swamppolitics.com

Bob Novak: McCain camp playing him?

July 22, 2008 5:45 PM CDT

by Mark Silva

Robert Novak, the conservative columnist who reported that Sen. John McCain's campaign was planning an early announcement of a running mate this week, suggests that he may have been played for a story to counter the headlines Barack Obama is making with his journey through Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East and Europe.

"I got a suggestion from a very senior McCain aide late yesterday afternoon that he was going to announce it this week,'' Novak told Fox News Channel today. "They didn't want it to come out the way it was going to come out so they suggested I put it out.

"I then called another senior person who said, 'I can't talk about that, but wouldn't it be a terrific week to announce it that is with Obama getting the headlines?'

"I've since been told by certain people that this was a dodge and that they were trying to get some publicity to rain on Obama's campaign,'' Novak, a FOX contributor, told the cable news network. "It's pretty reprehensible if it's true, but we'll find out in a couple of days. "

Time will tell who's playing whom.

See FOX contributor Novak on the running mate game here.

McCain campaign criticizes Obama trip

July 22, 2008 5:00 PM CDT

by Katie Fretland

The McCain campaign organized a conference call today to talk about opponent Sen. Barack Obama's trip to the Middle East. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M) and senior McCain foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann participated. Here are some highlights of what the three had to say.

Brownback: "Number one, as I said earlier, thank goodness for John McCain and his tenacity and his knowledge and wisdom on calling for this surge on pushing the Bush Administration for this surge. I mean this is, you may recall from earlier, the McCain surge. It was called that derisively early on when people were really questioning the wisdom and the judgment of it."

Wilson: "I think there are a couple of things that are important to remember today. One is that Senator Obama has shown a complete inability to acknowledge that the surge worked. Last night on television, he said that he would not have -- even in hindsight -- he wouldn't have changed the way he voted, which was against the surge and even against funding of the troops in harm's way, which led to the success that we've had today. So he would have chosen failure over success, even looking in hindsight. And I find that completely perplexing.

Scheunemann: "Senator Obama said that completely deferring to whatever the commanders on the ground say would mean, 'I am not doing my job as commander-in-chief. I am rubber-stamping decisions made on the ground.' This is really an amazing statement. He believes that deferring to the commanders on the ground is not the job of the commander-in-chief. He believes that deferring to the best military judgment of commanders is rubber-stamping. He refuses to credit General Petraeus and General Odierno for their leadership. He disparages their strategic judgment and trumpets his own.

"What is Senator Obama's judgment based on? He predicted the surge would increase violence. He was wrong. He voted to cut off funds for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was wrong. Now he wants to supplant his judgment for successful military commanders."

For more McCain coverage, check out this piece by the AP's Tom Raum on the speculation over who will be McCain's running mate and when the announcement will come:

Vanity Fair satirizes McCain/New Yorker

July 22, 2008 4:45 PM CDT

by Katie Fretland

When the New Yorker came out with a cartoon on its cover of the Obamas as fist-bumping militants (complete with a burning flag), the blogosphere wondered if the magazine or someone else would come up with a satirical cover of John McCain. Well, Vanity Fair did just now.

The magazine posted a cartoon on its website featuring John McCain holding a walker with one hand and giving the fist bump to a pill-popping (well pill-holding) Cindy McCain. The Constitution burns in the fireplace of the Oval Office while a painting of George W. Bush hangs on the wall.

In a short accompanying article, Vanity Fair speaks of it's "affectionate rivalry" with the New Yorker. (They share a building and play softball against eachother).

"We had our own presidential campaign cover in the works, which explored a different facet of the Politics of Fear, but we shelved it when The New Yorker's became the "It Girl" of the blogosphere," Vanity Fair writes. "Now, however, in a selfless act of solidarity with our downstairs neighbors here at the Condé Nast building, we'd like to share it with you. Confidentially, of course."

Obama: Israel's a friend of Israel

July 22, 2008 3:00 PM CDT

by Katie Fretland

During Sen. Barack Obama's remarks to the press today in Amman, Jordan, he meant to assert that the United States would continue to strongly support Israel. But this is how that sentence came out as he answered foreign policy questions on a broad range of subjects:

"Well let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's," he said, according to a transcript of the press conference.

Oops. Sounds like his first gaffe of the highly-publicized trip to the Middle East.

The Illinois senator went on to say that "it" (the United States?) would be a friend of Israel's under his administration or McCain's.

He advocated a change in the ability of the U.S. government to engage in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and to "recognize the legitimate difficulties that the Palestinian people are experiencing." He said all sides of the conflict will have to take responsibility in moving toward peace.

"I think with respect to the Palestinians, obviously, it is very important to resolve the internal differences between the Palestinians," he said. "It's going to be very difficult for Israelis to resolve a significant peace agreement if they don't know who they should be dealing with and who can actually enforce an agreement. But I just use that as one example."

The Chicago Tribune's Mike Dorning has more on Obama in the Middle East today.

