As much as anything else, presidential campaigns are won and lost by the media narratives that rightly or wrongly come to define a candidate.  In the case of Repubican nominee John McCain, the seemingly unshakable narrative of the political "maverick" could not be further off the mark. At almost every turn, McCain in his eternal quest for the White House has reversed long-held positions, compromised core principles and swallowed his pride in order to curry favor with both the leading lights of the conservative movement and right-wing Republican primary voters.  The untold story of campaign 2008 is simply that of John McCain's transformation from maverick to prostitute.

So exactly what would cause a dyed in the wool Republican to say "Oh S#@t!".  Check out the following quote from a National Review Republican:

I went to Barack Obama’s rally here, on Sunday night, with a Republican friend who had never seen the Illinois senator in action before. Watching the crowd of more than 3,000 fill up the convention center, watching the people send up waves of energy to Obama, and watching him play off that energy in a speech that was one of the best political performances anyone has seen this year, my Republican friend said, simply, "Oh, s—t." He recalled the scene from Jaws, in which the small seaside town’s sheriff realizes how big the shark he’s tracking truly is, and says, "We’re gonna need a bigger boat." What my friend didn’t have to say was that he was deeply worried that Republicans just don’t have a bigger boat.

Full article here:  http://article.nationalreview.com/...

Andrew Sullivan makes a point about HRC that I have begun to agree with. The post and the point it makes me sad because here was a woman who fought a good fight for many years. She can be so much more inspiring that she is right now.

But she has become the enemy she has fought for so long. If she wins in '08 but destroys much of the democratic base where will that leave her? where will it leave us?

She needs to fight Obama fairly and with decency. No one should be annointed. But if Obama wins fairly, don't swiftboat him. Or show us what was unfair about his Iowa win.

To stop HRC from continuing with sleazy dirty politics please email your Democratic Senators asking them to stand up for decency and anti-Rovian politics.

Why can HRC not try to win fairly and squarely? The obvious response is that she cannot, right?  

Besides, HRC cannot win the independent and even some Democratic votes in '08 if she is the nominee. Even Byron York acknowledges Obama's strength and electability vis-a-vis the Republican candidate.

When will HRC and Bill wake up and smell the coffee?

Who would have guessed that Byron York of the  National Review would provide the perfect celebration of YearlyKos:

Two years ago, I wrote a book, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, about the emerging [netroots] establishment....  The reaction from some on the left was: Conspiracy? Vast? There’s no such thing! ... A more perceptive reaction came from Markos Moulitsas, founder of DailyKos and the star — sorry, Sens. Obama and Clinton — of YearlyKos: "Quite frankly, [York] is about 2 - 5 years too early on this. We ARE building a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy to rival the $300 million conservatives spend on theirs every year. But we are but a seedling at this point...."

Well, here we are, two years later, and the seedling has grown quite a bit. ...  And now voters have changed the leadership of the legislative branch, and Democrats stand a good chance of capturing the White House next year.

by
Larry C Johnson (bio/blog)

The ignorance, masquerading as knowledge, is rampant in the media when it comes to the issue of CIA cover.  

If you want to hear stupidity tune in to Byron York, Tucker Carlson, Fred Thompson, G. Gordon Liddy and Salon's Alex Koppelman.  Koppleman captures the golden dunce cap for cretin of the day with the following:

Download libby_governments_sentencing_memo.pdf

by
Larry C Johnson (bio/blog)

Victoria Toensing, Cliff May, Byron York and the other rightwing apologists who have long insisted that Valerie Plame Wilson was not undercover have some "splaining" to do. [Check out Glenn Greenwald's rogues gallery.]  Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's latest filing in the Scooter Libby case leaves no doubt about Valerie Wilson's status--she was covert and undercover and served overseas.  Thanks to a heads up from McClatchy's Jonathan Landay, followed in short order by a note from John Amato at Crooks and Liars, I got my hands on the Fitzgerald filing.

(David Corn posted the first piece on this Friday night.  He needs to do more self-promotion.)

I know, I know, a lie by the Right about Democratic presidential candidates isn't exactly man-bites-dog, but I thought this one was worthy of mention.

by
Larry C Johnson (bio/blog)

I have tried repeatedly in the last two weeks to get a letter to the editor and a letter to the Ombudsman (perhaps Ombudswoman?) published at the Washington Post in response to their clear policy of advocating on behalf of Scooter Libby.

Here's my most recent letter to Deborah Howell, the incompetent ombudsman:

by
Larry C Johnson (bio/blog)

Sorry to again beat what some of you may believe is a dead horse, but a reporter from a major news organization told me today that they are still arguing in his/her newsroom about whether Valerie Plame was covert.  The journalist who told me this is a talented, smart person but is still confused about the terms "covert", "cover", and "non-official cover".  So here's my gift to confused journalists.

