Clutch Time

Okay, so if you're anywhere left of center -- or, with this year's batch to GOTP (Grand Old Tea Party), left of crazy -- you owe it to your nation to get out and vote. Here's the facts: nobody knows who's going to win this election. But we do know that:

Political Wire caught Mitch McConnell saying this to the National Review:

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

Catch that? Not, the single most important thing we want to achieve is to lower unemployment. Not, keep people in their homes. Not even, lower the deficit.

It's all politics to them. And their lies must be counteracted, per Dave Johnson, paraphrased by Electoral-Vote:

Obama tripled the deficit (No: it is lower than in Bush's last budget)



Obama raised taxes (No: the "stimulus" contained a big tax cut)



Obama bailed out the banks (No: the bailout happened before Obama took office)



The "stimulus" failed (No: the CBO estimates it created 1-3 million jobs)



Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts (No: They will hire when they sell more products)



Health-insurance reform will cost $1 trillion (No: the CBO says it will save $138 billion)



Social security is a Ponzi scheme (No: it will continue to be solvent for 25 years)



Government spending takes money out of the economy (No: government buys stuff and hires people)

What's interesting is that, now that he's getting out there, President Obama's approval rating is rising. He's pounding on the GOTP, as is former President Bill Clinton, whom the Republicans don't dare criticize when he comes to town:

Mr. Clinton is now perhaps his party’s most sought-after campaigner, going to parts of the country where Mr. Obama does not venture these days, including Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi and, on Monday, in his 105th event of the year, Texas.

Fifty-five percent of Americans viewed Mr. Clinton positively in a poll by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal last month, eight percentage points above Mr. Obama and the highest of 14 listed politicians or institutions.

What's interesting is that the Blue Dog Democrats, those conserva-Dems who gave progressives so much trouble with health and finance reform, are hurting the most. This mean more party-purging, not as brutal on the Left as on the Right, but likely to give us starker electoral choices in the future.

As for now, here's what the GOTP bring to America:



Nice job, Rand Paul supporters. "Curbing" is always in fashion for homegrown fascists ginned up by Beck and Tea. Step one in fascism is empowering the thug class.

And that's what we need you to vote against.

Lesson of the Day

History lesson courtesy of Robert Reich. In 1994 Reich was working in the Clinton White House, and the Republicans were battling healthcare reform in exactly the same manner they are today -- lies and stonewalling:

On February 5, 1994, the National Association of Manufacturers passed a resolution declaring its opposition to the Clinton plan. Not long after that, Michigan Democrat John Dingell, who was managing the health care bill for the House, approached the senior House Republican on the bill to seek a compromise. According to Dingell, the response was: "There's no way you're going to get a single vote on this [Republican] side of the aisle. You will not only not get a vote here, but we've been instructed that if we participate in that undertaking at all, those of us who do will lose our seniority and will not be ranking minority members within the Republican Party."

The failure of the bill made the Democrats look weak, powerless, do-nothing, and they paid royally:

In early September, William Kristol of the Project for the Republican Future spelled out the next stage of the Republican battle plan: "I think we can continue to wrap the Clinton plan around the necks of Democratic candidates." And that's exactly what they did. On November 8 voters repudiated President Clinton. They brought Republicans to power at every level of government. Democrats went from a controlling majority of 257 seats in the House of Representatives to a minority of 204, and lost the Senate.

Lest anyone doubt the parallels:

Today's Republican battle plan is exactly the same as it was sixteen years ago. In fact, it's been the same since President Obama assumed office. They never were serious about compromise. They were serious only about regaining power. From the start, Republicans have remembered the lesson of 1994. Now, as they prepare to vote, House Dems should remember the lesson as well.

The next eight to twelve years of national U.S. politics is riding on the Congressional votes on healthcare/health insurance reform this upcoming week. And if the bill loses, you'll see Dems go down in flames in November...and your health insurance rates continue to rise, baby, rise.

Land of the Free

Every once in a while there's a special event that reminds us of the wonderful freedoms we do enjoy (and must be vigilant to protect) here in the U.S. of A. After 140 days in bullshit captivity by the North Korean government, the brave, young Current TV journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, have returned home to free soil thanks to the visit by President Bill Clinton.

It seems impossible not to be moved by this statement by Ling:



Impossible not to be moved except, perhaps, if you're a hardened Neocon Conservative with a worldview stuck in the Cold War:

But, since Bill Clinton has a hand in their release, someone's got to step up and naysay the effort, and predictably, that task has fallen to former UN ambassador and noted rage-walrus John Bolton, who says the "Clinton trip is a significant propaganda victory for North Korea, whether or not he carried an official message from President Obama."

Thank you, John Bolton, for once again demonstrating the completely theoretical nature of Neocon philosophy. Not only does it not take into account in any way the two American lives at stake (let alone Euna Lee's young daughter with whom she was reunited) vs. some "propaganda" belt notch, but since there's no Iron Curtain or Eastern Bloc anymore, and Kim Il Sung is as marginalized as a tinpot dictator can be, that propaganda victory may be limited to his own state-run television system.

Go play your mental games with yourself, John. This is America. You know, give us your tired, your hungry, your falsely imprisoned.

Welcome back, Laura and Euna.

Third Night

Well, that's history in the making, with Barack Obama as the first mixed race candidate ever nominated for President of the United States of America by a major political party. Since George Washington got the first nod.

A lot more red meat tonight. Last night, I think Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) had the best single non-primetime line, taking a huge shot McCain's supposed independence:

John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush more than 90% of the time...that's not a maverick, that's a sidekick.

Tonight it might be Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), old enough himself to get away with hitting McCain on age, who had the best line not in primetime:

Speaking at the Democratic National Convention, the Nevada Democrat likened McCain to a bogus doctor, calling him “kindly old Doc McCain” and comparing his plan for expanded offshore drilling to “snake oil.”

“Kindly old Doc McCain would like to sell it to you anyway,” Reid said.

