It's Pat Roberts' fault
Following up on an earlier post for a moment, it may seem odd that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is just now, in mid-2007, producing a report on the White House ignoring warnings about Iraq in 2003. The war is already in its fifth year. Where has this information been? And wouldn't it have been a lot useful before, say, before the 2004 presidential election?
Let's take a stroll down memory lane. The Senate Intelligence Committee began a comprehensive investigation on the use (misuse) of pre-war intelligence towards the end of 2003. Initially, the committee was prepared to release one authoritative document on the intelligence, what it said, and how it was handled.
With the 2004 presidential election looming, and Bush's chances for a second term in doubt, then-Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) decided to split the report in two -- Phase I would document how wrong the intelligence community was (which was released quickly), while Phase II would report on how the White House used/misused/abused the available information.
And that's when the stonewalling began. First Roberts said publicly that he'd "try" to have Phase II available to the public before the 2004 election. He didn't. Roberts then gave his word, in writing, that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee would have a draft report on controversial "public statements" from administration officials. That didn't happen either. Then Roberts indicated that he might just give up on the second part of the investigation altogether, because, he argued, there was nothing left to learn.
Under pressure to release Phase II before the 2006 elections, Roberts agreed to release subparts of the report, which documented what Ahmed Chalabi and other well-paid Iraqi exiles told the administration before the invasion, but nothing about the White House's mistakes.
In January 2007, after the Senate changed hands, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) agreed that it was finally time to take this investigation seriously.
As for why Rockefeller and committee Dems decided to release the report on a Friday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend ... well, I can't figure that one out.
--Steve Benen
Phase II
At a White House press conference this week, NBC's David Gregory asked the president a highly relevant question: "Can you explain why you believe you're still a credible messenger on the war?" Bush didn't hesitate. "I'm credible because I read the intelligence, David," he said.
It's one thing to read intelligence reports; it's another to take the reports' warnings seriously.
Months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke Iran to assert its regional influence and "probably would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups" in the Muslim world.
The intelligence assessments, made in January 2003 and widely circulated within the Bush administration before the war, said that establishing democracy in Iraq would be "a long, difficult and probably turbulent challenge." The assessments noted that Iraqi political culture was "largely bereft of the social underpinnings" to support democratic development.
More than four years after the March 2003 invasion, with Iraq still mired in violence and 150,000 U.S. troops there under continued attack from al-Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents, the intelligence warnings seem prophetic. Other predictions, however, were less than accurate. Intelligence analysts assessed that any postwar increase in terrorism would slowly subside in three to five years, and that Iraq's vast oil reserves would quickly facilitate economic reconstruction.
In other words, the White House managed to reject what intelligence agencies got right and embrace what the agencies got wrong. How exquisitely true to form.
In a strong dissent, Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo.), the committee's vice chairman, said the inquiry itself was "a bad idea," and called on the committee to stop asking questions about how badly the administration screwed up before and start focusing on "the myriad of threats we face today."
Of course. What’s done is done; let’s not dwell on who cherry-picked what in order to kill whom. Please. Accountability demands answers. Even more importantly, the same White House that made these tragic mistakes before is still at it. If we don't take note of how tragically wrong the Bush gang was in 2003, some may forget why they lack credibility in 2007.
--Steve Benen
McCain vs. Obama
Way back in February 2006, Barack Obama and John McCain got into quite a dust-up over a lobbying reform measure. McCain wanted a task force, Obama preferred using standing committees, and McCain lost his cool. (It's a long story.)
Yesterday, as you've probably heard, their rivalry grew considerably more intense. McCain took a shot at Obama over his war-funding vote; Obama responded in kind. McCain took another shot, highlighting a typo in an Obama transcript that the media finds fascinating, followed by a cheap shot by a McCain campaign aide to the Politico.
Now, it's possible this became fascinating to the political world because it was a slow news day, but I think we know better. We're talking about two of the most powerful personalities in American politics, both of whom are top-tier candidates for the presidency, and both of whom seemed to revel in trading shots yesterday.
