Jones intimates that he was a NOC (a non-official cover officer like Valerie Plame). Unlike Plame he did not get permission to publish this book. He just went ahead and did it (so he says). Well, when you are reading a book written by a person who declines to give their true name and who provides no identifying information to speak of you are left to form your judgment based on things the author writes about where you do have first hand knowledge of the events. Mr. “Jones” account of Valerie Plame is complete horseshit. He clearly knew nothing about her or her career other than what he has read by critics of Valerie. What is absolutely pathetic is he did not even have the industry or curiosity to read what the current CIA Director in charge of human intelligence operations wrote to a Federal court in explaining why Valerie’s association at the CIA can not (I repeat NOT) be acknowledged prior to February of 2002.

A clown like Jones who misses and misstates facts about Valerie Plame and her work at CIA immediately calls into question everything else he claims to “know” about the CIA. Save your money and your time. Don’t buy this turd of a book. The only true dysfunction revealed in the book is the author. He has trouble with basic facts that a high school kid with a computer can easily verify.

Furthermore, if you’ve ever been lucky enough to have turned on C-Span during one of the exceptionally well-organized forums that Steve sets up (which is what he does for a living), you have been in for a treat. One of our best regular readers — whose comments are always a must-read — is “Mr. Murder.” He sent me an e-mail on August 15th about Steve’s latest forum, “Scripting America’s Priorities: The Democratic Party Platform.” Go to Steve’s blog, and read all about this important forum. (And thanks to Mr. Murder for sending me his e-mail.)

Steve Clemons’ fealty to the “Golden Rule” is an amazing feat since he is very well-connected in Washington, D.C. and knows nearly all of the major players, and I can only imagine how difficult it is to stay true to himself in such a hardball city. It would be natural to become cynical and to indulge in the gossip common in that cut-throat environment. (A prime example is Sally Quinn, who with one hand proudly holds up her religious faith, and with the other cuts people like the Clintons to shreds because they don’t meet her rather snobbish criteria for inclusion in her inner sanctum. Her snobbery is a dishonor to her supposed faith.)

So, when I read this written by Steve Clemons at his fine blog, Washington Note, I know he has thoroughly checked this story, and that he knows whereof he speaks.

Furthermore, I sense, strongly, that Steve Clemons was very unhappy as he wrote this:

“Obama to General Wesley Clark: Your Services Not Needed”

General Wesley Clark is not attending the Democratic National Convention. I was told by General Clark’s personal office in Little Rock that he would not be attending.

Clark was informed by Barack Obama’s people that there was no reason to come.

General Clark has been given no role of any kind at the convention.

Rubbing salt in the wound even more, the “theme” of Wednesday’s Democratic convention agenda is “Securing America.”

Wesley Clark’s PAC also happens to be called SECURING AMERICA.

This speaks volumes about Barack Obama. As the person who sent this article to me added, Barack Obama “holds grudges and is petty.” That is true. Furthermore, it is just plain stupid. One of Barack Obama’s glaring electability issues is his complete lack of experience in the essential arena of NATIONAL SECURITY. Barack Obama needs Gen. Wesley Clark FAR MORE than Gen. Clark needs Barack Obama. This rebuff demonstrates not only pettiness, it proves that Barack Obama lacks common sense.

Here is more from Steve Clemons about the Obama’s campaign notice to Gen. Clark that he is not welcome at the convention in Denver:

This is a mistake in my view. There are a lot of perspectives and competing agendas about how to direct America’s next national security posture — and General Wesley Clark should be one of the top tier names and personalities at the table. …

Please read all of Steve Clemons’ article. And consider the heavy heart with which I sense he wrote this.

[NOTE: I hope that our cartoonist PatRacimora also writes about this. PatRacimora knows Gen. Clark and has long been involved in his campaign activities and his PAC. She will add an important personal touch to this disappointing story.]

During the primaries, Steve Clemons made every effort to be fair to all of the candidates, including both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. He was also critical of all of the candidates when he felt they deserved to be criticized.

He told it like it is. Always. There were a couple times when I wrote to him about columns he published that were critical of Hillary Clinton, and he always — always — wrote me a thoughtful reply.

He is an honorable person. To his core. And so is General Wesley Clark.

In other words, his blog operates as an even-minded resource in the blogosphere — a true rare instance of “objectivity” these days when, frankly, we hunt and choose which stories to write about based on our own feelings and prejudices. I’m as guilty of that as anyone, at times. But Steve never is.

And now, let’s consider how this makes General Clark feel. He was a devoted partner to Hillary Clinton throughout her primary contests. Then, as soon as she suspended her campaign, he went to bat for Barack Obama. Because of one statement he made about John McCain, he became persona non grata to the Obama campaign.

There are other FINE PATRIOTS who have been similarly treated by the Obama camp. Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, a true American hero who campaigned in several states for Hillary Clinton, immediately CALLED Barack Obama’s campaign and offered his services in any way he could. He has never received a call back.

When heroes such as these are cast aside by a presidential campaign, one must ponder what the campaign is really about.

When such EXPERTS in national security are ignored, one must ponder if Barack Obama has any common sense. He needs these patriots’ advice. Desperately.

Aside from winning, that is.

It is a bit understandable that, for a while, the Obama campaign might be wary of General Clark’s services after his sincerely unintended “faux pas” regarding John McCain, which he in NO way meant as an insult but simply as a statement of fact. (It was unfortunate, but what’s past is past. And General Clark has such a distinguished record that the WHOLE of his professional and personal history must be honored.)

And why ignore Joe Wilson? Why ignore Valerie Plame Wilson? Why not appreciate and promote these fine Americans who have given their careers — and in both instances have paid a high price for sticking to their true American values — to protecting this nation and trying, always, to do the right thing?

In order to “save” the Democratic Party, Brazile resolved back in 2003 that she might have to destroy it first. And who better to help her in this lofty pursuit than her new best friend, the man neoconservatives call “The Architect”.

…………………………..

BY ROSEMARY REGELLO

It’s not every activist politico who gets to write a post in the Washington Times that begins like this: "As I sat by my window and staring out at the wonderful Washington, D.C., landscape, my office announced a phone call from Air Force One."

Evidently, Donna Brazile was reminding all the little people on Capitol Hill that she had friends in high places. In summer of 2007, Bush senior advisor Karl Rove wasn’t answering any subpoenas from Congress, but he didn’t mind talking to Brazile. From his perch at 20,000 feet, he informed her that this was probably a good time for him to get out of Dodge.