Much of tonight was about vouching for Obama as Commander-in-Chief, using his own yardstick, judgment. Bill Clinton did a great job and got the most delegate love. Joe Biden did fine as well.



But it was the man who appear between them who gave the best speech of his life:



His most damaging passage to McCain, hitting him up as either opportunist or weak-minded:

I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years. But every day now I learn something new about candidate McCain.

To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician: I say, let’s compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain.

Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once called irresponsible.

Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill.

Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote.

Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you’re against it!

Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself.

How addled is McCain?

He's thinking it might be a smart move to pick Joe Lieberman as his VP.

The Gateway

This should be an extraordinary week for Barack Obama, and hopefully for the Democratic Party as a whole. A lot seems to be riding on how Hillary Clinton treats her loss, even if it isn't sealed yet by the first round Convention vote. Does she want the Democratic Presidential candidate to win this fall even if it isn't her? Does Bill?

If you are an Obama supporter worried about her holding the Party hostage, here's some facts that may make you rest easier:

- Even though she trounced Obama in Puerto Rico, per tunesmith at DailyKos she underperformed:

Before the Puerto Rico primary, Hillary Clinton needed 79.24% of the remaining delegates (uncommitted + edwards delegates) in order to claim the nomination. She had 1876.5, and there were 303.5 remaining delegates. She needed 79.24% of them to reach 2117.

Now, after winning Puerto Rico, she has 1914.5 delegates, with 248.5 remaining. She now needs 81.49% of the remaining delegates. That's a higher percentage than before winning Puerto Rico. She got a lot today, but she didn't even get the bare minimum to hold steady. She fell further behind today - her nomination is even less likely than it was before.

- Although Harold Ickes and her most hardened anti-Obama supporter may claim that the Democratic rules committee somehow hijacked her chance at the nomination by one vote, for anyone who's been following with a remotely open mind, per hudson at MyDD the facts are different. It is, actually, her own darn fault:

That contest was won fair and square by Barack Obama -- with a lot of help from the inept Clinton campaign. So let me try to list just a few of the votes and other events which collectively "changed everything" for Hillary Clinton -- changed her candidacy from one of inevitability, to one that has embarrassed many who once supported both her and her husband's political careers...

1) Hillary voting to give Bush the power to wage a falsely-justified war;

2) Hillary relying on tired establishment figures such as Mark Penn, Harold Ickes, Terry McAuliffe and Howard Wolfson to steer her strategy and message;

3) Hillary deciding to neglect the Iowa caucuses, until it was too late, giving Obama a huge national burst of publicity and momentum;

3) Hillary failing to prepare for the possibility that the contest would not be decided by the votes cast on Super Tuesday;

4) Hillary failing to comprehend the new nature of campaign fundraising in the internet era, until it was too late;

5) Hillary losing eleven straight votes in states after Super Tuesday;

6) Hillary failing, despite her decades in politics, to understand the importance of a robust 50-state grassroots strategy;

7) Hillary refusing to recognize that caucus voters send delegates to the Democratic National Convention, too;

8) Hillary committing gaffe after gaffe (from Tuzla to RFK) which made Obama's job much easier than it needed to be;

9) Hillary going negative on Obama early and often, causing even some of her own supporters (such as the editorial board at the New York Times, which endorsed her) to call on her to cool her rhetoric -- calls she ignored, further alienating core voters;

10) Hillary using divisive code words and faux-populist posturing in an attempt to divide the Democratic party against itself for her own gain, thus alienating superdelegates, including those on the Rules committee;

11) Hillary losing two out of three contests to an opponent she wrongly underestimated;

12) And most importantly, the millions and millions of votes cast for Barack Obama "changed everything" -- more, by any rational and unbiased measure, than were received by Clinton.

- If you're looking for change, i.e. true progressive leadership, per Peggy Drexler at HuffPo it's not Sen. Clinton:

She supported the Defense of Marriage Act, she co-sponsored a flag burning amendment, she voted to send our sons and daughters into the meat grinder of an unnecessary war. And with close to 70 percent of women in most polls favoring stricter gun control laws, what are we to make of her snuggling up to the NRA with tales of her childhood shooting lessons?

That Defense of Marriage Act vote is the one that always gets me when talking to gay Clinton supporters, the ones who claim they may not vote for Obama in the General Election. When are they going to feel, like the African-American community, that the Clinton transaction can end up seeming one-way?

- She hasn't been vetted -- Obama just never went after her. Or Bill. The Republicans will. They've been planning to, building their portfolio against them, for the past four years.

Without excerpting and exacerbating here, I'm linking to two more aggressive pieces. One is the article in Vanity Fair that the Clinton team, Bill's, is already objecting to. Todd S. Purdum covers all the stuff you haven't been hearing about Bill Clinton, i.e. the fast crowd he runs with, his main benefactors and their links all the way to the Kazakhstan dictatorship, his post-op behavior issues and then the way he's always used people, without taking responsibility for himself.

Think of the monumental amount of GOP media distraction that's being shortcircuited here, that we won't have to bathe in -- unless, of course, Obama makes her his running mate.

- The other piece, by Paul Abrams at HuffPo, lists In Bowing Out, 7 Things Hillary Clinton Must Say to Meet the Standards Set by Hillary Rosen. I leave it to Sen. Clinton to prove me wrong, but I think she will not fulfill 1, 2, 5 & 6. The others I expect she'll be fine with, should she bow out gracefully, this week or next.

And, lastly, something that may not be a fact, but is lovely to contemplate:

- Per Diane Francis at HuffPo, Obama will crush McCain, and why:

1. McCain is McBush and Bush has an approval rating of 28%. In a country that has been roughly 50-50 in the last two Presidential contests, that means that 22% of those who voted Republican are likely to stay at home or vote for the Democrats. If so, that's a landslide for Obama.

2. McCain is having trouble getting the support of the religious crazies in his party and as he panders to them, he alienates the independent, or secular, voters he needs to win.