There are plenty of opinions available about which of the two came out on top as a result of the scuffle, but one thing I noticed yesterday, watching Obama deliver his response to McCain's initial shot, was that he seemed to enjoy mixing it up a little bit. Obama is running a campaign in which he frequently talks about changing the way politics is done. His stump speech emphasizes above-the-fray concepts and bipartisanship. It's led plenty of Democrats to wonder if Obama is aggressive enough to swing a few elbows when he has to.
Indeed, the conventional wisdom suggests one of the central questions about Obama is whether he can take a punch. My question has always been the opposite: can he deliver a punch?
That was what made yesterday's back-and-forth interesting to me. Obama almost smiled calling McCain out, by name. It was one of the first, if not the very first, direct shots he took at the Republicans' top tier. It was almost as if Obama was delivering an underlying message to Dems: "Don't worry, I'm not nice all the time."
Good for him.
--Steve Benen
Feither interviews Lang
When it comes to Middle East policy, career U.S. intelligence officer Patrick Lang is hardly a slouch. He was in charge of the Middle East, South Asia, and terrorism for the Defense Intelligence Agency in the 1990s, and was later tapped to run the Pentagon's international spying operations.
So when he sat down in 2001 with Doug Feith for a job interview, Feith probably should have been anxious to bring someone with Lang's experience, stature, and expertise into the young Bush administration. Feith needed someone to run the Pentagon's office of special operations and low-intensity warfare, and Lang had been recommended for the position. The interview didn't go well. (via TP)
Lang went to see him, he recalled during a May 7 panel discussion at the University of the District of Columbia.
"He was sitting there munching a sandwich while he was talking to me," Lang recalled, "which I thought was remarkable in itself, but he also had these briefing papers -- they always had briefing papers, you know -- about me.
"He's looking at this stuff, and he says, 'I've heard of you. I heard of you.'
"He says, 'Is it really true that you really know the Arabs this well, and that you speak Arabic this well? Is that really true? Is that really true?'
"And I said, 'Yeah, that's really true.'
"That's too bad," Feith said.
The audience howled.
"That was the end of the interview," Lang said. "I'm not quite sure what he meant, but you can work it out."
Feith & Co. apparently realized that it's best not to have too many qualified experts cluttering up the administration. Who knows what kind of reality-based policies they might have pursued?
--Steve Benen
Edwards campaign accuses Hillary of swiping his health care proposals. That and more political news of the day in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Bush’s new ‘charm offensive’
It's a familiar story for those who've watched Bush closely over the years. Shortly after the 2000 race, Matthew Dowd started analyzing election data and determined that the center was quickly disappearing. The key to political success, he said, was to govern via polarization. Dowd insisted that Bush and Rove give up on striving for consensus, and instead tear the country in half. As long as the GOP's chunk was larger than the Dems', everything would be fine.
After finding some success with this strategy for a few cycles, the plan faltered. Bush's popularity tanked and Republicans lost both chambers.
And wouldn't you know it, now Bush wants to be friendly again.
The meal was fit for a queen: caviar, Dover sole almondine and spring lamb. The setting was no less impressive: the upstairs residence of the White House, with its unrivaled vista of the National Mall.
"It's not Crawford," President George W. Bush told his guests, referring to the dusty central Texas town where he owns a ranch. "But if you can't be in Texas, what a view!"
As Representative Chet Edwards, a Texas Democrat, admired the scenery, he said later, he was struck by his presence at the April 17 dinner -- his first such invitation from Bush.
Only 20 months before the end of his term, Bush has begun a cross-party charm offensive that many had expected at the dawn rather than the twilight of his presidency. His aim is to make bipartisan progress on a few big issues -- such as an overhaul of immigration laws -- before he leaves office.
See? Bush just wants to get along with the "Democrat Party." It would be the height of cynicism to think the president is insincere, and that perhaps political expedience might have something to do with his suddenly-friendly attitude. Heaven forbid. The more intuitive answer is that it just took six-and-a-half years for the president to warm up to the other side of the aisle.
Yeah, that's it.
--Steve Benen
'Concepts' for a troop reduction
Stop me if you've heard this one ... the administration is weighing "concepts" for a major reduction in troop levels in Iraq.
The Bush administration is developing what are described as concepts for reducing American combat forces in Iraq by as much as half next year, according to senior administration officials in the midst of the internal debate.