“Mr. Rove’s resignation is not a retirement,” Brazile reassured readers of the right of center newspaper. “It’s just another opportunity for him to create that lasting Republican majority he envisioned years ago and to spend his waking days doing what he so enjoys — beating Democrats in the alleys and gutters. Just ask Sen. Hillary Clinton, Mr. Rove’s target when he called in to speak to Rush Limbaugh. He couldn’t help it. Mr. Rove just had to take one last shot before riding out of town. More to come, Team Clinton.”

Brazile’s breezy account confirms what many have long since suspected. Rove’s claim to be sitting out the 2008 race is hogwash. The mastermind of today’s unraveling U.S. constitution is in no position to kick back, down gin fizzes and watch the country collapse under an Administration he put into office twice. The list of crimes that Bush’s top henchman could potentially be charged with - everything from fraud to war crimes - should be enough to keep him and his fellow Sopranos in hair-trigger mode until the next president gets sworn in. And the notion that he’d leave the choice of commander-in-chief in less capable dirty hands than his own requires more than the willing suspension of disbelief. It requires medication.

That’s why the Rove-Brazile tryst merits further exploration. They first hooked up some time in 2002, according to a New York Times article. The connection might have been a means for Brazile to expand her clientele, but she dismissed that angle in an interview, implying she had bigger fish to fry. It was the Democrats’ lackluster relations with African Americans and poor track record in elections, she said, that led her to start trailblazing new frontiers. To put it in a Brazile nutshell, the Republicans had a better machine.

”The idea is to re-energize the African-American electorate and revive the Democratic Party at the same time,” she told Times reporter Katharine Seelye, ”I want to revitalize the party from the grass roots up. We’re losing voters.”

With that noble cause in mind, she and Rove began to "chirpily exchange e-mail, chat on the phone and write letters, indulging in their shared zeal for the inner workings of politics," Seelye wrote.

Rove said he’d sometimes call Brazile before a press appearance to get feedback on various Bush policy angles he planned to discuss. In exchange, he furnished Brazile’s clients with access to White House social events.

"People think I’m crazy talking to Karl Rove," the strategist confessed to the Washington Post a month after the Times story appeared, "but there’s something about this guy."

Yes, there certainly is something about Karl Rove. In consultation with Vice-President Cheney’s office, it was Rove who outed Valerie Plame’s C.I.A. identity over a flap about uranium in Niger. Three years later, those subpoenas were overflowing his in-box because he’d told Alberto Gonzalez to fire nine U.S. Attorneys who refused to do his bidding. Rove is also under investigation for an entrapment scheme that put Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman in prison for two years.

Those Republicans sure do know how to close the deal in politics. In addition to basking in The Architect’s dapper charm and irresistible company, Brazile opened diplomatic ties across town with archconservative Grover Norquist. Norquist heads one of Jack Abramoff’s favorite charities, Americans for Tax Reform, and is famous for his remark that he’d like to see federal government crippled to the point where he can take it home and drown it in his bathtub. For a brief window of opportunity, he set aside that morbid fantasy to help one of Brazile’s closest friends, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes, push some legislation to increase revenues in her district.

According to the same Times article, “Mr. Norquist said he and Ms. Brazile, both Washington residents, were devising a plan to urge Congress to allow the city to raise the height limit on buildings as a way to broaden the tax base and improve schools.”

Brazile served as Holmes’ chief of staff and press secretary during the nineties. In that same action-packed year, her old boss teamed up with other D.C. officials to schedule an unauthorized, nonbinding earlybird presidential primary for 2004. DNC chair Terry McAuliffe sent sent out calls to the candidates to boycott the affair, but Howard Dean didn’t heed the directive. The former Vermont governor swept into D.C. and gobbled up almost as many endorsements as another candidate, Rev. Al Sharpton. Who needed those arcane DNC rules, anyway?

The Brazile Factor

At the time of these contentious political developments, Brazile chaired the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute, a program set up after the Florida recount debacle in 2000. During that earlier episode, she’d experienced firsthand Karl Rove’s unscrupulous knack for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Now she was tasked with brainstorming new strategies to prevent any future gaming of the electoral system.

In 2004, Dean ended his presidential bid after the Wisconsin primary and Kerry lost the general election. This time, Rove generated thousands of extra Bush votes in key Ohio precincts where only a few hundred Republicans lived. Not surprisingly, Brazile remained unimpressed with her party. That winter, she submitted an essay for the left-leaning website Slate.com, which was running a series called “Why Americans Hate Democrats – A Dialog”.

Hard as it must have been to top that inspirational title, the political strategist managed with her piece “Tapping the Obama Factor”. The Chicago politician had just been elevated to the U.S. Senate, but instead of offering an introduction to him, she mostly dwelled on her own life story - rising up from poverty in Louisiana, listening to her grandmother read scripture, etc. etc. Eventually, the essay worked its way back to the stated topic.

"This is a new moment to identify and recruit better messengers," she wrote. "Perhaps it’s time to tap into the ‘Obama’ factor: Scour statehouses for young, energetic, inspiring, and emerging leaders with the ability to connect the head and heart. Too many of the old Democratic guard have stayed in Washington, D.C., too long to fully recognize how most Americans live their lives."

It was a novel way to spin the Illinois election. Obama did score a landslide victory that year, but it had little to do with his age, energy level or the obsolete nature of the Democratic Party establishment. His campaign manager David Axelrod ran the classic Rovian smear campaign, first accusing Obama’s top primary contender of sexual impropriety. After disgracing Blair Hull out of contention, Axelrod used the same device against the G.O.P. primary winner, Jack Ryan.

Of course, this is where things get interesting. House Speaker Dennis Hastert decided he must stick his oar into the battle, calling on Ryan to end his senate bid. The candidate dutifully bowed out, and in his stead, the Illinois Republican Party fielded an unknown, African American bible-thumper from Maryland named Alan Keyes. Clearly, the G.O.P. wanted Obama to win that election. No other explanation can account for the party sacrificing a senate seat to a (supposedly) liberal Democrat who’d (supposedly) spoken out against the Iraq War in 2002.

A Hollywood script writer couldn’t have come up with this storyline. Within a year of arriving in Washington, Brazile’s rising star – the product of a globe-trotting Kansas woman and a philandering tribal leader in Kenya - had launched his presidential exploratory committee. The Internet fundraising team of Howard Dean signed on for the ride. So, too, did some of Wall Street’s biggest investment banks, corporate law firms, and energy giants. By the end of 2007, Obama would post a record-breaking haul of $100 million in campaign contributions. And all while he was still "introducing himself", as Brazile and other analysts put it, to the American public.