Barack Obama's royal escort

July 22, 2008 2:55 PM CDT

by Mike Dorning

AMMAN, Jordan--Barack Obama received a lift to his plane tonight from King Abdullah of Jordan.

The king drove Obama to his plane in his own Mercedes 600. The two arrived moments ago with a police escort.

As soon as the car stopped, a plainclothes bodyguard rushed to the drivers door to open it for Abdullah and then the king ran around to the passenger door to greet Obama as he exited.

The king clapped Obama on the back and shook his hand before Obama walked up the stairs.

The king and Obama drove to the airport by themselves, with no security officers or aides accompanying them in the car, said Obama press secretary Linda Douglass. However, they were in a motorcade.

Obama had dinner with the king and queen and Jordanian and American officials before departing Jordan tonight for Israel.

Fannie, Freddie rescue cost: $25 B?

July 22, 2008 1:40 PM CDT

by Frank James

There was already resistance on Capitol Hill to the Bush Administration's proposal that the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve increase their backstop role to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, witness last week's congressional hearings during which that reluctance among Republicans was palpable.

Thus the release today by the Congressional Budget Office of an estimate for the cost to taxpayers of the administration's proposal -- possibly $25 billion over fiscal years 2009 and 2010 -- raises the difficulty level the Bush team faces as it tries to win over enough resistant lawmakers to get legislation passed.

Among the elements of the Bush Administration's proposal is a request for Congress to extend authority to the Treasury Department so it can purchase Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities.

The CBO director's blog has a post which explains the assumptions Congress's numbers-crunching agency used to reach its estimate.

Here's a key snippet:

1. CBO estimates the expected federal budgetary cost (that is, taking into account the probability of various possible outcomes) from enacting this proposal would be $25 billion over fiscal years 2009 and 2010.

Obama: My Iraq judgments match reality

July 22, 2008 1:28 PM CDT

by Mike Dorning

AMMAN, Jordan--Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama completed a visit to Iraq on Tuesday acknowledging progress in the country over the past year but unwilling to declare that the Bush Administration troop surge he opposed has been a success.

"I believe that the situation in Iraq is more secure than it was a year and a half ago. I think that the definition of success depends on how you look at it," Obama said at a news conference in Jordan shortly after he landed here for the next stop on an international tour that also will take him to capitals in the Middle East and Europe.

After the news conference Obama met with Jordan's King Abdullah and then had dinner with the king and other Jordanian and American officials. Later in the evening, he was scheduled to go on to Israel, where he meets with government leaders Wednesday.

The international trip, which began with visits to combat zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, is an opportunity for the candidate to assure American voters of his capabilities as a potential commander in chief. Though polls show Obama ahead in the presidential race at the moment, many voters say they have reservations about his readiness to lead the country on national security issues, a key potential vulnerability.

At the news conference, held at the site of an ancient ruin that provided a striking panoramic view of the Jordanian capital, many of questions focused on his policy judgments on the Iraq War.

Obama stressed that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and even the Bush administration have in recent days moved closer to his signature policy on Iraq calling for a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. combat troops within 16 months after Obama would take office. Maliki said on Monday he favored a goal of removing U.S. combat troops by 2010, within a few months of the date Obama has proposed.

Love is in the air for Barack Obama

July 22, 2008 12:15 PM CDT

by Jill Zuckman

Love is in the air.

But Sen. John McCain's campaign is not feeling it. Instead, they want you to take a look at how ridiculous the media seems as it appears in Sen. Barack Obama's thrall.

Watch the McCain campaign video here, and perhaps you'll begin to understand why Obama has a full press contingent on his trip to the Middle East and Europe and why McCain was not lavished with the same attention on his last three foreign trips.

Obama vs Jesse: not just jealousy?

July 22, 2008 11:48 AM CDT

by Frank James

The ever thoughtful Shelby Steele has an interesting take on why Jesse Jackson obviously isn't feeling Sen. Barack Obama the way so many other African Americans are.

The editors of The Wall Street Journal's op-ed page gave Steele's piece the grabber of a headline "Why Jesse Jackson hates Obama."

According to Steele, one of the most interesting commentators on race in America, Jackson is angry at Obama because the senator from Illinois has turned his back on the tactic that civil-rights leaders used to gain leverage against whites, which is essentially white guilt.

He could have taken up the mantle of the early Martin Luther King (he famously smeared himself with the great man's blood after King was shot), and argued for equality out of a faith in the imagination and drive of his own people. Instead -- and tragically -- he and the entire civil rights establishment pursued equality through the manipulation of white guilt.

Their faith was in the easy moral leverage over white America that the civil rights victories of the 1960s had suddenly bestowed on them. So Mr. Jackson and his generation of black leaders made keeping whites "on the hook" the most sacred article of the post-'60s black identity.

