Over at Balloon Juice, John Cole makes a substantive but not wholly accurate point that Obama "is not selling himself on [his] policies or positions... I like Obama just fine, but if you think he is gonna make it through a general election doing nothing but 'elevating' you with crap about 'change' and 'hope,' you are fooling yourself."

While I agree that in the past four weeks Obama has relied a bit too much on themes of "change" and "hope," he positively bored audiences throughout 2007 with policy specifics. And so as the meme is developing that Obama is all sizzle and no steak, he has to publicly re-introduce his inner wonk, at least up to a point.

I'm here to help. (Disclaimer: I am not a paid staff member for Obama, but I have given him money.) For those of you who forgot, or never knew to begin with -- go figure, the press rarely reports on the substance of policy speeches -- here's some recent history.

If you ever needed more reason to support Edwards or Obama -- or Dodd, who has of late led on Constitutional issues -- here's one: the Clinton campaign is utilizing the Drudge Report as a key propaganda outlet.

typical of a campaign with a reputation for exploiting every advantage and trying to neutralize every disadvantage, Mrs. Clinton's communications team, led by Howard Wolfson, is not leaving Mr. Drudge to the Republicans. Five current and former Democratic officials said Mrs. Clinton has on her side the closest thing her party has ever had to Mr. Rhoades in Tracy Sefl, a former Democratic National Committee official, who has established a friendly working relationship with Mr. Drudge — and through whom Mrs. Clinton's campaign often worked quietly to open a line of communication.

Well, hey, this is smart, right?  Diplomacy is all about neutralizing your enemies, and even getting them into your camp. From where I sit, though, this is not about bringing Drudge into Camp Hillary.  Rather, it's about playing the game on his turf, and not hers -- or ours.

John Harris may allege that the title of Dan Froomkin's washingtonpost.com column invites confusion, but when it comes to the Plame affair and the WMD scandal, it seems the Washington Post Political Editor either doesn't understand the basic issues or will not separate fact from spin.

Let's take first this shockingly casual shrug at the media's supine obsequiousness prior to the war. Embedded in this quote (from a Post online chat transcript on Oct. 20) is a misrepresentation of what journalism should be about.

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that state Sen. Carole Pankau and former DuPage County Recorder J.P. "Rick" Carney have withdrawn from the race. This leaves
DeLay supporter Peter Roskam, another  as the presumptive nominee.

Strange tidbit in this story, though:

The administration is again complaining, albeit implicitly, that the SCLM is stomping on Bush's Iraq policy out of malice or carelessness, overlooking the "good news" in Iraq. Per the Washington Post coverage of Bush's speech:Thanks to the miracle of Google, we can see whether the argument holds that the Bush administration isn't getting their side of the story out.

Edwards is running an interesting campaign right now. For months he harped on the "son of a mill worker" theme, to little effect. But since the turn of the year he's sounded two new themes.

As if you needed more proof of the NY Times' decline, check out today's top two headlines and particularly their associated summaries (see below for screen capture). The first is all woe for the Democrats, and in one broad brush stroke implies they're all faltering and are under heavy pressure to "correct course." President Bush is by contrast the bringer of "powerful themes."

The Washington Post published a minor but disgustingly lazy article called How Donations Depict Donors. It's more proof (if you need it) that the press too often lazily outsource analytical work, then report it as fact without subjecting the analysis to even basic standards.

By starting with incomplete data and refusing to add multivariant data to the mix, the net effect of this "analysis" is to misleadingly stereotype a candidates' supporters by wealth, class, and lifestyle.

As a nuclear power with a very long history of coups, coup attempts and assassinations, Pakistan is a very worrisome problem. It's bad enough they're the world's worst nuclear proliferator -- it was they who gave N Korea uranium in exchange for missle technology, after all -- but the state police propped up the Taliban and nuclear scientists are said to be close to Islamist radicals.

It's weird to pray for a proliferating dictator's safety, but right now, that's the conventional realpolitick stance; understandable, given the alternatives. But things don't look good in that direction.

Billmon suggested the attempt on Musharraf's life could have been an inside job, noting a Wall Street Journal report that "Since the past assassination attempts, [Musharraf's] movements have been kept highly secret." Now the NY Times reports that the bomb, a huge 800 pounder strapped under a bridge, was planted smack in the middle of a key military zone:

Eric Alterman reports that John Kerry met with him on Thursday in New York, along with "with a dozen and a half journalists, writers and the odd historian, poet and cartoonist" to discuss the "Kerry Conundrum": how to right his flailing, deflating candidacy.

