I haven't seen anyone diary this brief piece by M.J. Rosenberg at TPMCafe, but I think it crystallizes much of what is right about Obama and illustrates a stark contrast between Obama and McCain that has gone largely unremarked upon (or at the very least, hasn't been articulated widely as one of the contrasts) during this campaign.

I think I have read every word Barack Obama uttered on his visits to Israel and Palestine and I'm struck by his ability to navigate this tricky issue with such dexterity. After all, everybody is just waiting for him to trip up on the Arab-Israeli issue. Joe Lieberman, the Israeli media, the right-wing pro-Israel organizations are just waiting to pounce on some misstep.

More...

Wow. Really hard-hitting stuff in this one.

Dear friend,

Can you believe some of the charges that are being made about Hillary Clinton's historic campaign for President?

Just as Senator Clinton has turned the race around with impressive victories in the vitally important states of Ohio and Texas, some people are proving how desperate they are to stop Hillary by any means necessary.

The good stuff is just below the fold...

Remember during the 2004 debates when Joe Lieberman said that Howard Dean's economic proposals would take us from the Bush Recession to the Dean Depression, thereby insinuating that electing Dean would be a worse move for the country than retaining Bush?

Remember how even those supporting someone other than Dr. Dean cried foul about Lieberman hitting below the belt?

Well, Hillary Clinton has just done the same thing to Barack Obama.

Considering that so many among the Republican base get so incensed when they see any immigrant from Mexico - legal or undocumented alike - flying the Mexican flag at rallies organized to elaborate the concerns of immigrants in this country, it's puzzling that many of them range from unconcerned to downright active in their defense of flying the flag of a country that was founded illegally and which tried to destroy this nation which many of them claim to love so much.

And although I think John McCain is dead wrong on most issues, in some cases to the point where I wonder if he's thought through his positions on certain issues, I have to admit a grudging respect for his refusal to pander to his audience as every other Republican presidential candidate does, most notably "Weather Vane" Romney.

John McCain on Wednesday sharply defended his opposition eight years ago to the flying of the Confederate battle flag over the South Carolina state capitol in Columbia, brushing aside protests that dogged him at campaign events and suggesting most people in the state don't want the issue reopened.

Many of us have been piqued by the idea that Al Gore might throw his hat in the ring for President in 2008. He hasn't made a specific announcement one way or another about it yet, but a small item that caught my eye today pretty much tells me what I have suspected for some time - he isn't running.

Al Gore joins top venture capital firm

Al Gore announced Monday he’s joining Silicon Valley’s most prestigious venture capital firm to guide investments that help combat global warming.

Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last month for his work on climate change, joins Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as it and dozens of other venture firms expand into so-called "clean-tech" investments worldwide.

If he were running, he'd have to announce it...well, probably no later than next week, if he were actually going to make a run at the Iowa Caucuses. If he were doing it, why is he taking on such a key role with a venture capital firm?

Because he isn't running. That's why.

In McJoan's post about a month ago in which she discussed the 70 members of Congress who signed a letter to Bush informing him that they would no longer be voting him any money for war which did not come with a provision to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, I expressed my disappointment that my own Congressman, John Tierney of MA-6, did not add his signature to the letter.

I just received an email from him out of the blue, informing me that he has now signed his name to the letter. Follow me below the fold...

Four words that only Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can deliver:

"We will impeach you."

Now there are any number of reasons why Bush deserves to hear those words. Just pick one. But I am not speaking here of impeaching him for anything he's already done. I am arguing that for the good of the country, Pelosi and Reid need to announce their intention to impeach him if he takes military action against Iran without the approval of Congress.

--MSNBC is calling it the "debate point that won't die," which is rather stupid, I think. Why should it die? One of the large catalog of failures of the Bush "administration" is how diplomacy has suffered since Bush took office. The next president will be tasked with the unenviable job of repairing the many broken partnerships Bush will leave behind, as well as treading the murky diplomatic waters of dealing with those nations with whom we have a frosty relationship. I think we need to have this debate: what style of diplomacy can we expect to see from each candidate should he or she be elected?

--More below the fold--

It's now past 8pm in the eastern U.S. The news of the Democrats' capitulation on ending the war has been roiling the news and the blogs all day.

So far, it looks like John Edwards and Christopher Dodd are willing to speak up and lead on this issue, while the two front-runners' silence on the matter is deafening.

Now that I'm a father, I really look at these incidents through a different lens than I used to. It's not that my level of horror is any different; it's that I look at the faces of these young college kids who were killed, and I have some fleeting idea of what someone might be going through to lose a child like that.