It is the first indication that growing political pressure is forcing the White House to turn its attention to what happens after the current troop increase runs its course.
The concepts call for a reduction in forces that could lower troop levels by the midst of the 2008 presidential election to roughly 100,000, from about 146,000, the latest available figure, which the military reported on May 1. They would also greatly scale back the mission that President Bush set for the American military when he ordered it in January to win back control of Baghdad and Anbar Province.
The mission would instead focus on the training of Iraqi troops and fighting Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, while removing Americans from many of the counterinsurgency efforts inside Baghdad.
One administration official who has taken part in the closed-door discussions told the NYT, "It stems from a recognition that the current level of forces aren't sustainable in Iraq, they aren't sustainable in the region, and they will be increasingly unsustainable here at home."
While this certainly has the appearance of welcome news, let's not lose sight of a couple of points. First, this reduction would begin after the "surge" is complete and proven a success story. Second, these "concepts" are, according to the Times article, "entirely a creation of Washington and have been developed without the involvement of the top commanders in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno," who may have some competing thoughts on the matter.
And third, as Glenn Greenwald explains very well, administration officials have made noises like this before. Indeed, they've done so several times.
In other words, don't get your hopes up.
--Steve Benen
'Enhanced interrogation techniques'
For all of the Republicans' many, many flaws, they're generally quite adept at manipulating language. A program to allow warrantless searches on Americans becomes the "terrorist surveillance program." A policy that allows more pollution becomes the "clean skies initiative." A withdrawal policy in Iraq becomes "cut and run."
And as Andrew Sullivan explained yesterday, torture becomes "enhanced interrogation techniques."
I'm not sure where exactly this came from, but George Tenet seems to have been the tipping point. But it's important to note that Tenet has a very personal interest in lying about torture. After all, he will be subject to war crime charges if he concedes that he authorized it. But in his rewording, he has also, it seems to me, conceded something very important. He was clearly concerned that the term "coercive" in the newspeak phrase "coercive interrogation techniques" could be legal peril. It implies physical or mental pressure so severe it renders any choice to cooperate moot. It implies, inevitably, "severe mental or physical pain or suffering," in order to extract information. That is the only relevant legal and moral criterion for torture. Is the information coerced, i.e. is the physical or mental suffering so severe that the victim has no choice but to tell the torturers what the want to hear? If it is, it's torture, under American and international law. And Tenet is a criminal.
Abuse of common English is one of the hallmarks of political mischief. I don't think any journalist should let a politician off the hook on this one. Words matter.
They do, indeed. And where do the words "enhanced interrogation techniques" come from? According to one of Andrew's readers: from the Gestapo.
--Steve Benen
Selective outrage
When Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama joined 12 other Democratic senators in opposing Bush's war-funding package, Republican presidential candidates pounced. If Dem presidential hopefuls are willing to reject funding for the troops in a time of war, we now have proof, the GOP concluded, that they must hate the men and women in uniform.
* Giuliani: Obama and Clinton have "moved from being not just anti-war, but to being anti-troops."
* McCain: "[I]t is so irresponsible to tell these young men and women who are serving in uniform with the orders of their commander in chief that you're not going to give them the necessary ability to defend themselves."
* Romney: "Voting against our troops during a time of war shows the American people that the leaders of the Democrat [sic] Party will abandon principle in favor of political positioning."
Got it. But I have a quick follow up question: If opposing money for the troops in a time of war is necessarily anti-military and un-American, why did Bush reject war funding less than a month ago? If supporting the military means supporting funding measures, didn't the president deny those in uniform the resources they need?
Or is it more likely that rejecting funding for the troops in a time of war is perfectly acceptable to Republicans, just so long as they think there's a good reason to do so?
--Steve Benen
I was offline most of the day. So I didn't see this McCain/flak jacket ridiculousness in real time. 'Flak' without the 'c' is the spelling I know for 'flak jacket' or 'catching flak'. But as Greg Sargent notes here, Websters' says they're both acceptable spellings. But really, who cares how it's spelled since, My God, the candidate doesn't spell-check the press release.
That makes McCain's criticism so mind-boggling silly and juvenile that it breaks new ground even for those of us who've grown painfully accustomed to his now apparently permanent decline.