3. McCain is having trouble getting money from Republican-Bush donors because they know the Party's over for awhile. As he panders and leans on Bush for money, he alienates the independents.

4. Cindy McCain. Her abject refusal to publish her financial net worth, or income levels, is totally unacceptable for the wife of a Presidential candidate. Even John Kerry's wife disclosed information.

5. John McCain's health, not his age. He has Stage 2a melanoma in his declining years...This is a condition which must be checked constantly.

I'd give additional reasons, the foremost of which is that Obama knows how things work now and McCain is not only not up to speed, he's not smart enough to get so in time to save America, even from the diminishment that his Party has gotten us. Obama is, in essence, running all-cylinders on the cutting edge of contemporary business.

It's not Mac vs. PC.

Obama is Google. John McCain is IBM.

As in mainframe.

Wild Predictions

Obama gets out in front of a zillion students at Wesleyan and takes advantage of the pinch-hitter spot for the ailing Teddy Kennedy by giving a pitch-perfect speech that not only lionizes Sen. Kennedy, it commits to continuing and magnifying his legacy-in-progress with an "ask not what your country can do for you" call to action.

He's speaking at the Wesleyan graduation, but he's speaking to every class of 2008 student in America:




With the McCain campaign in rolling disarray and likely praying that a Vice Presidential choice will organize it for them (all the main contenders are governors, i.e. execs), I hereby predict that against what Obama is stirring in our emerging civic generation (and the coming unity which I believe most Democrats will accept with relief), casting a vote of November 4th for Sen. John McCain will seem like voting assisted suicide for America.

That may not be fair to Sen. McCain, who is quite alive and the best choice the Republicans had this year. Not my fault. It will literally start to feel like death vs. life, and while the former will have its usual fans, it will not stand a chance against Obama.

Here's another wild prediction: This man will serve time in jail. Maybe it'll take a few years. But he will do his stint, and probably make some pretty good contacts in there.

Not so wild: she's going to have to seriously rebuild bridges if she wants to still stay connected to the one constituency that has ever elected her to public office.

What's been happening the past two weeks is that Obama has not just pivoted to McCain, his campaign has pivoted to the calendar. The three important dates are the Democratic Convention on August 25-28 in Denver, the Republican Convention on September 1-4 in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and the first Tuesday in November. The Clinton campaign has been trying to externally stall this, but now it's no longer about the math, it's about the calendar, which means it's about the Party. And the Obama campaign, with superior strategy, organization and candidate, has begun stepping up to organize the Party. Should Sen. Clinton or any external force derail this current trajectory, it's the only way they can lose in the Fall.

What the Clintons should be thinking about now, and hopefully someone in her campaign is, is what role they want to negotiate for at the Convention. Not demand. Not if they know what's good for them. Not if they don't want to go down in history as the couple that took down the Party. Not if Bill ever wants to go back to his office in Harlem. Not if Hillary ever wants to be re-elected as Senator from New York.

I predict that the only way it works for either of them is if they appear onstage with Barack Obama. I predict you will see (a) Hillary Clinton welcoming Barack Obama onstage, or (b) Bill Clinton joining Barack Obama onstate, or (c) Barack and Michelle and Bill and Hillary onstage together at the end of the Convention, the night of the 24th, possible bonus points with all three daughters together as well (big win). Show that the families play well together. Reprise with Bill and Barack appearing before African-American audiences as Hillary Clinton does her black church tour in support of Obama.

Okay, maybe these last predictions are too wild. Maybe Hillary Clinton, after losing the nomination, doesn't want to go back to the Senate. Maybe she guts it out, but since there was only Plan A (she wouldn't be coming back to the Senate after this year, except when visiting from the White House) her heart isn't in being one of one hundred.

Maybe she and Bill were okay with losing the $9-20 million because they knew they could make it back quickly no matter what happened, what with book deals and maybe TV now.

Maybe she hasn't thought of VP or anything else. Not even, really, Governor. I mean, would she accept Mayor of New York? Arguably the second biggest job in the country?

With this calendar in mind, there are three things the Obama and McCain campaigns each have to do. They have to orchestrate the Convention a scant three months from now. They have to harness the full potential of their money-raising machines. They have to execute a (hopefully) long-gestated plan for earning the most votes in the Electoral College.

Obama's campaign on this last one is a 50-state strategy. Okay, maybe 48 -- West Virginia and Kentucky may be too Appalachian for him to have any chance to win. But it would only seem foolish if he didn't have the ability to raise enough resources to do it.

And so far, that doesn't seem to be a problem at all.

Top Three

There's an old conversation topic I've always enjoyed that when it comes to relationships, in picking a mate, nobody's perfect so what are the three top qualities you just have to have in making that choice?  Is it looks?  Sense of humor?  Trustworthiness?  Mechanical ability?

You only get three.  Just three.  That's the game.

So in conversation with my nephew tonight regarding Presidential candidates, I asked the same question.  His picks:

1. Selflessness

2. Open-mindedness

3. Leadership

I went for:

1. Vision

2. Judgement

3. Leadership

He convinced me to go with leadership over honesty, as we both ended up agreeing that there are times when a President can't be 100% honest with everyone about everything, i.e. with state secrets or unpleasant but necessary diplomatic maneuvers.

We also discussed whether honesty and dishonesty are binary -- an interesting debate.  For purposes of Presidential choices we agreed that while a President can't be honest 100% of the time, they should never be dishonest, if that makes any sense.  Maybe we're talking about sins of omission rather than outright deceitfulness or perfidy.

Maybe this is the line where guys like me accepted Bill Clinton's governance over George Bush's.  Or over Sen. Clinton's campaign.

Your three?

Out of Touch

Hillary Clinton seized on something Barack Obama said last weekend at a Bay Area fundraiser, took it out of context, twisted it like she did he quote about Reagan three months ago, and is trying to brand him as an elitist for basically repeating the What's the Matter with Kansas? wisdom. The McCain campaign picked up on her take immediately, back for some more tag-team, trying to create some sort of echo chamber consensus that her characterization is true.