Who exactly brought the banks and oil companies to the table still remains to be ferreted out, but it wasn’t Dean or Brazile, or even the man who placed Obama on the speaker’s list at the 2004 Democratic Convention, John Kerry. It’s more likely that Karl Rove huddled with top Bush fundraisers to set that gravy train in motion. Among the candidate’s money bundlers were George Kaiser and Robert Cavnar, both oil industry executives. Other Bush campaign pioneers joined the bandwagon soon afterward.

Now Brazile was impressed. Judging from another My Day installment penned in 2005, following Hurricane Katrina, she sounded like a woman who had been born again:

“While my family was hurting, when they were on the edge feeling left to fend for themselves, the last thing I wanted to do was whine. I got into the groove quickly and contacted Ken Melhman, Chairman of the Republican National Committee and an old friend, Karl Rove, Deputy Chief of Staff for the White House.”

Then she started tossing out the cupcakes: “President Bush, who promised to rebuild the Gulf coast in a speech at Jackson Square, invited some African American leaders over to the White House on December 7th to discuss a broad range of issues…To my great surprise, the meeting with President Bush was cordial and candid. The President listened intently and reassured us that his Administration would not drop the ball.”

Funny how such innocuous fluff takes on a new and sinister meaning when read in hindsight. Yet even from the perspective of a contemporary audience, those claims were a stetch. For people living in New Orleans, the Katrina ball had already been dropped. When the levees broke, Sec. of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff was attending a conference on bird flu, the President relaxing on his Crawford ranch. Back in Brazile’s home state, over a thousand people drowned during three days of waiting for rescuers to reach their homes. Several million homeless residents survived, homeless, only to a second disaster called FEMA.

But Brazile didn’t let facts on the ground spoil her picnic. Continuing her upbeat dispatch, “Since then, I have met once more with President Bush and other leaders who are committed to working together to restore the lives and the communities devastated by these two hurricanes…I can tell from the meetings that the rebuilding of Louisiana remains high on his list of priorities.”

Preparing for Battle

One can only speculate on Brazile’s motives in streaming out that hallucination. As she would mention in the Washington Times article two years later, her “old friend” Rove had hit the ground running with the start of the 2008 election cycle, appearing on talk shows to bash frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Behind the scenes, G.O.P. rank and file activists were organizing crossover voting drives to knock Clinton out of the race before November. In the red states, they could easily outnumber Democrats at the caucuses, enriching Obama’s delegate count and allowing him to boast later “I’ve won more states.”

To recruit additional foot troops for this effort, New Hampshire G.O.P. leader Stephen DaMaura started the Facebook website “Stop Hillary Clinton (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary).”

On the Democratic side, it became Brazile’s job to smooth over Obama’s path to the nomination. That required manipulating the primary calendar. Picking up on the diversity argument of Eleanor Holmes and the D.C. coalition, she pressed for an earlybird South Carolina primary and a Nevada caucus to augment the Iowa and New Hampshire dates.

While the advantages of South Carolina were obvious, by necessity the second contest required a less obvious, more covert action plan to avoid any accusations of stacking the deck. Although the Clinton camp didn’t realize it at the time, a caucus in Nevada (like a caucus anywhere) would naturally benefit Obama, since her base of blue-collar, older and non-English-speaking supporters would not be driving across town to attend some meeting run by disorganized volunteers. On the other hand, motivated Republicans could be counted on to show up, especially if the G.O.P. candidates could be persuaded not to campaign in the state. (They didn’t.)

Nevertheless, the reason for adding more earlybird contests in the first place centered on ethic diversity, so selling the DNC (and the public) on Nevada required some tweaking of those caucus parameters. That’s why arrangements were made to allow the state’s casino workforce of some 60,000 predominantly Latino workers to attend specially set up caucus sites just for them.

But wouldn’t this huge Hispanic voting block put Clinton over the top in Nevada? Not necessarily. It turns out that the union representing casino employees, S.E.I.U., would be backing Obama, just as they had supported Dean in his presidential bid. So those voters could now be added to the Obama column.

Thus, with caucuses scheduled in Iowa and Nevada, a primary in South Carolina with its near majority African American demographic, and the New Hampshire Republican brass on the job in that state, the chance of Clinton heading into Super Tuesday at cruising altitude had spectacularly diminished.

“Including two more states will not only be good for our country, it will be good for our party and good for our nominee," Brazile told the Los Angeles Times in August 2006.

Sounding an early portent of doom, the South Carolina delegate on the rules committee said in the same article, “If you campaign in a state that is outside the rules, then you’re not entitled to delegates from that state."

A year later, that scenario unfolded like a bad dream for the DNC. Over the objections of Florida’s state Democratic Party, a Republican-controlled legislature moved its primary to January 29, 2008, one week before the official February 5^th cusp adopted by both the Republican National Committee and the DNC.

On August 25, 2007. the DNC rules and bylaws committee met to adjudicate this unspeakable crime. State party chair Karen Thurman testified at the meeting, walking the committee through the chronology of her long and fruitless battle to overturn the date switch. The Republicans had attached it as a rider to another bill, one authorizing the replacement of electronic paperless voting equipment with more traditional optical scanners. Unable to defeat the rider on a partyline vote, the Democrats begrudgingly approved the larger measure.

Anyone who has watched the re-broadcast of those DNC proceedings on CSPAN can’t help but be dumbfounded by the discussion that followed Thurman’s presentation. A slam-dunk case for a rule waiver turned into a shameless bout of piling on, as committee member Brazile and several others accused the state party of not trying hard enough to change the date. (One also noticed from the broadcast the unusually high number of African Americans on the 30-member committee, as opposed to near zero representation for other minorities.)

When asked by Brazile why she hadn’t made any plans to hold a caucus in place of the primary, Thurman balked. The logistics and $8 million price tag, she said, were beyond comprehension, given that Florida boasts 4 million eligible Democrats.

"I understand how states crave to be first,” Brazile blustered in a Washington Post interview the next day, as if none of what Thurman told her had registered. “I understand that they’re envious of the role that Iowa and New Hampshire have traditionally played, The truth is, we had a process . . . We’re going to back these rules."

Later, the head of the DNC Voting Rights Institute published an op-ed in the same newspaper, this time under the combative heading, “Why We Stood Up to Florida”. With the cockiness that was fast becoming her trademark, Brazile griped, “It was hardly an extraordinary act, although you wouldn’t know it from the furious reaction that ensued in some quarters…Why the uproar? It’s simple: state envy.”