--Josh Marshall
Where the right is on the war. From TPM Reader JDG ...
Yes, our war in Iraq is very much like the one in Viet Nam, but not the way its opponents mean the comparison. What's similar is this: Both of these war efforts by the United States have been sabotaged, probably on purpose, and we will probably lose this one as we lost Viet Nam, by the media's practice of showing us the daily body count in color on the nightly news every single day, again and again and again and again!It is simply impossible for a democratic country to pursue any war, no matter how justified, to a successful conclusion under those conditions.
No matter what you think of the merits of the present war, it's obvious that two choices lie before America: either we go back to our pre-1950 policy (which most countries in the world still follow) of wartime censorship -- not just of information that would help enemy commanders, but also of information that would undermine our own public's morale -- or we may as well pack it in and invite China to rule our country, since we can never possibly win another war.
Telling on many levels. Perhaps the most revealing is the assumption that we'd be better off, in a better position to bring the endeavor to a successful conclusion if we were still under the illusion that Doug Feith, Paul Bremer and Don Rumsfeld were doing a bang up job -- and in all likelihood that they were still running the show.
--Josh Marshall
Rudy follows McCain, accuses Hillary and Obama of being "anti-troops." That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
New poll: Seventy percent of respondents think Bush has let down our Iraq War veterans.
--Greg Sargent
Barack Obama blasts Romney and McCain, heaps scorn on McCain's Baghdad Stroll.
Late Update: The battle continues.
Later Update: Drudge makes an anonymous McCain aide's attack on Obama his lead story -- with no sign of Obama's response to McCain.
--Greg Sargent
It's an inspiring tale that would only be possible in the Bush administration.
How a lowly Republican aide, a rioter in the streets of Florida in 2000, rose to be an immigration judge. The politicization of the Justice Department at work.
--Paul Kiel
John McCain's latest wild and wacky claim: The only people who support withdrawal timetables and enforceable benchmarks are "MoveOn and liberals."
--Greg Sargent
A new poll finds that only 38% of Republicans are satisfied with their GOP Presidential primary choices. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read: the Justice Department contradicts a key part of Monica Goodling's testimony.
--Paul Kiel
Hillary and Obama both vote against the no-withdrawal-timetables bill funding the Iraq War.
--Greg Sargent
House passes no-timetables Iraq funding bill, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi the only member of the leadership to vote against it. That and more news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Rematch, June 7! Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) versus GSA chief Lurita "How Can We Help Our Candidates" Doan.
--Paul Kiel
Our readers are truly a wonderful thing.
Apropos of the previous post about Iraq and Vietnam, here's a passage TPM Reader KS sent along. It's a tape of a conversation between LBJ and McGeorge Bundy about Vietnam back on May 27th, 1964 ...
Johnson: And we just got to think about it. I'm looking at this Sergeant of mine this morning and he's got 6 little old kids over there, and he's getting out my things, and bringing me in my night reading, and all that kind of stuff, and I just thought about ordering all those kids in there. And what in the hell am I ordering them out there for? What in the hell is Vietnam worth to me? What is Laos worth to me? What is it worth to this country? We've got a treaty but hell, everybody else has got a treaty out there, and they're not doing a thing about it.Bundy: Yeah, yeah.
Johnson: Of course, if you start running from the Communists, they may just chase you right into your own kitchen.
Bundy: Yeah, that's the trouble. And that is what the rest of that half of the world is going to think if this thing comes apart on us. That's the dilemma, that's exactly the dilemma.
See the whole transcript here.
Late Update: And more. I'm not as sure of the provenance of this quote as the one above. But according to a 2003 article from Knight-Ridder, LBJ also said: "If we quit Vietnam," President Lyndon Johnson warned, "tomorrow we'll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week we'll have to fight in San Francisco."
--Josh Marshall
President Bush, yesterday: "Now, many critics compare the battle in Iraq to the situation we faced in Vietnam. There are many differences between those two conflicts, but one stands out above all: The enemy in Vietnam had neither the intent nor the capability to strike our homeland. The enemy in Iraq does.”
