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Obama Transcript
Spencer tells me Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has posted the transcript of his Berlin speech. MSNBC is poring over the text too, noting the wall-tearing imagery reminiscent of Ronald Reagan and the Kennedy-like themes.
I personally perked up in this part of the speech:
Hoffnung
I'm barely watching the speech and he already seems like he's president. And like he's destined to be president. Challenging Germany to deepen our commitments in Afghanistan? Challenging to world to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the Cold War? Challenging us to embrace a thoroughgoing commitment to liberal internationalism? Yeah, that's the Obama Doctrine in effect. Are they already wearing t-shirts in Berlin that say Ich Bin Ein Obama?
(*"Hoffnung," I'm told, means "Hope" in German.)
With Hurricane Dolly, McCain May Have To Back Off On Offshore Drilling
As Sen. John McCain continues to tout offshore drilling -- and others in Congress start to jump on the bandwagon -- he's found it necessary to downplay the threat of oil spills, even in the face of powerful hurricanes. There's something ironic, then, about Hurricane Dolly hitting this week.
McCain was scheduled to make another offshore drilling push at an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico today, but the Category 2 storm changed his plans. Dolly has forced energy companies to evacuate some oil rigs and cut oil and gas production in the Gulf by 4.7 percent.
A Note On Message Consistency
Sen. John McCain has an op-ed in the St. Petersburg Times today about the potential government bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Here's the first paragraph:
How Much?
The presidential conventions serve many functions--one of which is allow corporate interests a unique opportunity to pump unlimited amounts of money into the political parties. Corporate donations to candidates are banned. Individual contributions to are limited to $2,300. But contributions to the convention committees are not limited. And they don’t have to be publicly disclosed until October.
So our colleagues at Colorado Independent asked the question, if the donors to the convention committees aren’t seeking to secretly influence the political process, they should be willing to disclose how much they are giving, right?
Yoo-Bybee II: (Sort of) Revealed!
It's a landmark day for torture-disclosure. Today, the ACLU obtained and released a redacted version of one of the most important building blocks in the Bush administration's architecture of torture -- the very, very, closely-held August 2002 memo, known as "Yoo-Bybee II," from the Justice Dept.'s Office of Legal Counsel that authorized the CIA to perform specific methods of torture when interrogating Al Qaeda detainees. Almost the entire memo is redacted, but it reads a lot like legal guidance on how CIA interrogators can break anti-torture laws and get away with it.
Ackerman on Al-Jazeera
Al Jazeera's Shedrine Tadros does a good piece on the Cheeto-eaters influencing the 2008 election. In addition to swinging by the Flophouse (verrrrrry early on a recent Saturday morning) to interview myself and Matthew "Igylesis," she paid a visit to the Flower Station to chat with our ex-boss, Josh Marshall.
War Criminal's Guide to Autism Treatment
Obama Out-Raises McCain in Arizona
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- After a Zogby Online poll earlier this month found Sen. John McCain trailing Sen. Barack Obama in Arizona, new evidence emerged today that McCain may not have a lock on his home state in November. The Arizona Republic features a front-page story reporting that Obama out-raised McCain in Arizona by 38 percent in June -- and McCain holds a narrow lead over Obama in total fund-raising in the state. From the Republic:
Safe and Sound
COLUMBUS, Ohio--And now for a laundry update.....
So Now The Surge Equals The Anbar Awakening?
The McCain-Surge death-spiral continues. In a supermarket cheese aisle, McCain submits that the surge is really a... counterinsurgency strategy... and so any counterinsurgency strategy is a surge... and the Anbar Awakening was part of a counterinsurgency strategy... so even though it occurred months before the surge, it's still... a surge! (Via Ilan Goldenberg.) The following exchange with an incredulous reporter is both telling and best read in a Hans Moleman voice.
Kurds Reject Provincial Elections in Iraq
To return to my obsession with the powder-keg known as northern Iraq, Kurdish anger over the prospect of dividing Kirkuk -- they want to whole megillah -- has led Iraqi President/Kurdish potentate Jalal Talabani to veto the latest provincial elections bill. The elections were supposed to be held in October; then they were delayed to December; now they might be held... who knows. There's supposed to be another national election in 2009, so maybe they'll try to hold the provincials at the same time. Reports The New York Times:
McCain Stumbles on Domestic Issues
This week was Sen. John McCain's chance to show the U.S. he hears their pain, but instead he himself complained -- about his opponent.
And All Their Liquids Are Gone Too
COLUMBUS, Ohio--"We're all going commando!"
That was the cry from the front of the John McCain press corps bus following our landing here in the heart of the heart of the country. Soon after reporters arrived in the Ohio capital, it was revealed that none--NONE--of the press luggage was boarded on the Straight Talk plane from Pennsylvania. This followed the scrapping of a planned trip to New Orleans due to weather, which thus brought us to the center of my home state. For the record, the luggage of both the Secret Service and the presumed Republican presidential nominee arrived safely.
McCain Cancels Trip to New Orleans Amid Competing Disasters
Sen. John McCain's trip to New Orleans just wasn't in the cards this week. McCain was scheduled to visit the Crescent City tomorrow to meet with Louisiana Gov, Bobby Jindal -- who today said he will not be McCain's running mate -- to promote his offshore drilling plan with a photo-op on an oil rig. However, Mother Nature had other plans, and the trip was canceled due to bad weather. If you've been watching cable news today, you might have heard something about a little hurricane named Dolly that is currently pummeling San Padre Island and the southern Texas coast. As a result, numerous oil production platforms and rigs in the Gulf of Mexico have been evacuated. The timing of the storm led Politico's Jonathan Martin to proclaim in a humorous headline that the weather, like the media, is liberal and therefore biased against McCain. Martin links to The New Republic's Jason Zengerle, who makes a strong case:
Another Reason to Embrace Non-Profit News
The reality that the news industry is struggling is hardly news, but some of the remedies being tried these days are getting a bit out of hand. For example, a Fox TV affiliate in Las Vegas has entered a contract with McDonald's to have the station's news anchors keep glasses of McDonald's ice coffee on their desk during programming -- golden arches facing the camera. The Las Vegas Sun reported the story Monday, noting:
McCain Adviser: Obama's 'Words Matter, Except When They Pose an Inconvenient Truth'
The McCain campaign hosted a conference call with reporters to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Sen. Barack Obama's pledge that he would be willing to meet without precondition with several hostile foreign leaders. The McCain campaign had seized on the statement as a gaffe on the part of Obama, and focused on it as an example of the presumptive Democratic nominee's naivete. Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign-policy adviser to Sen. John McCain, took the opportunity to compare Obama's comments from one year ago at the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate in Charleston, S.C., to those made earlier today in Sderot, Israel:
Using Law to Justify Torture
The Bush White House might be on shaky ground in relying on memos written by administration lawyers to justify "enhanced interrogation" policies.
Mukasey on Guantanamo
The House Judiciary Committee is, thankfully, taking a recess from its plodding interrogation of AG Michael Mukasey. The most notable moments have occurred when lawmakers asked Mukasey about innocent people now detained at Guantanamo Bay. If Mukasey is losing sleep over providing justice for these people, he's not showing it. He just told Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) that everybody detained at Guantanamo is an illegal enemy combatant. But what about people that might challenge their detention and be released? Mukasey seems most concerned that those people don't end up in America, because they don't have U.S. citizenship rights and would, therefore be illegal immigrants.
It's Settled: Vice President Is Part of the Executive Branch!
Michael Mukasey, the highest legal official in the land: "the Vice President is obviously one of the close advisers to the president and is within the executive branch."