She went on to list all the economic benefits coveted by states vying to hold early primaries, again diverting from the core issue of Republican meddling in Democratic affairs. Inexplicably, the press coverage of the showdown also overlooked the G.O.P.’s role in moving up the primary date.

The same week the rules committee stripped Florida of all its convention delegates, Michigan’s state legislature voted to move up its primary to January 15th. Both states could have easily been pegged as Clinton strongholds, making their exclusion from the election cycle suspect. Michigan is an industrial blue-collar enclave with few of the upper-middle-class voters and college students that represent Obama’s base. Florida’s Hispanic population is huge, and combined with an abundant supply of New York retirees, would likely also resist the Obama "surge".

Moreover, using Republican crossover voting to shave points off Clinton’s victories posed problems in both states. In Michigan, native son Mitt Romney had a significant campaign apparatus in place, while Rudi Giuliani was expecting to draw his line in the sand in Florida. Where these battleground territories were in play, neither gentleman would appreciate Rove siphoning away their voters. Better just to invalidate the primaries on the Democratic side. That way, Clinton’s delegate lead could be held in check on Super Tuesday.

"Seeds of Doubt"

With the votes of the country’s fourth and eighth largest states thus consigned to the junk heap, Brazile turned to other pursuits. Hired as a paid election analyst for CNN, she carried on a double life - one as an official DNC spokesperson, the other as a partisan campaigner for Barack Obama. In February, when best-guess estimates gave Clinton the support of two-thirds of the superdelegates, she declared, "If 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I will quit the Democratic Party."

If party leaders were as worried about negative fallout and damage control then as they claimed to be a month later, they might have reeled in their contract employee at this point for a heart-to-heart chat. That didn’t happen. Brazile just reloaded her pistol and repeated her empty threat to all who would listen. On another occasion, she accused former President Bill Clinton of being a racist. It was inexcusable, she said, that during a speech Clinton referred to Obama as a "kid" and suggested his presidential bid amounted to little more than a "fairy tale".

"And I will tell you," Brazile bristled with emotion, "as an African American I find his words and his tone to be very depressing."

To be sure, Clinton said Obama’s evolving position on the Iraq War was a fairy tale, not his candidacy. As for alluding to his youth, Brazile and other cheerleaders for the Illinois senator had been doing it themselves for the past four years. It was a classic example of the Mark Twain quip that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has put its shoes on. Only CNN’s presence in the equation gave the adage literal meaning. Surely, the DNC would intervene now that Brazile had insulted a former Democratic president on national television. But nothing.

Notwithstanding the character smears and 24/7 swiftboating by the American media, Sen. Clinton persevered, scoring big wins in the Texas, Rhode Island and Ohio on March 4^th. On March 5th, she was accused of engaging in a “negative” campaign designed to "destroy" her adversary.

“Despite Obama’s impressive victories in February, Clinton’s comeback is based on sowing political seeds of doubt,” Brazile informed the Associated Press that day, “If these attacks are contrasts based on policy differences, there is no need to stop the race or halt the debate. But, if this is more division, more diversion from the issues and more of the same politics of personal destruction, chairman Dean and other should be on standby."

(ABC’s Jake Tapper went Brazile one better, claiming Clinton was exercising the "Tanya Harding option".)

In response to the call to arms, Dean promptly petitioned Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to intervene in the protracted race, while Senators Dodd, Richardson and Leahy demanded that Clinton end her candidacy for the good of the party.

Now this sounded familiar. Jack Ryan must have been chuckling to himself from his perch inside a bar, drinking rot-gut whiskey. In Washington, meanwhile, Reid promised that “things will be done” to determine a nominee before the convention. Pelosi told George Stephanopolis on his Sunday talk show that the superdelegates should not overturn “the will of the people”, but denied rumors that she was telling members of Congress that Clinton, if nominated, would be a "drag" on their own campaigns. As the Democratic Party version of the Adams Family was thus occupied in their hand-wringing, chest-beating and sharing of apocalyptic visions, Clinton pressed ahead, picking up 9 out of the final 13 primaries. Three of them she won by more than 30 points.

But no sooner had the daylight begun to shine at the end of the tunnel when another Rove-Brazile shoe dropped. For some reason, her triumph in the popular vote was not matched proportionally by delegates earned, and it had something to do with Obama’s phenomenal gains in the caucus states of Idaho, Nebraska, Kansas, etc. One would not have expected an African American liberal to clobber his opponent by a two-to-one margin as he did in many cases. More importantly, her delegate gains in the primaries involving millions of voters seemed to pale in comparison. This made no sense.

In late May, a disability activist named P. Cronin appeared on scene to sort out the Twilight Zone phenomenon. Cronin, who like most disabled people is not a big fan of caucuses, spent some time in late May analyzing the tallies from the 2008 Democratic contest, comparing the impact of the two different voting methods on the race.

According to Cronin’s study, nearly all of Obama’s 138-delegate lead over Clinton could be traced to 12 red state caucuses. In most of these contests he routinely won by 2-1 margins, even though polls in those states showed the candidates much closer. In Idaho, for instance, with its scant African American population, few colleges and relatively few Starbucks outlets, he captured 15 of the state’s 18 delegates.

Something fishy was going on here. Did Dean’s so-called 50-state strategy include the recruitment of pro-Obama activists to organize on the candidate’s behalf in caucus states? Did the number of DaMaura’s G.O.P. crossover voters wildly exceed expectations? Or was there just downright lying in the computation of the vote tallies?

The case of Washington state underscores the mystery of this Bermuda Triangle for Clinton delegates. On February 9^th, Obama earned a whopping 52 of the Washington’s 78 delegates after a 36-point victory in the party-run caucus. Over 240,000 allegedly eligible voters cast ballots in that contest. But a week later, just ahead of a state-run certified primary, the polling data showed that Clinton might actually win the election. On February 19th, after 650,000 ballots were counted Obama eked out a 5-point victory, hardly the 2-1 margin responsible for his 26-delegate net gain in the state. Unfortunately, the primary was non-binding.

Cronin notes in the study that those states that furnished the newcomer’s vast delegate booty contribute a grand total of 69 electoral votes in the general election. Few of these territories have voted Democratic since 1964.

It also appears that the votes of those lucky caucus-goers counted for 5-10 times more than the traditional Democrats who attended primaries. Obama netted more delegates in his Idaho win, for instance, than Clinton in her entire Ohio-Texas-Rhode Island romp on March 4th. The following table illustrates the questionable validity of these dispersements. Notice that the last column shows the delegate gain for the winner:

2008 Democratic Presidential Preference Election © 2008 P. Cronin
—————————-

Even in the Navada caucus that Clinton won, Obama was awarded more delegates. The New York senator couldn’t seem to win for winning. There, the S.E.I.U. endorsement dissolved into wishful thinking when the casino workers broke for Clinton two to one, giving her a 6-point victory. A few months later, Obama left the state convention with 3 more delegates.