How did Obama fight back, tonight?



Here's how her attack is shaking out for Hillary (includes her attack):


Out of touch -- like her bizarre attempt at deflecting a question regarding the $800,000+ her husband has received in connection with Colombia and his support of the Free Trade Agreement loathed by actual blue collar men and women in Pennsylvania?



What is with that maniacal laugh???

"And how many angels dance on the head of a pin?" Is this what she's feeling her whole campaign is like these days?

Must have dug hard for the thing to pounce on Obama for today, try to get the real issue of her $800,000 nightmare husband off of the front page. Because if he isn't on for that, he's on for this:

It appears that Hillary Clinton hasn't taken kindly to her husband's decision to revive the embarrassing details of her Bosnian sniper dodging tale. Bill told the press today, "Hillary called me and said 'You don't remember this. You weren't there, let me handle it.' I said, 'Yes ma'am." NBC's First Read has the entire story below.

Read about how Bill Clinton not only revived the sniper controversy but made it worse by adding a couple more untruths.

Out of touch much? Or can we finally take seriously the notion raised that he's intentionally (consciously or unconsciously) trying to sink his wife's campaign, the better to preserve his own legacy. After all, even he can see she can't even manage her own campaign finances.

And that John McCain -- out of touch with the spirit of "Idol Gives Back"?



Ho ho ho Michigan and Florida. Even the studio audience starts booing him. The politically tone-deaf traditionally get voted off the show in November.

Maybe Obama needs to be "in touch" like Bush and Cheney -- if by that you mean in touch with millions and millions of dollars:

The federal tax bill for President Bush and his wife: $221,635. That's how much the Bushes owed on their adjusted gross income of $923,807 for the year 2007, according to a joint return released Friday. The Bushes have paid $203,894 so far, which means they'll need to break out the checkbook _ they owe the government $17,741...

...The White House also reported that Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, had an adjusted gross income of $3.04 million in 2007.

The Cheneys owed $602,651 in federal taxes on that income. They have paid $466,165 through withholdings and estimated tax payments, and will pay the remaining $136,486 upon filing their tax return.

And we're talking down years. Just think of how much they'll be able to make once they're out of office and freed of any restrictions.

Think of how much they'll make starting right on January 21st of next year.

Momentum

This is the week that Barack Obama seized the mantle of the Presidency on the road to getting elected. Maybe it's not a perfect situation, but it is hard to imagine how he could have better proven his mettle than in how he responded to the news storm about his old church leader.

He won wide and definitive national approval when he boldly spoke for all of us in one way or another in his speech on Monday, which has now been viewed close to three million times on YouTube (2,500,000+ on the main upload, with multitudes of views on other uploads). He ended the week with one of the maybe three most valuable endorsements in the Democratic Party, leaving John Edwards and grandmaster Gore back in the wings.

When you look at this picture, it's hard not to imagine an awesome running team, with the hands-on foreign policy expert Richardson as VP to Obama for Chief Executive.

The Clintons lost big on this one, and I lump them together because of how much Richardson was Bill's project. This was supposed to be the moment when loyalty triumphed:

Mr. Clinton helped elevate Mr. Richardson to the national stage by naming him his energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations. And Mr. Clinton left no doubt that he viewed Mr. Richardson’s support as important to his wife’s campaign: He even flew to New Mexico to watch the Super Bowl with Mr. Richardson as part of the Clintons’ high-profile courtship of him.

But Mr. Richardson stopped returning Mr. Clinton’s calls days ago, Mr. Clinton’s aides said. And as of Friday, Mr. Richardson said, he had yet to pick up the phone to tell Mr. Clinton of his decision.

The reaction of some of Mr. Clinton’s allies suggests that might have been a wise decision. “An act of betrayal,” said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.

“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

Judas Richardson. Nice, James.

In fact, Clinton's Mark Penn publicly downplayed the value of Richardson's endorsement, which the Governor did not let pass lightly:

"I resent the fact that the Clinton people are now saying that my endorsement is too late because I only can help with Texans — with Texas and Hispanics, implying that that's my only value," the New Mexico governor told CNN's John King.

"That's typical of some of his advisers that kind of turned me off."Earlier Friday, Clinton campaign senior strategist Mark Penn said he thought Richardson's endorsement came too late to make an impact.

“The time that he could have been effective has long since passed," Penn told reporters on a conference call. "I don’t think it is a significant endorsement in this environment.”

Look, maybe the graciouslessness of the Clinton campaign will serve her well in the hardscrabble parts of Pennsylvania. But while their big message of the day is that the Obama campaign is "amateur hour," you have to start wondering if Baghdad Bob has taken over as their Press Secretary.

It's the Obama moneyraising juggernaut that appears to have $30 million left to spend on the primaries while hers may have as little as $3 million, which is why he's on the air first in Pennsylvania, defining himself in advance of whatever attack ads she may try to toss his way.

And her "professional" campaign is having "Another Bill Clinton Moment":

MSNBC is reporting that on the campaign trail today in Charlotte, North Carolina, the former president said a general election matchup between his wife, Sen. Clinton, and Sen. John McCain would be between "two people who love this country" without "all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."

It's difficult to determine exactly what Clinton meant by this. Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said the former president was not implying that Obama didn't love America. As for "this other stuff," that Clinton referred to? He was talking about "the politics of personal destruction," said Wolfson. "He was lamenting that these kind of distractions 'always seems to intrude' on our politics."

Not everyone had the same interpretation. MSNBC, for example, was quick to suggest that the former president was implying there were doubts about Obama's patriotism, and that those doubts would play a role in the general election. Which seems, on its face, hardly a stretch.

The story is starting to be written about how the press has been complicit in keeping the illusion of a virtual tie between the campaigns alive. Well beyond the math now, the logic of her campaign is against her.