There are so many problems and distortions with this statement that it is difficult to know where to start. But here's one place. Can we review the main arguments for why we were in Vietnam? Or at least try to distinguish them from the ones for getting out?
President Bush appears to be embracing the argument that the Vietnam War was a fight against Vietnamese nationalists who wanted to kick us out of Vietnam but had no interest in us one way or another beyond that. Certainly they weren't going to launch attacks against the US mainland. But that was the Doves' argument. The premise of the war was that it was a battleground in the larger Cold War struggle, one against the Soviets (who certainly had the ability and arguably had the intent to attack us), the Chinese (though that's much more complicated) and international communism generally.
In any case, the arguments for staying in Vietnam and staying in Iraq are actually quite similar -- and the arguments for leaving actually have a degree of parallelism too.
Of course, if we're worried about armed jihadism, which we certainly should be, it's really difficult to think of a better way to exacerbate the problem than to permanently occupy a country at the literal and figurative heart of the Muslim and Arab worlds.
--Josh Marshall
In the days right before the Dems decided to send Bush a no-timelines Iraq War bill, 63% of respondents to a New York Times poll said they favored a timetable for withdrawal.
--Greg Sargent
Bush to NBC's David Gregory: Terrorists "are a threat to your children, David."
--Greg Sargent
George Bush, sounding somewhat exhausted, bemoans how long the U.S. attorney scandal is dragging on -- or being "drug out," in his view.
--Paul Kiel
Last Friday was the fourth annual Personal Democracy Forum at Pace University in New York City. On Tuesday we brought you Part 1 of our visit to the conference. We bring you Part 2 in today's episode of TPMtv ...
--Ben Craw
A glimpse into the Dem Congressional leadership's thinking: Dems offered Bush a no-timelines Iraq bill because if they hadn't, the White House would have criticized them for it. Terror of terrors.
--Greg Sargent
Jim Sleeper makes the case for combining Gore's wisdom and Obama's idealism to create the ultimate Democratic ticket.
--Andrew Golis
Today's Must Read: a Goodling testimony round-up and all those darned unasked questions.
--Paul Kiel
Edwards and Dodd turn up the heat on fellow Dem Presidential candidates over the Iraq funding showdown. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Romney blasts ABC News for "jeopardizing our national security." That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
This has to be one of the funnier quotes I've seen about Alberto Gonzales in some time. Apparently the AG is the Justice equivalent of Wayne Gretzky, Winston Churchill and, I don't know, Albert Einstein rolled into one. Says Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO): "If he steps down, who is it that we can find to replace him? Right now, I don't see an alternative."
The irreplaceable man.
--Josh Marshall
Edwards slammed the phrase "war on terror" in his speech today -- but he's repeatedly used the term himself in the past.
An Edwards campaign adviser explains why his views of the phrase have changed.
--Greg Sargent
Monica Goodling: Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty was "not fully candid" in his testimony to Congress last February.
McNulty: Oh, yes I was.
--Paul Kiel
The worst news for Alberto Gonzales in the testimony today: Goodling testified that one week after Congress requested to interview her, Gonzales laid out to her in a private discussion what his memory of the firings was. In other words, it sounds like the AG was trying to get their stories straight.
--Paul Kiel
Joe Klein versus Bob Shrum -- the smackdown!
Shrum, who was John Kerry's top strategist in 2004, is about to release a memoir about his campaign experiences that contains some pretty surprising assertions about Time magazine's Klein.
Now Klein, in an email to us, has responded to Shrum's charges -- and his reply sheds some interesting light on Klein's personal relationship with Kerry.
--Greg Sargent
It's interesting to note how the House Republicans continue to praise Monica Goodling for her testimony even as she admits to repeated criminal acts (namely, using partisan affiliation as a criterion for hiring career employees).
--Josh Marshall
Goodling, DOJ liaison to the White House: "I can't give you the whole White House story."
--Josh Marshall
In big foreign policy speech today, John Edwards will emphatically reject the notion of a "war on terror," deriding the phrase as a "bumper sticker" slogan.
Late Update: The full text of Edwards' speech is right here. How'd he do?
--Greg Sargent
Paul Kiel is going to be providing detailed coverage of the Goodling testimony at TPMmuckraker, as we've discussed. But just on first glance, beside calling Paul McNulty a liar, Goodling's line is that, like everyone else, she really didn't have much of anything to do with compiling the firing list.