While there’s no evidence implicating Dean in Obama’s caucus routs, the DNC had maintained staff on the ground in all 50 states since 2005, when he first became the chair. In August 2007, a few weeks before his rules and bylaws committee stripped Florida of its delegates, he announced in a press release that his 50-State Strategy project, the Voting Rights Institute and another DNC division known as the National Lawyers Council were collaborating on a nationwide survey of voter databases, registration procedures and other "election mechanics". According to the release, DNC staff would work with local election boards in gathering information in advance of the 2008 presidential election. "Protecting the right of every eligible American to vote is a top priority for our party," Dean and Brazile said in a joint statement. "Every eligible American deserves the confidence that when they go to the polls to cast their ballot they can do so without fear of intimidation or harassment, and that their vote will be counted fairly and accurately."

Throwing Mama Under the Bus

On May 31, 2008, the rules committee reconvened to discuss those "eligible Americans" living in Florida and Michigan. A week before the meeting, the Democratic Party tried to attach an air of legitimacy to the proceedings by having legal counsel weigh in on the dispute. Although by Brazile’s own account, the Supreme Court gives political parties wide latitude for determining how they pick their nominees, the lawyers claimed it would be unlawful to fully honor the certified votes of January 15^th and 29^th . The committee could do no more than restore half the nearly 350 convention delegates up for grabs.

Always amenable to compromise, the Clinton campaign accepted that limitation but rejected a proposal for Obama to receive some of her Michigan delegates, plus those of all the other candidates in the Michigan primary. After all, the Illinois senator voluntarily withdrew his name from the ballot, then vetoed a re-do primary which Clinton donors raised $10 million to fund. In a sane world, one could argue that he forfeited the state and therefore deserved no delegates.

Former Governor of Michigan Jim Blanchard didn’t present that line of attack, however. The Clinton spokesman stuck to the modest request that the candidate receive delegates in proportion to the votes cast for her. A few minutes later, it was Brazile’s turn to speak, and the CNN analyst first took the opportunity to congratulate herself for displaying restraint in the meeting up until that point. Then she repudiated Blanchard as if he were a child.

"My mama taught me to play by the rules and respect the rules…When you decide to change the rules, especially, in the middle of the game, it’s called cheating."

Dispatching the governor to go stand and in a corner and contemplate the error of his ways, Brazile’s committee allocated the Michigan delegates according to a fruitcake-like recipe involving exit polls, alleged write-in votes for Obama, the palm-reading of a psychic (just kidding) and the actual tally. In the end, Clinton gained a mere 4.5 delegates from the contest.

Any masochist following the 2008 election knew by then that Brazile had disregarded her own mother’s counsel long ago. Neither she nor her co-horts have lost any sleep over the thousands of complaints filed about the conduct of the caucuses, including some 2,000 submitted in Texas alone. Voter intimidation, stacks of fabricated sign-in sheets slipped in with the legitimate records, phony declarations from Republicans about their intention to switch parties, votes delayed until deep into the night, inaccurate tallies called in by phone, and other dirty tricks have yet to warrant even a cursory investigation by those who preach that playing by the rules represents a core value of the Democratic Party.

Even in the aftermath of her power grab, Brazile continues to denigrate those who challenge the authority of the party’s new African American leadership. In a July 22nd post on Daryl Cagle’s website, she groaned, "How many ways do these Hillary delegates, voters and supporters need to hear it before they get it? Sen. Barack Obama is the party’s nominee. He won. He will get to choose his running mate. Obama sets the agenda for the convention, and, while I understand their passion in wanting Hillary to be on the ticket and to have a prominent role at the convention, it’s not her decision… As much as we all would have loved to see a woman in the Oval Office, it wasn’t Hillary’s time. Period."

It’s ironic when you think about it. The DNC’s Voting Rights Institute was created to stop exclusionary practices and increase participation at the polling booth. Now its chairwoman is presiding over one of the most hostile and fraudulent campaigns since those newspaper delivery trucks ran over the boy scouts in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

"Mr. Rove proved you can win elections with rumors, fear, division and manipulation." Brazile wrote back in 2007, after that friendly exchange with Air Force One. "But you can’t win hearts that way."

No, you can’t. But then, this influential political fixer no longer appears to have use for that particular organ. Which may be why she finds men like Karl Rove and Grover Norquist so appealing.

- Rosemary Regello editor@thecityedition.com

(For more on the G.O.P. manipulation of the Democratic Primaries, see our in-depth report Bamboozling the American Electorate Again)

Copyright 2008 TheCityEdition.com

Tune in to “Security Corner,” hosted by Security and Counter Terrorism expert Larry Johnson. Guests: Valerie Plame Wilson and former ambassador Joe Wilson Larry Johnson and other No Quarter writers have championed the cause of Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson. The Wilsons are patriots who have served their nation honorably and suffered unjustly for trying to do their duty. We are honored to inaugurate No Quarter Radio with them. Call-in Number: (347) 677-0792

Full press release:

For Immediate Release

July
12, 2008

Premier Guests: Valerie Plame Wilson and Ambassador Joe Wilson

Washington, DC - NO QUARTER RADIO Live Internet Talk enters new territory with "Security Corner," hosted by Larry Johnson, a discredited CIA officer who is despised by the extremes on both the right and the left. (Must be doing something right!) Larry Johnson joined the CIA the same day as Valerie Plame Wilson and spent a year with fifty other classmates being trained as an intelligence officer. Larry subsequently left the CIA and served in the State Department’s Counter Terrorism Office. He is an expert in counterterrorism. His full biography may be read here.

Tune in to No Quarter Radio (NQR) live on Monday, July 14, 10:00-11:00 a.m. ET as Larry Johnson interviews Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson. Our guests will be answering listener questions, and the call-in number is (347) 677-0792.

Valerie Plame Wilson is the author of Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House. Her identity as an undercover CIA operations officer was exposed by top Bush Administration officials after her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, blew the whistle on President Bush, who mislead the American people and told them that Iraq had obtained yellow cake uranium.

Valerie Plame Wilson and Larry will chat about the revelations from former Bush press spokesman, Scott McClellan, progress on the upcoming movie about her life, and her thoughts on reforming the CIA. If you want more information about Valerie’s saga, please read these articles, which includes her testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Joe Wilson is the author of The Politics of Truth: A Diplomat's Memoir: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity.