Obama is the story. Richardson sealed his week of trials. And regular folks are still meeting him as part of the campaign process:

He was grabbing a photo op and a bite at out local pizza joint "American Dream". It was a friendly audience and Barack proved to be incredibly approachable....

...Then came Obama. Great guy. Energetic, friendly, and smiling. I shook his hand and told him I switched from independent to Democrat so I could vote for him in the Oregon primaries. Then I asked him not to be distracted by the wing-nut types like Hannity and BillO. He smiled. Then I asked him if he really believed he could bring the troops back from Iraq and re-invest that money on domestic issues like energy independence and new technologies. He took on a serious look and said that would be one of the cornerstones of his administration.

He went on kissing babies and eating pizza. I left downtown thinking one thing; I will help this guy get elected.

And tell me that this isn't the best speech you've ever seen from Bill Richardson, a total pleasure:



You have to wonder if that anecdote about Obama saving Richardson's hide when he spaced out on a question in one of the debates wasn't the start of his turn to Obama. So revealing of inner character.

I have a feeling there are some great days ahead. It won't always be easy, it's not a lock yet so there's no resting easy, and there's mortal danger every step of the way.

But something feels like it's building.

It smells like consensus.

Even Paranoiacs

The old saying, "Even paranoiacs have enemies," and it's brother, "Only the paranoid survive," could not be more apt than tonight. Although with Obama's cool, it might be, "Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you."

Exhibit A: Who's been looking at Barack Obama's passport file?:

Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for accessing passport records of Sen. Barack Obama “without a need to do so,” State Department officials confirmed to NBC News…

A monitoring system was tripped when an employee accessed the records of a high-profile individual,” a department official told NBC News. “When the monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the records access. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified.”

Turns out it was three (3) separate "contractors," making one wonder if they all worked for the same villain, and who that might be.

After all, the Bush I regime did the same thing before the 1992 election to Bill Clinton.

Easy guesses are some agent for the Republican National Committee or Barack's distant cousin himself (how Shakespearean that would turn out to be). Who knows, I wouldn't even put it past the Clintons. Would you?

I mean, the breaches all took place after key Democratic Primary moments for Obama. I mean, (Exhibit B) after all, it's her campaign having her play the angel while she won't deny them pushing the Reverend Wright story like devils behind the curtain:

However at a Thursday press availability in Terra Haute, Indiana after a report surfaced that the Clinton campaign was pushing the Wright story to superdelegates arguing that the relationship hurt Obama's electibility -– Clinton refused to deny that her campaign was pushing the story.

When asked, Clinton ignored the Wright portion of the question and said “well my campaign has been making the case that I am the most electable that I have said that for a year or more that I am the person best able to make the challenges that our country faces as commander in chief.”

When Clinton was then asked specifically if her campaign was pushing the Wright story –- she shrugged and took the next question, ignoring the reporter.

Funny thing about Reverend Wright -- another connection to Bill Clinton, perhaps an exonerating one:

A photograph of Wright and President Clinton, which it says was taken on September 11, 1998 -- the date of a White House gathering for religious leaders.

Hillary Clinton, according to her recently-released schedule for the day, was present at the gathering.

Oh, and Wright received a commendation letter for his aid to President Lyndon Baines Johnson during surgery.

The fact is, unless the endless drumbeat of rightwing talk shows and 24-hour news echo chambers manage to change public opinion, most people believe Obama's views differ from the Reverend's. Certainly I have views that differ from a Rabbi within my own family, but I love him nonetheless.

So if Obama now has reason to be paranoid (this is so late 1960's-early 1970's, see The Parallax View) about the current Cheney/Bush Administration now, and about the Clintons' campaign, there's the McCain campaign as well (Exhibit C). Sure, they identify someone spreading the new, most offensively edited rightwing Wright/Obama smear video, but they don't do a firing, they simply "suspend."

Oddly enough, the two people speaking truth on all the Wright stuff are Mike Huckabee and Geraldine Ferraro. Huckabee first:

As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say “That’s a terrible statement!”…I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack — and I’m gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who’s gonna say something like this, but I’m just tellin’ you — we’ve gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told “you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus…” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

He may have some kooky political notions, but there's something I've always liked about that guy.

Ferraro's truth isn't what she's saying now, but her initial outburst, albeit a truth she didn't intend:

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position."

Amen, sister.

Boy Can't Help It

Bill Clinton taking zero responsibility for his behavior a month or so ago in South Carolina:

"What happened there is a total myth and a mugging," Clinton told CNN's Sean Callebs in New Orleans, Louisiana, over the weekend.

"It's been pretty well established. Charlie Rangel ... the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in unequivocal terms in South Carolina that no one in our campaign played any race card, that we had some played against us, but we didn't play any."

Oh, Bill. Why do you have to continually reinforce what my Republican friends always said about you back when I didn't believe them?

Why do you have to call it a mugging, you self-victimized, crypto or (charitably) unconsciously racist bastard?

I know it hurts the one thing you care about the most:

It seems that the more voters see of Bill Clinton, the less they like him. The poll shows a significant shift in his approval rating from a year ago. In March 2007, some 48% of those surveyed had a positive view of the former president, and 35% had a negative view. Now his negatives outpace his positives, 45% to 42%.

I think the only question left for us political junkies is (a) whether Bill cares about his legacy rating more than his wife's political aspiration, or (b) whether he believes the only path to salvaging his reputation is if she gets nominated, damned whatever reallignment they have to destroy in the process.

Fortunately, Bill and Hillary get help from the press. Not only the Reverend Wright affair, which Barack Obama will face off against Tuesday night in a JFK-esque speech, but jus' reg'lar Ron Fournier of the AP, who's not incidentally been covering Bill and the Clintons since waaay back in Arkansas:

But there's a line smart politicians don't cross — somewhere between "I'm qualified to be president" and "I'm born to be president." Wherever it lies, Barack Obama better watch his step.

He's bordering on arrogance.

No shit. 2008, and the Associated Press is essentially calling Obama "uppity".

