oil, by telling a motorcycle convention that Congress needed to come back from vacation immediately and do something about America's energy crisis. "Tell them to come back and get to work!" McCain bellowed.

Sorry, but I can't let that one go by. McCain knows why.

It was only five days earlier, on July 30, that the Senate was voting for the eighth time in the past year on a broad, vitally important bill — S. 3335 — that would have extended the investment tax credits for installing solar energy and the production tax credits for building wind turbines and other energy-efficiency systems...

Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year — which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn't leave his office to vote.

...Despite that, McCain's campaign commercial running during the Olympics shows a bunch of spinning wind turbines — the very wind turbines that he would not cast a vote to subsidize, even though he supports big subsidies for nuclear power.

For more examples of John McCain complaining about public policy problems and then missing votes to address those problems, see here.

August 12, 2008

Russia Agrees to Georgia Cease-Fire, Situation Remains Volatile

Just a day after some western and Georgian observers feared that Russia was on the verge of cutting Georgia in half, and may even try to take the Georgian capital Tblisi and demand the country's surrender, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev has agreed to a European-backed cease-fire. But news reports indicate the situation is still volatile and much unclear about how the cease-fire would be implemented, and explosions and violence continue in places including in the Georgian port city of Poti.

"The outcome the West is seeking, will not return things to the [pre-war] status quo," said Russia specialist Stephen Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations in a conference call yesterday. "A ceasefire under these circumstances offers a sitution in which Georgia could be occupied by Russian forces, and Georgia could be cut in two, dismembered."

"Is this a game changer?" asked Council on Foreign Relations' Charles Kupchan. "Is it possible to think about the US-Russian relationship moving forward looking somewhat like it’s done in the past, where there were good days and bad days, but it was basically respectful and trying to make the best of a difficult situation? I can’t answer that. It's too soon. But it's safe to say from here on out, the US and allies will look at Russia more warily."

Former senior Congressional staffer Scott Lilly writes:

What is also certain is that the guns of August 2008 have in a matter of a few days significantly changed the world we live in. It is now clear to almost everyone that Russian objectives go well beyond the issue of the ethnically Russian citizens of South Ossetia. Moscow’s swift military gambit clearly includes “regime change” for the entire nation of Georgia.

That is important not simply because Georgia’s democratically elected president, Mikhail Saakashvili, is far more pro-western than his eventual Russian-picked successor will be, but also because it sends a clear message throughout the region that Russia can do what it pleases—and that the United States is too weak, too overstretched, too unpopular, and too weary from years of failed international exploits to act.

(Map of former Soviet Georgia from USDA).

Minneapolis Hotel Rooms Should Be Available Last Minute

If you want to go and check out the scene at the Republican National Convention, you shouldn't have a problem. It's not like the hotel rooms in Minneapolis will be taken by Republicans. Politico:

Of the 12 Republicans running in competitive Senate races — five of whom are incumbents — only three have said they will be attending the convention. Six are definite no-shows, and three are on the fence.

"Nobody likes a funeral," said a Senate Republican press secretary...

Ouch. Things are so bad, the National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman, Tom Cole of Oklahoma, is actually discouraging Republican congressional challengers from attending. According to the Hill he called heading to Minneapolis for the convention a "waste of time."

Newly Unveiled Dem Platform a Strong Statement for Women's Rights

Dana Goldstein over at the Prospect applauds the newly released Democratic platform.

The draft of the Democratic Party platform, principally written by Obama's Senate policy director, the estimable Karen Kornbluh, is a remarkably feminist document, one befitting of a political party that, this year, came exceedingly close to nominating a woman. In the summer of 2006, I heard Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York speak on the Hill, lamenting that the chicken livered John Kerry team had, for the first time in decades, removed support for the Equal Rights Amendment from the party platform. Well, this year the ERA is back, alongside a truly unequivocal statement of support for reproductive rights, an unprecedented statement in opposition to sexism, and new sections on equal pay, women's economic struggles, work-family balance, and violence against women...

It's clear that care was taken to involve members of Hillary Clinton's circle in the document's drafting (perhaps Dana Singiser), or to at least take their concerns to heart. Clinton's run is presented in the document as a feminist historical feat, and in the foreign policy section, the draft borrows the language of Clinton's celebrated 1995 speech to the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing: "Our policies will recognize that human rights are women’s rights and that women’s rights are human rights." Reflecting Obama's own long-standing interest in international development, the documented continues, "Women make up the majority of the poor in the world. So we will expand access to women’s’ economic development opportunities and seek to expand microcredit."

Goldstein also takes a look at how the language on abortion has changed since 2004 and says the party has gotten even more strongly pro-choice. Take a look.

Obama VP Pick Announced!!

This is huge!

H/T. Info.

Josh Green. Atlantic. Clinton Memos. Just Read It.

It's the article everyone's talking about today: Josh Green of the Atlantic gets reams of internal Clinton campaign memos, emails, and other documents from former staffers and runs down the most important parts. Take a gander.

I'll highlight just two things. First, Clinton emerges as a terrible executive. She is unable to hire people who work well together or people who, though at odds, create a useful tension. She is unable to settle disputes after they arise or provide direction that keeps them from arising in the first place. A pattern emerges from Green's documents: Clinton first lets a problem fester, then explodes at her staff for not addressing it, then provides little guidance on how to solve it going forward, and ultimately gets bitten by the problem down the road.

This of course flies in the face of some of her campaign's most fundamental claims: readiness, managerial experience, and so on. It is almost as if Clinton needed the bruising political warfare she was accustomed to facing from Republicans in order to focus her campaign.