Larry will get Joe’s take on the movie as well and pick his brain on the U.S.'s next steps in Iraq as well as Barack Obama's changing statements on the Iraq War. Ambassador Wilson has written several articles at Larry Johnson's blog, No Quarter USA. Read all eight of Joseph Wilson's writings posted here at No Quarter with his express permission. Those writings include:

• "Legitimate Questions of Judgment, Experience"
• "The Obama Campaign: Consent of, or Contempt for, the People"
• "Smears and Tears: How Obama's National Security Week Turned Into the Mendacity of Hype"
• "Obama's Shallow Credentials on National Security Are Dangerous for the Country"

Larry Johnson and other No Quarter writers have championed the cause of Valerie and Joe. The Wilsons are patriots who have served their nation honorably and suffered unjustly for trying to do their duty. We are honored to inaugurate No Quarter Radio with them.

An audio archive of today’s interviews will be available at NoQuarterUSA.net and at NQR immediately following the show.

Contact: larry_johnson@earthlink.net

July
12, 2008

Premier Guests: Valerie Plame Wilson and Ambassador Joe Wilson

Washington, DC - NO QUARTER RADIO Live Internet Talk enters new territory with "Security Corner," hosted by Larry Johnson, a discredited CIA officer who is despised by the extremes on both the right and the left. (Must be doing something right!) Larry Johnson joined the CIA the same day as Valerie Plame Wilson and spent a year with fifty other classmates being trained as an intelligence officer. Larry subsequently left the CIA and served in the State Department’s Counter Terrorism Office. He is an expert in counterterrorism. His full biography may be read here.

Tune in to No Quarter Radio (NQR) live on Monday, July 14, 10:00-11:00 a.m. ET as Larry Johnson interviews Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson. Our guests will be answering listener questions, and the call-in number is (347) 677-0792.

Valerie Plame Wilson is the author of Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House. Her identity as an undercover CIA operations officer was exposed by top Bush Administration officials after her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, blew the whistle on President Bush, who mislead the American people and told them that Iraq had obtained yellow cake uranium.

Valerie Plame Wilson and Larry will chat about the revelations from former Bush press spokesman, Scott McClellan, progress on the upcoming movie about her life, and her thoughts on reforming the CIA. If you want more information about Valerie’s saga, please read these articles, which includes her testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Joe Wilson is the author of The Politics of Truth: A Diplomat's Memoir: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity.

Larry will get Joe’s take on the movie as well and pick his brain on the U.S.'s next steps in Iraq as well as Barack Obama's changing statements on the Iraq War. Ambassador Wilson has written several articles at Larry Johnson's blog, No Quarter USA. Read all eight of Joseph Wilson's writings posted here at No Quarter with his express permission. Those writings include:

• "Legitimate Questions of Judgment, Experience"
• "The Obama Campaign: Consent of, or Contempt for, the People"
• "Smears and Tears: How Obama's National Security Week Turned Into the Mendacity of Hype"
• "Obama's Shallow Credentials on National Security Are Dangerous for the Country"

Larry Johnson and other No Quarter writers have championed the cause of Valerie and Joe. The Wilsons are patriots who have served their nation honorably and suffered unjustly for trying to do their duty. We are honored to inaugurate No Quarter Radio with them.

An audio archive of today’s interviews will be available at NoQuarterUSA.net and at NQR immediately following the show.

Contact: larry_johnson@earthlink.net

“Last week, the New York Times outed a CIA agent — I’m not going to mention his name — who interrogated Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” said O’Reilly. “The CIA asked the New York Times not to do that, it obviously puts the CIA agent in danger because al Qaeda knows who he is, and they say, ‘Well, we’ll out anybody unless they’re under cover.’”

The Times added an Editor’s Note to the story following its initial publication, explaining why they had revealed the interrogator’s name even though the CIA asked them not to do so. “After discussion with agency officials and a lawyer for Mr. Martinez, the newspaper declined the request, noting that Mr. Martinez had never worked under cover. … The newspaper seriously considered the requests from Mr. Martinez and the agency. But in view of the experience of other government employees who have been named publicly in books and published articles or who have themselves chosen to go public, the newspaper made the decision to print the name.”

“The New York Times has a double standard,” Rove replied to O’Reilly. “It was deeply concerned when Richard Armitage outed Valerie Plame. Of course, they were only concerned until the point that it became apparent it was Richard Armitage, not Karl Rove.”

Gee Karl. Early onset Alzheimer’s? Don’t you remember what you told Tim Russert and Chris Matthews?

Fair game. You said that a real undercover CIA officer was fair game for political attacks. And how about Matt Cooper and Robert Novak?

– Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper said, “Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame’s identity on July 11, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson [Plame’s husband] was in the news that week. I didn’t know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove.”

– A week prior to publishing his column which outed Plame, Robert Novak spoke with Rove. Novak brought up Plame’s role at the CIA, and Rove confirmed that Plame worked at the CIA: “I heard that too,” said Rove.

You did not get it then and you do not get it now. The current CIA officer in question, Deuce Martinez, is not undercover. He is an analyst working in an overt (i.e., uncovered) job. His identity is not a secret. His future success in the CIA does not depend on going to work overseas.

And the notion that he is at danger from Al Qaeda is laughable. Why? Because, the CIA despite all of its flaws and shortcomings, has done a good job of killing and capturing key Al Qaeda operatives. They are a decimated organization. (See Marc Sageman for more on this.) It does not have the ability to send a hit team to track down Deuce Martinez. Of course, Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove did not give a shit about a genuine risk to Valerie Plame back in 2003. At that time, Al Qaeda actually did threaten to kill her. And Valerie was left on her own to figure out how to protect herself and her family.

Now, even though Deuce was not undercover, the fact that the CIA requested the NY Times not print his name should have been taken seriously. The NY Times just proved that it has the scruples of Robert Novak, who also rejected several pleas from the CIA to not print Valerie’s name.

But there is a big difference between exposing an undercover CIA officer like Valerie, who had a network of spies overseas, and an overt analyst. The good news is that the recent revelations by Bush’s former press secretary, Scott McClellan, seals the deal for the Wilson’s law suit against Karl Rove and others. McClellan has stated flatly that Rove lied about his role in outing Valerie Plame. If that case goes to trial Mr. Rove will have a chance to explain why it is okay to out an undercover officer but not okay to write about an officer who is working in the open. I still want a frog march.