One of my housemates' mother died with shocking suddenness a couple of weeks ago. Two weeks before that, she was upstairs visiting us while our friends were out for an evening to themselves, drinking wine and talking about how much she was looking forward to all the plans she had made with her husband, who is retiring next year. And then, she was gone. She developed a bad cold, suffering a punctured eardrum as a result, then laid down to take a nap and never woke up again because of a vicious meningitis that had set in without warning. This was a devastating loss for all of us; Meg and I had gotten to become quite good friends with her, and we looked forward to her visits almost as much as our friends did. On her final visit to Massachusetts, she brought Keelin a cute fun fur scarf that she'd knit herself. She was the kind of person that one could say the world becomes a slightly worse place when they leave it.

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The New York Times is reporting that Kurt Vonnegut has died at 84:

Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat’s Cradle" and "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan. He was 84 and had homes in Manhattan and in Sagaponack on Long Island.

He lived a good long life, but that doesn't mean that this isn't a painful loss to swallow. He was one of the giants of 20th Century literature in any language.

We've already taken out the wart on the nose of the Democratic Party - Joe Lieberman.

Now we need to take out the festering boil on the rear end - Rep. William Jefferson.

I was beginning to think it wouldn't happen, but Jefferson is finally drawing some primary opposition. And I think we could do far worse than the first announced challenger, State Sen. Derrick Sheperd.

More on the flip...

Today the Senate passed legislation allowing prescription drugs to be reimported into the U.S. from Canada under certain circumstances.

And proving once again that some Republicans are rhetorically hobbled without the crutch of terrorism to cling to no matter what the subject may be, Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire registered his opposition to the legislation with this spectacular head-scratcher:

But Republican leaders vociferously opposed the plan for fear, they said, the drugs could be unsafe for consumers - or even present a terror risk.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said the proposal was an attempt to push the FDA into reversing itself while "creating a massive hole on our capacity to secure our borders and protect ourselves."

"If I were a creative terrorist, I would say to myself, 'Hey, listen, all I've got to do is produce a can here that says 'Lipitor' on it, make it look like the original Lipitor bottle, which isn't too hard to do, fill it with anthrax," Gregg said.

For your late-night amusement...

Supporters of the war simply cannot admit they're wrong about something, even when presented with irrefutable proof of their error. It's simply breathtaking to note just how far some of them will go to keep facts from spoiling the conclusions that they've already reached. It's as if doing so would amount to an act of psychological violence perpetrated against them.

By the way, when you ask yourself who that 34% of the country is that still approves of the worst president this country has ever had, here's your answer. I'm not sure all of them are quite this deluded, but I'm willing to bet that many of them regard Bush as a deific figure like this one does.

Cross-posted at Progressive Lyceum

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorses the re-election bid of Congress' most corrupt politician:

U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay received an enterprise award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce today as well as getting an endorsement from the national group.

DeLay, R-Sugar Land, was presented with the "Spirit of Enterprise" award from the chamber group during a Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Peter Havel, regional executive director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Dallas, presented the award to DeLay for his "outstanding leadership" and "for voting with the business community on a consistent basis."

It's appropriate that the award is called the "Spirit of Enterprise" considering that DeLay embodies the spirit of using one's elected position for personal enterprise.

The Chamber of Commerce tries very hard to maintain an image of nonpartisanship. Not only does this rip that mask away to expose them as the partisan actors they are, but it also demonstrates a surprising willingness to not merely condone corruption, but embrace it.

Cross-posted at Progressive Lyceum

It's perfectly natural for local governments to charge residents for certain things like parking permits, hunting licenses, etc. But emergency services by membership?

Rural firefighters stood by and watched a fire destroy a garage and a vehicle because the property owner had not paid membership dues.

Bibaldo Rueda -- who was injured battling the flames Monday -- offered to pay the dues as the fire blazed away, but the Monett Rural Fire Department does not have a policy for on-the-spot billing, Sheriff's Detective Robert Evenson said.

Fire Chief Ronnie Myers defended the no-pay, no-aid policy, saying the membership-based organization could not survive if people thought the department would respond for free. The department said it will fight a fire without question if a life is believed to be in danger.

So I'm reading this from the New York Times today:

"We're selling our party short; you've got to stand for a lot more than just blasting the other side," said Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee. "The country is wide open to hear some alternatives, but I don't think it's wide open to all these criticisms. I am sitting here and getting all my e-mail about the things we are supposed to say about the president's speech, but it's extremely light on ideas. It's like, 'We're for jobs and we're for America.' "

...And it sounds really similar to what Digby laid into Iowa Gov. Tim Vilsack for saying the other day:

"If the president broke the law, that's unacceptable. But I think it's debateable whether he did," Vilsack told Des Moines Register editors and reporters.

"And I think Democrats are falling into a very, very large political trap," he said. "Democrats are not going to win elections until they can reassure people they are going to keep them safe."

Compare two major legislative developments from Congress from the past 48 hours.

(My citations are a bit lengthy, so I hope you'll follow me to the jump...)