If Kerry himself proposed an idea, Alterman doesn't mention it. But Art Spiegelman tossed out a novel idea: Take responsibility for your actions and admit you were wrong.

Gephardt himself didn't have anything to do with this, but aide Joyce Aboussie threatened to undermine Missouri state workers' collective bargaining rights if AFSCME and SEIU campaign for Dean in Missouri.

Obviously there's going to be tension when different unions stump for different candidates, particularly on a candidates' home turf. But it appears that Aboussie crossed way over the line with what essentially amounts to blackmail -- and a pretty ugly form of it, too.

In an alarming development, Paul Bremer has managed to strongarm the US-appointed Governing Council into supporting their complex, undemocratic, and even unrepresentative plan for a transfer of power.

This contradicts Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's demand for national democratic elections. I imagine Sistani read up on Bush v. Gore, saw the danger in a hand-selected government, and decided his country deserved better. To no avail, apparently.

"We are facing a very tense situation, perhaps the most tense since the end of the war," one of the council's Shiite members said. "None of us want a confrontation, but we have to realize we are traveling down a road that could lead to a very big confrontation."

Gore Vidal is on tonight's Charlie Rose -- catch him if you can. He's always salty, always witty, and mostly right on about the now-flowering despotism that has lurked under our republic's bedsheets since the United States was born, and fertilized with haste in the post-WWII years.

There's a terrific piece of gumshoe reporting in the Washington Post on how Dean got both the SEIU and AFSCME endorsements.

For people like me who know little about how different unions arrive at their endorsements, it's an eye opener. Yes, there have been many good discussions here, but Balz is able to quote Stern and McEntee on record and gets several unattributed background quotes as well.

It shows how Clark messed up the AFSCME endorsement and how everyone except Dean messed up with the SEIU. Among the interesting bits:

OK, it's probably not a very reliable poll, but for what it's worth...

The Institute for Policy Research interviewed 333 registered -- but not necessarily likely -- Democratic and Independent voters over a two week period.  MOE is +/- 5.4%. September results in parentheses.

The Edwards campaign has purchased a "substantial" ad buy in Iowa and NH that will run "for a while," says the AP.

It's a remarkably ineffective ad.  Edwards says, "You deserve to know what my ideas are, what my vision for the country is, and how it is I plan to get there," but then asks people to call or visit his web site for details, without giving people the least insight into his vision. Where's the hook? We're not compelled to investigate further; we're only made to feel warm and fuzzy about Edwards' postivism (cue treacly music and gently resonant baritone voiceover).

View "Answer" ad here if you're interested in hearing paradoxically vague statements regarding specific ideas.

I hope MoveOn mobilizes people on the pending $25 billion in corporate welfare for Boeing.  The Senate Armed Services Committee is on the verge of approving the deal, and it must be stopped.

You've probably heard about the proposed refueling tanker deal, where the Air Force wants to lease a fleet of 767s for a great deal more than it would cost to purchase them outright. Now, a new Washington Post story uncovers the way that the Bush administration and key Congresspersons are needlessly squandering billions, "even though the Air Force had not even listed tankers among its 'unfunded priorities' in 2001."

As with Halliburton, Boeing landed a no-bid contract and sidestepped oversight and review committees. The deal is opposed by the GAO, the OMB, and the CBO, but it's getting pushed through, anyway.

Here are key grafs from this lengthy Post story:

It's worse than the $20 billion for Halliburton, WorldCom, cement plants, and state-of-the-art garbage trucks.

Bush wants Congress to allocate $51 billion or so for maintaining the military presence in and around Iraq, with an additional $15 billion for troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere. This is left unchallenged in Congress, lest they be accused of not supporting the troops.

Yet the Congressional Budget Office estimates that we need far less money.  Here's the estimated 12 month cost of maintaining troops in and around Iraq:

Bush: $51B, 180,000 troops
CBO: $19B, 106,000 troops

The same CBO estimate says the military can maintain current troop strength in Iraq only until March 2004. After that, we're taxing military readiness beyond the breaking point.  So we'll have to reduce troop strength just five months from now, unless Bush is prepared to destroy the military.

We cannot and should not maintain current troop strength.  So why aren't more Democrats highlighting the danger Bush is posing to our military preparedness?  Why do we not have a fuller account of  the cost of maintaining an imperial occupation?

It's unfortunate that Kucinich is the only presidential candidate with a comprehensive and realistic plan for handing authority over to the UN and saving US taxpayers $40 billion or more. Where'd everyone else go?