Second, the Clinton campaign (or some key members of it, anyway) knew very early on that it would be ultimately unsuccessful. On March 4, on the day of the Ohio and Texas primaries, senior strategist Doug Hattaway (a truly nice dude who I once had the pleasure of working with), circulated a memo warning that without Florida and Michigan, "we cannot secure enough delegates to win; we cannot overtake [Obama]; the math simply doesn't work … it is imperative that we provide … a clear and tenable answer to the single most important question we face."

They didn't come up with an answer that the press bought — the idea that Michigan, a primary that didn't have Barack Obama's name on the ballot, and Florida, a primary that saw no campaigning from either candidate, should count at full force was just too obviously ridiculous. The fact that Clinton agreed the two states wouldn't count until it became politically expedient for her to change her mind didn't help the case.

But the campaign, knowing that they were unlikely to win the nomination in early March, kept fighting. In fact, they launched some of the nastiest attacks of the campaign after they understood that Barack Obama would ultimately become the Democratic nominee.

Just in case you needed a reminder that this business ain't beanbag and the right doesn't have a monopoly on the ugly side of politics.

James Fallows Is Feeling Sprightly

Check out his shredding of David Brooks and the Brooks/Friedman cultural paintbrush. You know the one — it paints a mile wide.

Private Contractors Have Banked $100 Billion Since Iraq Invasion

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will release a report later today showing that the federal government has paid private contractors $100 billion since the 2003 Iraq invasion. The report will place "the first official price tag on contracting in Iraq and [raise] troubling questions about the degree to which the war has been privatized," according to the New York Times. Between 2003 and 2007, the U.S. government awarded $85 billion in contracts for services ranging from security to construction to food preparation to translation. At the current pace, contracts will exceed $100 billion by year's end, a figure that might be low, given the chaotic state of contracting during the Iraq War's early years. There are currently at least 180,000 contractors working in Iraq, far outnumbering U.S. troops in theater.

August 11, 2008

Speedo's $600 Swimsuits: Made in America, Bought by China

By now, nearly everyone's heard about Michael Phelps's Olympic medal quest. But for those of us who have watched the swimming competitions thus far, there's one competitor you just can't ignore: those black and gray, space-age looking suits that nearly every athlete is wearing.

The wetsuit-style Speedo LZR Racer (here's a pic) is one reason world records continue to be broken in swimming. The science behind the suit includes "ultrasonically welded" seams and panels of drag-reducing fabric tested by NASA. But the main benefit of the suit is how it fits: tightly. So tightly that it acts as a sort of corset, helping swimmers maintain an aqua-dynamic form and supporting abdominal muscles when they tire at the end of the race. Since the suit was introduced in February of 2008, more than 50 world records have been broken by athletes wearing it. American swimmer Ryan Lochte, who won a bronze this week in the individual medley, said wearing the suit makes it feel like you're "swimming downhill." Even Chinese athletes cannot resist the American-made suit, though they covered the Speedo logo with duct tape.

However, the super-suit has been seen as "tech doping" by some critics, and others say it's not fair to countries who can't afford the suit. After all, the suits (which cost around $600 each) must be thrown out after an athlete has used them 10 times, similar to the way baseballs are discarded after only a few pitches. In the US, Nike was generous enough to allow the athletes it sponsored to wear the suits gratis. But other companies, and countries, may not be as generous, or are effectively handicapped because their regulations do not allow sponsorship deals (This year Japan changed its regulations to allow use of the LZR).

There's also the issue of how much tech help is too much. The swimsuit's polyurethane layers give its users additional buoyancy. Certainly the inordinate number of world records set by those using the suit are proof that it does give competitors that extra tenth or hundredth of a second. What do you think: is the LZR unfair advantage, or just athletes using the best of what's available?

Photos courtesy Speedo.

This is NOT What They Mean When They Say "Message Discipline"

I lament the fact that YouTube, cable news, and the blogs have put the fear of god in politicians and keep them from saying anything interesting. And I respect Russ Feingold's right to say his piece about a man he clearly respects.

But jeez...

"I think [McCain] calls 'em as he sees 'em, and as president would call 'em as he sees 'em, and would make people mad all over the place because it wouldn't fit anybody's playbook," said Feingold, who teamed up with McCain to rewrite federal campaign laws....

"They both have the intellectual ability and the maturity to form judgments about important policy issues. I'd feel comfortable with both of them in there as president," Feingold said. "They are not people who are just preening for the cameras. They're both celebrities. (But) they're the rare breed: celebrities who are actually interested in getting things done."

"[McCain's] a very good legislator from my point of view, because when he gets onto something, he doesn't just want to introduce a bill, he likes to move it. And he's fearless," Feingold said of McCain, who once called the Wisconsin Democrat a "philosophical soul mate" on reform issues. (The two partnered on several other bills in addition to campaign finance.)

"He's a great guy to fight an uphill battle with legislatively. He keeps his word. . . . I probably shouldn't be saying this stuff, but to be honest about it, it was one of the better professional experiences I've ever had in my life," Feingold said.

"He is not a guy who wants to be chummy-chummy with political leaders of the party. He doesn't like that sort of constraint. He's an independent," said Feingold. "So he somehow managed to become the nominee of the Republican Party. But we all know it's not because he was somebody that was kissing up to the Republican establishment, to say the least."

Feingold did say he'd prefer to see Obama elected. Not that anyone will focus on that.