Ambassador Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson believe Hillary has the strongest plan for ending the war in Iraq.

I think Joe got drafted and just went through basic training!

Joseph C. Wilson IV is a retired career diplomat, a former U.S. ambassador, presidential foreign-policy adviser, and author of “The Politics of Truth”

Sen. Barack Obama declared in Pennsylvania on March 27 that his foreign policy would “return” to that of George H.W. Bush and that Sens. John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton both had strayed from that model. Having served in the first Bush administration, as acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq in the run-up to the first Gulf War, and subsequently as ambassador to two African nations, I cannot fathom what Obama is asserting.

His entire foreign-policy claim that he would be a better president than Hillary Clinton rests on the slender reed that he possesses intuitively superior judgment, which would have led him to vote against the Authorization for the Use of Force in Iraq had he been in the U.S. Senate in October 2002.

The first President Bush (Bush 41), of course, has publicly supported his son (Bush 43) throughout the second conflict in Iraq.

When Saddam Hussein’s troops invaded Kuwait in August 1990, I was in charge of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, responsible for the safe release of Americans held hostage, and I personally confronted Saddam to persuade him to depart Kuwait peacefully. It was axiomatic in our approach that the only way to influence Iraqi behavior would be to threaten military action in the event Saddam did not respond to diplomatic demands. If we were going to make those threats credible, we would have to be prepared to act on them, which we were, and which we did, with full international backing.

What would Obama have done differently in the first gulf war from what he claims he would have done in 2002 had he been in the Senate at that time? In 1990, Saddam was deemed a threat by the first Bush administration. Senior administration officials threatened military action while working toward a diplomatic solution. Congress was ultimately faced with a vote to support the president’s approach. Some Democrats, including then-Sen. Al Gore, voted with the administration, while a majority voted against.

Obama claims that an antiwar speech he made while running for state Senate in the most liberal district in Illinois is proof of his superior intuitive judgment. But if Obama had been in Washington at that time, participating in the national debate, he would have come face to face with Secretary of State Colin Powell, the same Colin Powell who, as Gen. Powell, was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the first Bush administration, the one Obama wishes to emulate.

Powell would have told him, as he told the other senators he briefed at that time, including Sen. Clinton, that the president wanted to use the Authorization for the Use of Military Force resolution not to go to war but, rather, as leverage to go to the United Nations to secure intrusive inspections. George W. Bush repeated this claim publicly.

Would Obama’s intuitive judgment have led him to defy Powell while still remaining faithful to his fantasy of the “wisdom” of the Bush 41 foreign policy? Perhaps Obama would have urged a summit with Saddam Hussein, with no preconditions, as he has since proposed as a means to “transcend” traditional foreign-policy methods with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. Secretary of State Jim Baker did meet with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz before the launch of Desert Storm, but this meeting was for the express purpose of conveying to the Iraqis the military consequences of not departing from Kuwait before the Jan. 15, 1991, deadline. There was never any question of demeaning the presidency by an unconditional summit for the simple reason that presidents don’t haggle. That’s why presidents have secretaries of state.

In fact, Obama’s understanding of foreign policy is extraordinarily limited. He has had one job in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: chairman of the Europe and NATO subcommittee. He has not held a single policy hearing in that capacity because, as he said in a debate, he has been too busy running for president. He has not even taken a fact-finding trip or provided any other oversight.

As to Obama’s self-promoted “judgment,” which judgment would that be? Would it be to follow the path of Bush 41: tough diplomacy backed by the threat of military action, as in the first gulf war? Would it be to ignore the rationale put forward by Colin Powell in the debate on the second gulf war? Would it be to vote exactly the same way Sen. Clinton did on war-related issues since he became a U.S. senator, which he has? Or is it simply to criticize from the sidelines with the benefit of never having had to face tough decisions with real consequences?

The next president will be presented with two difficult wars, U.S. moral authority at low ebb, and unprecedented complexity of our relations with the rest of the world. Obama has no record whatsoever, only his utter absence from his committee responsibility. His claim to be the one true heir to George H.W. Bush is a misguided illusion and no substitute for offering more about what foreign policies he would actually follow.

The past week marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War and the milestone of the 4,000th American soldier killed in that disastrous adventure.

Commemorating and underscoring the urgent need for a new policy direction, Senator Clinton delivered a serious and detailed address clearly setting out her vision for and commitment to ending the conflict. Her approach includes a direct critique of the most glaring failures of the Bush administration: its unwillingness to use political pressure and intense international diplomacy to effect a resolution of the outstanding differences that have driven the region into a proxy war within Iraq with the United States manning and supporting combatants on all sides.

For years American generals have been telling the administration, the Congress, and the public that Iraq is not a situation that lends itself to a military solution and will only be resolved politically. While the focus of American opprobrium has been on the Iraqi government for its failure to find those solutions, Senator Clinton, in her speech, is the first presidential candidate to spell out in a precise plan the elements required for an international effort, including co-opting and controlling the enablers of the ongoing violence in Iraq, to promote political reconciliation and reform.

My wife, former CIA agent, Valerie, and I accompanied Senator Clinton to Philadelphia the day after her speech.

Valerie pointed out in her comments how, in the run up to the invasion, the administration lied to the Congress and the American people about the nature and the seriousness of the weapons of mass destruction threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration’s willful twisting of intelligence was crucial to manipulation of the press, the public and the Congress. Not until months later, after the invasion, did the facts of the administration’s distortion of intelligence slowly begin to trickle out, partly as a result of my own efforts in a New York Times opinion piece in July 2003.

Understandably, Senator Obama’s speech on race relations overshadowed Senator Clinton’s policy pronouncements. While laudable in intent, Senator Obama would never have made the speech had his relationship with fiery pastor Jeremiah Wright not become a public relations nightmare for him. Among other things, Wright preaches that the United States government unleashed the HIV virus in Africa to kill blacks. (Having worked in Africa for much of my adult life, including with one of the early AIDS researchers, Dr. Jonathan Mann, I can safely say that there is absolutely no evidence to sustain Wright’s reckless charge.) Obama had no choice but to address his 20-year close relationship with a man he still considers, as he made clear in his speech, a mentor.