Hillary's arrogance of being owed or due for the crown? McCain's taxpayer-funded campaign trip to Iraq? And this community organizer turned State Senator and then Senator is the only arrogant one?

One again this strange electoral season, I'm with Andrew Sullivan on Obama, his past connection with Wright, and what his candidacy can mean for America if even possible:

But he did not merely sit back; he also dedicated his career to racial integration and understanding. It was a wide bridge, perhaps too wide for the weight it is bearing. And maybe America is not ready for this bridge, for these contradictions, for this complexity. But the promise of Obama is that his campaign appears poised to show that America is ready for this - and the immense healing it would bring.

And so we are suspended between the old politics and the new, between a Clinton who believes in her heart that America is not ready and may never be ready for this leap and should therefore adopt a politics that assumes the ineradicability of this gulf and the need to disguise it and play cynical defense - and an Obama who offers all of us a chance to see that sometimes authentic identity requires an element of contradiction, a bridging of the resentful, angry past and a more complex, integrated future.

He may fail; and the Clintons may be proven right. But he may also succeed - and what a mighty success that would be. These things are never easy; and we were lulled perhaps into an illusion that they could be. So now the real struggle starts. And it will not end with an Obama presidency; it ends with a shift from below that makes an Obama presidency possible.

Or to put it in a phrase that is as true as it is wilfully misunderstood: We are the change we have been waiting for.

I do believe this. The Clinton/Bush generation has made their mistakes, and we're suffering even this week for them -- Iraq, Wall Street, all things she tacitly or actively went along with.

It's time for the next generation to take charge, make our own mistakes, sure, but take responsibility, and hopefully in the balance make a more promising future for our children.

The Man

Dick Gregory then.

Dick Gregory now:



Long live Dick Gregory.

Can't Stop What's Coming?

The title's a quote from the odds-on Best Picture favorite as of tonight. The reference here is to the flip from Hillary to Barack, and I think you're going to see some tectonic-type shifts in the national polls, and the upcoming February 5th Super Tuesday state polls shortly.

It'll be trickle-down. It'll be because of voters like this. It'll be because of former Clinton allies (in this case FCC Chairman appointed by Bill) like this.

Losing New Hampshire will be seen as the best thing that ever happened to the Obama campaign. If it had seemed so easy, you wouldn't have young volunteers from both political parties coming to work for the campaign like this.

Sure, there will be twists, maybe one that denies Obama the nomination, but that's getting increasingly risky, what with the massive deflation of Democrat enthusiasm that would ensue, what with all the endorsements being put on the line.

If Obama does win the nomination and then the Presidency, it will not only be the most meteoric rise of a politician in my lifetime, it will also be the most underestimated politician in generations. Even more underestimated than the current White House denizen.

After all, he went 70%-27% just three and a half years ago.

Carolina/Caroline or Change

Barack didn't just win in South Carolina today, he won big. His coalition included all income groups. His victory speech gets everything right, for instance:

We are up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as President comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor, and judgment, and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose – a higher purpose.

We are up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together to make college affordable or energy cleaner; it’s the kind of partisanship where you’re not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea – even if it’s one you never agreed with. That kind of politics is bad for our party, it’s bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all.

We are up against the idea that it’s acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. We know that this is exactly what’s wrong with our politics; this is why people don’t believe what their leaders say anymore; this is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.

Some interesting stats about the win:

- Hillary Clinton's support in that state has been sliding for two months from her original dominant poll position, and Obama soared over the past few days. Very important to get those late deciders.

- Holy cow on fundraising -- in one hour after Obama's win tonight his website took in over half a million dollars in donations, which seems to be the rate for the night, extraordinary.

- Obama received more votes in the primary than John McCain and Mike Huckabee combined. This surely goes to electability -- unlike Clinton, Obama may be able to peel off some Southern states for Dems.

- Rasmussen has a new poll out today (and yes, I'll want to see some others before I take it with less than a grain of salt) putting Obama, for the first time, within three percentage points of Hillary nationally.

There's a secondary narrative that's influencing the campaign, something I've written about over the past week (always nice to seem prescient), but liberal Dems are starting to turn against the Clintons (also now known as "Billary") due to their assholic campaign style of late. Left-side columnist Jonathan Chait hit the nail on the head in The Los Angeles Times today:

Something strange happened the other day. All these different people -- friends, co-workers, relatives, people on a liberal e-mail list I read -- kept saying the same thing: They've suddenly developed a disdain for Bill and Hillary Clinton. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but I think we've reached an irrevocable turning point in liberal opinion of the Clintons.

The sentiment seems to be concentrated among Barack Obama supporters. Going into the campaign, most of us liked Hillary Clinton just fine, but the fact that tens of millions of Americans are seized with irrational loathing for her suggested that she might not be a good Democratic nominee. But now that loathing seems a lot less irrational. We're not frothing Clinton haters like ... well, name pretty much any conservative. We just really wish they'd go away.

He goes on to list their lying about Obama's positions from abortion to Reagan, and even asks the most deadly question of all:

It made me wonder: Were the conservatives right about Bill Clinton all along? Maybe not right to set up a perjury trap so they could impeach him, but right about the Clintons' essential nature?

It's interesting to see the old Clinton bastion of support, African Americans, starting to turn, from Colbert I. King in the Washington Post:

Who would have thought, eight years ago, that the country might get back Billary, two people reeking of self-pity and spoiling for fights with anyone who has the temerity to stand in their way?

to Obama supporters actually booing the supposed "first black President" and ostensible Democratic Party leader when his face appeared on the Jumbotron.

And it's hard to say he doesn't deserve it -- if even in his reaction to Obama winning the state sounds like some nasty, knowing, dog-whistle race-baiting:

Jesse Jackson won in South Carolina twice, in '84 and '88...

Yeah. Yucky.