Late Update: Here's Goodling's opening statement. Here's Paul Kiel's initial analysis of her statement.
--Josh Marshall
"In the most liberal state in the country, one Republican stood up..."
In a new and sneering ad, Mitt Romney bashes the state he served as Governor.
--Greg Sargent
Monica Goodling's testimony before the House is starting now. We'll be providing running updates over at TPMmuckraker.
--Paul Kiel
House liberals likely to bail on Dem leadership's Iraq funding bill. That and more political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read: The central question today: was Monica Goodling acting on her own?
--Paul Kiel
Today's the day: Monica Goodling heads up to Capitol Hill this morning, compelled to testify with a grant of immunity before the House Judiciary Committee. Paul Kiel has our rundown of who Goodling is and what role she played in the US Attorney Purge in today's episode of TPMtv ...
Late Update: For a summary of today's episode, click here.
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) talks about the warrantless wiretapping program at TPMCafe.
--Josh Marshall
Did I miss something here. This graf is buried down in an article just out from The Hill (emphasis added) ...
The postponements may be bad news for former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.), who had close ties to Abramoff and whose Northern Virginia homes the FBI recently searched. Since the searches, both Doolittle and DeLay have vehemently defended themselves and lashed out at the FBI, demanding that agents “fish or cut bait” in their investigations.
Did Tom DeLay have his house searched? Did I miss that? Does Doolittle have two homes? Is there some editing error here?
Late Update: The Hill has now corrected/revised this passage. Seems it was just an editing error. No raid of DeLay's home. The honor is still Doolittle's alone.
--Josh Marshall
Federal Times ...
An Office of Special Counsel report has found that General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal officials from partisan political activity while on the job, sources say.The report addresses a Jan. 26 lunch meeting at GSA headquarters attended by Doan and about 40 political appointees, some of whom participated by videoconference. During the meeting, Scott Jennings, the White House deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation that included slides listing Democratic and Republican seats the White House viewed as vulnerable in 2008, a map of contested Senate seats and other information on 2008 election strategy.
According to meeting participants, Doan asked after the call how GSA could help “our candidates.”
Doan has until June 1 to respond to the OSC report, which was delivered to her May 18, according to officials. The officials asked to remain anonymous because the report has not been made public.
--Josh Marshall
New Attorney Purge testimony is released on the eve of Monica Goodling's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow morning. And what made Goodling break down in tears in her conversation with career DOJ official David Margolis back on March 8th?
--Josh Marshall
Maybe the Ashcroft bedside showdown wasn't about the warrantless wiretap program?
--Josh Marshall
Two polls in one day find Bush's approval rating at record lows. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Abramoff/Rove aide Ralston to plead the fifth.
It's the latest fad for young Republican guns.
--Josh Marshall
Russ Feingold blasts the Dem Congressional leadership for dropping Iraq timetables, says he won't support "toothless" bill.
--Greg Sargent
The Nation's Ari Berman responds to M.J. Rosenberg's questions about his recent article "Hillary Inc."
--Andrew Golis
Join us as we go down the voter fraud rabbit hole and follow yet another player in the scam, this one bouncing from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to the voter fraud hype group American Center for Voting Rights.
--Paul Kiel
It's official: No withdrawal timetable in Congressional Dems' Iraq bill.
Late Update: Harry Reid explains why this wasn't a defeat for Dems.
--Greg Sargent
Is The New York Times giving short shrift to the Edwards campaign?
Our survey shows that in the last three months, Hillary and Obama have each earned mentions in nearly twice as many Times articles as Edwards has.
--Greg Sargent
Financial expert Robert Hormats, sitting this week at TPMCafe's Table for One, breaks down the costs of the Iraq war.
--Andrew Golis
Fox News contradicts its own reporter to falsely declare that Bush has "won" the Iraq War funding showdown with Congress.
--Greg Sargent
Reports from the Middle East.
Daniel Levy gives context to the fighting in Lebanon and Jo-Ann Mort looks for some hope in Gaza while Kassam rockets fall.
--Andrew Golis