Scooter Libby is not on trial for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.  He faces a jury because he lied about his role in giving out Valerie's name and obstructed the investigation into the leak.  Can you leak the name of an overt employee?  No.

on CSPAN now: Washington Journal.

They have read most illuminating revelations from yesterday's proceedings.  York's trying to spin all Martin's testimony & supporting docs off as "standard practice", Marcy doing great job just tell'n the truth.  

The "supporting docs" are well documented in comments responding to Larry Johnson's diary this morning.

Here is the headline of the Post Chronicle article, dated 14 December 2006: "Was Bill Clinton Too Busy With Diana To Bother With Osama?"

Had I been paying attention over the past few days, I would have noticed what was going on.

The latest development in the effort by Judicial Watch to determine what transpired in the events surrounding the evacuation of Saudi subjects following 9/11 is a court order directing the FBI to "... submit 'proper disclosures' to the Court and Judicial Watch by December 15, 2006." In the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks scores of Saudi subjects, apparently including members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the country while all air traffic was supposedly grounded. Richard Clarke has said that he approved the flights after the FBI assured him that the evacuees were not involved in the terrorist acts. It later became clear that the assurances of the FBI could not be validated. It is still not clear who was secretly transported out of the country, and who organized the effort along with dubious assertions communicated to Mr. Clark.

"... shame if anything were to happen to it."

That's the essence of this column from Byron York.

Several other diaries have already commented on this column, but none of them (as far as I can tell) hit on an important point: York wasn't threatening Markos, us or any other bloggers. He was threatening politicians who align themselves with bloggers.

Well, well.  I can't say I'm surprised at Byron York's article this morning, but I was surprised at how it's more about Markos than what the YearlyKos Convention was about.

It is apparent from his article that nothing Markos writes from now on will escape his scrutiny, and York's resulting interpretation.

This is a good thing, because it will bring more readers to the site.  Save your troll-rating daily allotment for only those truly deserving - we're gonna need'em.

A bit of the article below:

I was listening, in a not very attentive way, to Morning Edition, when suddenly the anchor mentioned a convention of liberal bloggers in Las Vegas this weekend. After a few short, bland statements, he turned the mike over to John Ridley, a frequent reporter/commentator on NPR. Apparently NPR dispatched Mr. Ridley to attend Yearly Kos and report on what he saw because he makes a habit of going to Vegas every weekend from his home in Los Angeles.

So, what stories from Yearly Kos did Mr. Ridley choose to report upon? Did he mention any of the politicians who attended, such as Wesley Clark, Bill Richardson, Tom Vilsack or Mark Warner? The speeches given by Joe Wilson and Larry Johnson? The panel on Energy hosted by Jerome a Paris and Governor Richardson, or the Education panel with Teacher Ken and Governor Vilsack?

Well, not exactly. His story was all about John Ridley and his attempt to tape record the pundit training session hosted by the Center for American Progress (which, by the way, he knew was not permitted). And along the way he mocked the Yearly Kos attendees as young, naive and slightly hippy-like bumpkins.

YKos has been awesome.

One story for you.

Ran into National Review's very own Byron York last night at Wes Clark's party.  Thought it would be a great opportunity to interview a real live wingnut, so I cornered him the minute he walked in the door.  He begged off saying that he needed to get a beer, but came back momentarily to tell me that he'd be happy to do a 5 or 10 minute interview with me, on film, for my blog.  I told him that he was really gracious for agreeing to do that for me and thank you very much.  I said the topic of discussion would be abortion.

Ha.

by SusanUnPC, Author, No Quarter blog

Originally published at No Quarter

When one reads a hatchet piece like Byron York's June 5 "Mr. Counterterrorism Guru" in the digital National Review about Larry Johnson, we must first ask: 1) the writer's motives behind the attack, 2) the timing of the attack and 3) the timeliness of the piece, which mostly accuses Larry Johnson of popping up everywhere to speak out to "anti-Bush" types, particularly about the outing of former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her front company, Brewster Jennings.

Why did York, who also writes for The Hill, single out Johnson for attack? Why is he attacking Johnson right now? And, to make the piece timely, what has York recently noticed Johnson do, say or write that compelled him to write this Page Six-ish tripe?

: : : Continued below : : :

So my attempt at a clever, attention-getting title is really pretty weak.  Because although it was talking heads at school, they were not there are the same time, thus they were really not dueling.  it wasn't "crossfire" or anything close to it.

I believe in connecting what my students learn with the real world as much as possible.  I teach government in the Washington DC area, which means I am always looking for opportunities for my students to talk with people who are intimately involved with the processes of politics and government.  In previous years among those I have brought in were David Broder and Candy Crowley.  Earlier this year I persuaded Chuck Todd of The Hotline to come in.  But this week was a two-fer, and I owe it all to Markos and Crashing the Gate.  Come down below the fold while explain that, describe our visitors, and why I think this is worth writing about.