But maybe hope really is on the way. Brand new editorial endorsements for Barack include the San Francisco Chronicle (reprieve and renewal of our political system), The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Obama the comet of hope vs. Bill Clinton reemerging "as the Luca Brasi of the campaign trail"), and The Harvard Crimson (with a great analysis of his policies, putting to rest any notion that he'd be a lightweight in office).

But there's one endorsement that's potentially the most significant, appearing on the very same editorial pages that endorsed his opponent just the other day.

Caroline Kennedy has endorsed Barack Obama for President on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times.

It seems that he reminds her of her father.

Damaging?

Back at the ignition of the Iraq War I always said that if one thing was going to trip up Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld and company it was the fact that they lied. Now, some call that politics, but I think there's a key difference when you say something you know to be untrue. The truth, no matter how badly it may be taken upon delivery, is ultimately always defensible. Owning up can suck f'sure, but getting caught in a lie, or having to waste additional energy, cycles and reputation propping up a lie, that's the basis for maybe 80% of all film noirs.

So Bill and Hillary (or is it Hillary and Bill?) Clinton are lying. She lied during the debate this week about what Barack said about Ronald Reagan, she and her campaign is lying about Obama on abortion rights, and Bill, if he isn't lying, is squandering whatever goodwill he retained for eight good years ending in one sour blowjob by acting as un-Presidential in attacking Obama as Donald Trump would be vs. Rosie O'Donnell.

He's got his own Former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, decrying his lies. He's got Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) calling him up to say stop. Meanwhile, a female Hillary supporter who ran the Chicago division of NOW (National Organization of Women), someone squarely in her target demo, switching her vote and endorsement to Barack over Hillary's lies about his pro-choice record and making extremely compelling online videos about it.

Even Michelle Obama is getting into the act, with a letter to supporters of her husband:

We knew getting into this race that Barack would be competing with Senator Clinton and President Clinton at the same time.

We expected that Bill Clinton would tout his record from the nineties and talk about Hillary’s role in his past success. That’s a fair approach and a challenge we are prepared to face.

What we didn’t expect, at least not from our fellow Democrats, are the win-at-all-costs tactics we’ve seen recently. We didn’t expect misleading accusations that willfully distort Barack’s record.

Probably great for fundraising, especially as, by some assessments, Obama is starting to win the spin war on it. Greg Sargent at TPM frames it as a battle for who's being victimized (remember Hillary nearly crying?) with Barack coming out on top:

Right now -- if media coverage, pundit opinion, and insider chatter among Dems is any guide -- it's hard not to conclude that Obama is winning this particular spin war handily.

At risk of overgeneralizing, much media coverage and commentary right now appears to be hewing closer to the Obama campaign's chosen narrative, which is roughly that the Clinton machine is using every gutter tactic at its disposal to halt the triumph of new politics and the making of history.

Every gutter tactic includes racial innuendo and just plain willful mischaracterization, all in service of the Karl Rove-style tactic of going after your opponent's strength, rather than their weakness. Most recently, this has meant attacking Obama's honesty. But are the Clintons (and how Soprano are they seeming now -- their own ad prophetic) playing with fire?:

The Clinton campaigns emphasis of experience throughout the campaign is entirely consistent with the perceived importance of the competence/experience brand. Emphasizing areas of perceived strength in a campaign's final days is a basic element of Political Strategy 101, which makes the sudden, blistering shift to issues of personal character by both Clintons so curious.

Of course, Schmelzer was right to hedge. Only time will tell," he wrote on Tuesday, whether the "trust/truth narrative" would overtake the "'experience' narrative of the past few weeks," or whether such a shift might benefit Obama "at the polls."

The last 24 hours, however, brings signs that the coverage may be changing: A front page story in today's Washington Post takes sides in the Clinton-Obama dispute, hitting a Clinton radio ad for repeating a "discredited charge" against Obama and "juxtapos[ing] it with GOP policies that Obama has never advocated." A companion editorial in goes further, concluding that this "episode does not speak well" for Clinton's "character and judgment."

And there's nothing the GOP likes to run on more than their own twisted yet successful meme of "character."

Who's Reading?

Just last night I post about how Bill is bothering me more than Hillary on the campaign trail, and now behold:

In an exclusive interview with ABC News' Robin Roberts to air Monday on "Good Morning America," Obama, D-Ill., directly engages Bill Clinton on a series of issues.

"You know the former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling," Obama said. "He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts -- whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas.

"This has become a habit, and one of the things that we're going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate," Obama said.

Should be a fun interview, and maybe in going after the Big Dog (and that can be read in the best and worst sense) Barack will suddenly up his name recognition and visibility -- what I continue to believe are the key advantages of his leading competitor.

Prepare for the nasty Clinton blowback as well. One can only hope Bill's hubris will keep him from learning from this -- making him the issue is a great way for Obama to score without looking like he's "beating" ungallantly on Hillary.

I believe there are lots of Democrats who, no matter how happy they were with the Bill Clinton Presidency, have a festering sore over how, due to his over-obvious selfishness, he left us after with...nothing.

The Reason Why

The Democrats have three, yep, three great candidates for President.

My heart starts with John Edwards and he's gotten a horrific, shameful deal from the news media, but somehow his message, while justified and righteous, does not appear to have the broad appeal necessary to win his Party's nomination. He gets mischaracterized as "angry" but there's enough of it there to hurt him -- we don't tend to elect on anger so much as opposition, and there's a line there.

In many appearances I find Hillary Clinton to be smart, competent, and well within the bounds of my beliefs. In a certain sense she's due, and in another it'll be a sad day if she does lose for women and especially young girls across America, because another likely female Presidential candidate does not appear -- to me -- to be on the near horizon.

However, she's got a big problem, and it's the very thing that should be a strength. The problem is Bill.

If I'm feeling any of the so-called Clinton fatigue, it's not really her so much as her husband. I'm just so over Bill, my favorite President since JFK. When I see him going after a reporter by quite politically characterizing the questioner's beliefs here, I'm just over him. Not enough to vote for any Republican over his wife in the General Election, but enough to want an alternative now, as seems to be a growing case with the Democratic Electorate. Why else all these high profile endorsements for this other guy?