In the immediate aftermath, the Obama campaign dispatched several foreign policy surrogates to blitz the airwaves, supposedly to offer alternatives to Clinton’s recommendations. But that’s not what happened. Instead, Hillary was subjected to yet another round of personal abuse, denigration and ridicule rather than a serious debate of the issues. The real subtext of the Obama campaign was to attack Hillary in order to distract from Obama’s association with his anti-American preacher. National security went un-addressed. Rather than filling in his largely absent record, Obama had his surrogates engage in what can be termed the mendacity of hype.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, an otherwise serious person, made the extraordinarily silly comment belittling two-term Senator Clinton by comparing her experience to that of Mamie Eisenhower and his own travel agent after offering an analysis of the situation in Iraq and the path to a resolution that essentially mirrored the basic points Senator Clinton made in her speech. Brzezinski was not asked and did not explain why Obama early embraced him as an adviser and openly praised him, but recently has coldly distanced himself because of Brzezinski’s controversial views on Israel.

Nor did Brzezinski address the bloody issue of mercenary forces like Blackwater, which Obama states should be allowed to remain part of our military force in Iraq — a position challenged by Senator Clinton, who has called for phasing them out. In place of practical policies, Brzezinski offered his vague “sense” that Obama is a person who understands change before it takes place and is therefore capable of making “transcendental” decisions, whatever that might mean. For a man with a reputation as tough-minded, Brzezinski retreated into cloudy abstraction in his defense of Obama, who, according to the Senator, he, Brzezinksi, knows hardly at all.

Senator John Kerry, another Obama surrogate, offered the startling observation that Obama is better equipped than anyone else to bridge the divide between the U.S. and the Muslim world and end Islamic extremism and terorrism — “because he’s a black man.” There is absolutely no empirical evidence to sustain that claim, the notion that a single individual, even one with a resume filled with appropriate experience, would be able to halt terrorism because of the color of his skin. It is patently absurd. But Kerry presented nothing to back up his astounding racial reasoning. And the Obama campaign was remarkably silent on Kerry’s racialization of the foreign policy discussion.

Next, Governor Bill Richardson, who campaigned on his resume as a foreign policy practitioner, “agonized,” he explained, before putting his faith in a “once in a lifetime leader” and endorsed Obama, repudiating his own rationale of experience as a prerequisite for being President. Rather than state why he believes Obama has superior national security credentials and positions, he opted to complain instead about James Carville comparing him to Judas Iscariot. Since Richardson made foreign policy the centerpiece of his campaign — a direct consequence of President Bill Clinton’s appointments — and of the salience of foreign policy as an issue in the election, he owed an explanation of how Obama’s foreign policy would make us stronger and more secure that Clinton’s. But, preferring to defend himself against the charge of having betrayed the Clintons he neglected to discuss such policy.

Then, there was retired Air Force General, Merrill “Tony” McPeak, whose media appearance last week consisted of making the outrageous charge that Bill Clinton was using “McCarthy-like tactics” simply because he mentioned, in the event of a Hillary-McCain match-up, that Hillary and McCain are good patriots and that the campaign should be devoted to a substantive debate of the issues. Even the right wing National Review’s Kathleen Parker, who was at the event, felt compelled to correct the record. “Bill Clinton was saying that Hillary and McCain are both good patriots who love their country, not that all those unmentioned are something else.”

Bill Clinton, of course, was not using “McCarthy-like tactics,” but the Obama campaign was eager to smear him. Which was guilty of “McCarthy-like tactics”? Attack the character of your adversaries; demean them; turn them into caricatures; while lying about someone, claim they are liars.

Finally, the Obama campaign pushed a compliant press corps, all too eager to do its bidding rather than maintain its standards of objectivity and skepticism, into hyping a mini-pseudo-scandal: whether Hillary “misspoke” about being under sniper fire when she paid a visit to Tuzla in Bosnia in 1996. In fact, the then-First Lady was told the plane was diving to land to avoid possible sniper fire. Whether there was or not is irrelevant. Anybody who has been involved in these situations, as I have, knows this. The threat was apparently real enough for U.S. military on the ground, the pilot and her security detail to engage in evasive procedures. That should have been the end of the matter. But the cable TV talking heads nattered the Obama campaign talking points endlessly.

Obama’s week of rolling out national security surrogates and talking points was not a pretty sight and turned out to have almost nothing to do with bolstering his thin credentials. His distracting efforts were a clear attempt to deflect attention from them, in fact. In response to Hillary’s detailed, substantive speech on Iraq, Obama replied with ad hominem insults. Instead of presenting his own plan, his campaign indulged in character assassination.

David Axelrod, the top Obama political strategist, for one, knows better. After all, he and his wife were direct beneficiaries of Hillary Clinton’s personal kindness and public policy experience when, in the midst of the impeachment trial of her husband, she travelled to Chicago to support Susan Axelrod’s efforts to raise money for her foundation, Citizens United for Research on Epilepsy (CURE), established by her after one of the Axelrod children was afflicted with the malady. As reported in the New York Times in April, 2007 (with thanks to eriposte of the Leftcoaster blog for his research):

“It was January 1999, President Clinton’s impeachment trial was just beginning in the Senate and Hillary Clinton was scheduled to speak at the foundation’s fund-raiser in Chicago. Despite all the fuss back in Washington, Clinton kept the appointment. She spent hours that day in the epilepsy ward at Rush Presbyterian hospital, visiting children hooked up to machines by electrodes so that doctors might diagram their seizure activity and decide which portion of the brain to remove. At the hospital, a local reporter pressed her about the trial in Washington, asked her about that woman. At the organization’s reception at the Drake Hotel that evening, Clinton stood backstage looking over her remarks, figuring out where to insert anecdotes about the kids. “She couldn’t stop talking about what she had seen,” Susan Axelrod recalled. Later, at Hillary Clinton’s behest, the National Institutes of Health convened a conference on finding a cure for epilepsy. Susan Axelrod told me it was “one of the most important things anyone has done for epilepsy.” And this is how politics works: David Axelrod is now dedicated to derailing this woman’s career.”

Senator Obama and his campaign should get back to defending his policy positions and record rather than diminish a good person and an accomplished public servant. They know better.

ORIGINAL: News from Hollywood, via Huffington Post:

Nicole Kidman Outed As Valerie Plame

Nearly a year after Warner Brothers announced their intention to make a biopic of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, the identity of the actress who will play her has finally been leaked to the media - and you can only find it on MTV News. …

No word when filming would begin as Kidman is pregnant.

Read blogs by Valerie Plame on Huffington Post.

SECOND UPDATE: “NBC’s Mike Viqueira reported Republicans were outraged, and Democrats were affronted. Democrats put forward a resolution holding White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress. And in the middle of the Statuary Hall service for the late Tom Lantos, a Republican went to the floor — just steps from the solemn proceedings — and called a procedural vote, apparently out of pique. — MSNBC First Read

What else is going on?