The saving grace of this election cycle is that the alternative is here. Barack Obama is getting slimed nice, just like a frontrunner or a threat to the status quo.

In the Washington Post there's columnist Richard Cohen with a vile anti-Semetic smear based on guilt by association-to-association, whereas Obama has evinced a firm and principled support of Israel.

The Edwards campaign, hopefully just a wildcatter in there, got a falsified version of Obama's quote concerning Ronald Reagan on CBS News, making it seem like Obama supported Reagan's policies when he's actually, to paraphrase Kos blogger Fonsia, "come to bury Reagan, not to praise him."

Chris Bowers has an excellent explanation of how he's come to prefer Obama over Clinton vis-à-vis ending the Iraq War, well worth reading.

But if you really need to be convinced, if you want to spend some quality time, like you may not get again this election, with a very, very smart, able, interesting, amiable, refreshing and oh-so-clearly prepared candidate...

...if you finally want to close the deal with yourself...

...click here.

Right Again

If Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is successful in his campaign for President, the most remarkable aspect may not be his race or youth, but that he's consistently saying things that pundits on the left and the right consider breaking the rules.

As someone of Obama's age group (within 15 months) and what I believe to be a similarly progressive viewpoint, I find it particularly refreshing when he pisses off certain doctrinaire leftists by telling truths that veer from their playbook. The latest is Obama's comments on deceased former President Ronald Reagan.

While various DailyKos diarists are up in arms and even Open Left's Matt Stoller misleadingly entitles his post "Obama's Admiration of Ronald Reagan," I'm surprised and pleased to see Obama making a case I've been expressing for a long time:

I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

Taking the first part of this statement, there's no way Al Gore would have lost in 2000 if Bill Clinton had been less selfish, had not had sexual relations with a 23-year old intern and been able to effectively campaign with Gore. Clinton left behind no enduring political legacy save his wife's subsequent political career. While Bill Clinton was President, the "Reagan Revolution" was completed when, in 1994, the House of Representatives turned over the Republican Party for the first time since 1931.

Next we have his statement on excesses. Again, correct. While Stoller reads this as, "Those excesses, of course, were feminism, the consumer rights movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, and the antiwar movement," I beg to differ.

The fact was that when Jimmy Carter was elected President and the Democrats suddenly had control of both Houses of Congress and the Executive Branch, they didn't go progressive, they simply porked up. The more honest New Deal generation was gone and in the long years between 1932 and 1980 that old guard was replaced, as so often happens over the long haul in initially successful and popular organization, with hacks. Everyone felt safe, everyone got a piece, while the economy was going to hell. This on top of the, yes, excessive Vietnam War -- a war the Democratic Party escalated most heavily when Democratic President Lyndon Johnson was in office, with a Democratic House of Representatives.

The last part of this Obama statement is essentially his strategy for winning the Presidency and securing America's future. Jimmy Carter spoke of an American malaise which, even if true, came across as blaming the American people for it. Not a pro-active leader who made you expect a better day tomorrow. While you'll find few voters who despised the Reagan Administration more than I, or who yelled at the screen more when he gave a speech, I do acknowledge that America was hungry for a change, hungry to feel better about their nation and their prospects again, and the Dems were only delivering the "promise" of better, kinder management, a promise gainsaid by their performance at the time.

The fact is that the Democrats always lose when they run on "better management," which is why Hillary Clinton has, I believe, only illusory advantage in her competence/hands on differentiation claims this week. Sure, we don't want another George W. Bush working purely from his gut and taking little responsibility for the disasters of his team's making. But Obama is not only obviously smarter than Bush, he's clearly emerged from the progressive sphere, that of community organization.

What Obama does appear to have, then, is the proper positioning to win the Presidency. While Hillary and Bill were fast to co-opt his message of change after Iowa, suddenly plastering it over appearances, calling Hillary "Ready for Change", they've actually fallen victim to Obama's rope-a-dope.

Sure, Obama gave his Iowa victory speech surrounded by huge versions of the word, "Change," he's actually selling something more than that. His secret weapon is exactly the same as Ronald Reagan's. Obama is selling hope.

As he said in that speech, this isn't a passive form of hope. Like Reagan, it requires active participation and entrepreneurship. But he knows it's the kind of trajectory that can actually make Americans of different stripes feel better about themselves and their country. Just like it did in Ronald Reagan's electoral success.

Only this time, make no mistake about it, it's coming from the left.

Rats

I just saw Ratatouille yesterday, which is excellent and often astonishing and a lot of fun for adults, but it's funny how now I'm thinking about rats and there's Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Fred Thompson.

With Libby there's been a lot of GOP mouthpiece bloviating about how Bush commuting Libby's sentence is somehow the moral equivalent of Bill Clinton as one of his final acts of office pardoning millionaire crook Marc Rich.

While sure, Clinton was wrong to do it, Rich wasn't material to a potential high crime perpetrated in conspiracy including Mister Bush and directed by President Cheney. In fact, there's ample evidence that the Libby defense team put the squeeze on Cheney and got the guaranteed fix from Cheney in return for not calling Dick to testify.

But the most delectable twist of all is this:

Guess who was Marc Rich's lawyer, instrumental in getting the pardon in front of then-President Clinton, and one of the first to call and congratulate Rich once the fix was in?

That's right. The Scoot.


Meanwhile, supposed GOP Presidential savior candidate Fred Thompson turns out to have been a rat who actually squealed, during the 1974 Watergate Hearings, which led to the last Republican President resignation. He was Minority Counsel. He leaked to Nixon and his henchmen what was going on in committee:

The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight -- asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system -- he telephoned Nixon's lawyer.

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson said he acted with "no authority" in divulging the committee's knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon's resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson's actions.

"Thompson was a mole for the White House," Armstrong said in an interview. "Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was."

They can't handle the truth. They never could.