They ushered in an extortionist era of civil rights, in which they said to American institutions: Your shame must now become our advantage. To argue differently -- that black development, for example, might be a more enduring road to black equality -- took whites "off the hook" and was therefore an unpardonable heresy. For this generation, an Uncle Tom was not a black who betrayed his race; it was a black who betrayed the group's bounty of moral leverage over whites. And now comes Mr. Obama, who became the first viable black presidential candidate precisely by giving up his moral leverage over whites.

This is somewhat different than what many people assumed was really the cause for Jackson's outburst against Obama, that is, simple, or maybe not so simple, jealousy.

Black America has seen this movie before. There was the rivalry between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois at the start of the 20th Century. That contest was based partly on ideology as to the best way for African Americans to advance in a racist nation. But it was also personal.

Later, any number of civil-rights leaders like Roy Wilkens of the NAACP and Whitney M. Young of the Urban League were thought to be jealous of Martin Luther King Jr. for, in their view, not having paid sufficient dues and for giving short shrift to their organizations' civil-rightsefforts.

Given this, it's curious that Steele doesn't mention jealousy as a possible reason for Jackson's raw feelings expressed over that "hot mike."

Durbin blasts FDA's veggie mix-up

July 22, 2008 11:07 AM CDT

by Christi Parsons

Before you breathe a sigh of relief that the real culprit of the summer salmonella outbreak has been found, consider this critique from Sen. Dick Durbin.

It took three months for the FDA to figure out the problem, Durbin points out, a stretch of time when the tomato industry suffered and people kept getting sick off of peppers.

"That's unacceptable," Durbin said today. "The serious delay in tracing back the source of this problem -- only to find that jalapeno peppers, not tomatoes, were at fault -- has put the health of many Americans and an entire industry at risk."

The current food safety system is dysfunctional, Durbin says, and Congress should stop "plugging holes" in it and "retool how we protect the nation's food supply."

Attack in Israel near Obama's hotel

July 22, 2008 9:30 AM CDT

by Katie Fretland and updated

Several people were injured in Jerusalem near the hotel where Sen. Barack Obama is scheduled to stay tonight when a man driving a backhoe rammed into other vehicles and a bus, according to news reports.

The driver of the construction vehicle was shot and killed, according to an Israeli government statement reported by CNN.

Israeli police are calling the incident a terror attack, while there was no immediate claim of responsibility. The AP reports that the driver was a Palestinian man from east Jerusalem, which Israel took over in 1967.

Earlier in July, police shot and killed a Palestinian driver after he drove a construction vehicle into cars and pedestrians on a busy street in Jerusalem. The attack left three others dead and dozens wounded.

Video from the BBC showed the wreckage of the scene today. Three cars were crumpled and one vehicle lay overturned.

"Today's bulldozer attack is a reminder of what Israelis have courageously lived with on a daily basis for far too long," Obama said during a press conference in Jordan. "I strongly condemn this attack and will always support Israel in confronting terrorism and pursuing lasting peace and security. Right now my thoughts and prayers go out to all who were injured and to their families."

Barack Obama lands in Jordan

July 22, 2008 9:10 AM CDT

by Mike Dorning

AMMAN, Jordan--Barack Obama landed in Amman, Jordan, about 2:15 p.m. local time for the next stop on his international tour, arriving from Iraq on a V-22 Osprey helicopter. He stepped off the helicopter wearing khakis and a wrinkled shirt and carrying a black helmet and flak jacket.

Obama later today is to hold his first press conference since his visit to the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan at the ancient Citadel overlooking Amman. The press conference, which CNN plans to broadcast live, is scheduled for 5 p.m. local time, 9 a.m. Central Time.

Obama will meet with Jordan's King Abdullah tonight and dine with the king and other Jordanian officials before flying to Israel later in the evening.

Abdullah cut short a visit to the United States to return to Jordan this afternoon for the meeting with Obama.

Anti-Obama ad focuses on media hype

July 22, 2008 8:10 AM CDT

by Katie Fretland

Citizens United launched a new television ad this week in promotion of its upcoming documentary, which portrays the media as having a love affair with Sen. Barack Obama.

The ad features Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the Rev. Joe Watkins and commentators Tucker Carlson and Dick Morris speaking about the hype surrounding the presumptive Democratic nominee's campaign for president.

The conservative group's $250,000 advertising campaign began on Fox News Channel yesterday.

"Those that haven't been swept up in hype are wondering who this untested politician is and what he stands for - that's where this film comes in," David Bossie, executive producer and president of Citizens United, said in a statement.

Here is a transcript of the advertisement:

Obama: "We are the change that we seek."

Blackwell: "It is only when you begin to peel back the layers that you begin to see a disturbing pattern."

Carlson: "Well, the press loves Obama. I mean, not just love, but an early teenage crush."

Morris: "He is representative of the ultimate left of the Democratic party. Vast increases in taxes."

Watkins: "Big government doesn't help people. And it certainly hasn't helped the people in my congregation."

Obama: "We are the ones we've been waiting for."

The organization's documentary -- Hype - The Obama Effect -- is planned for release in September. Here is the trailer, including several seconds of the Illinois senator dancing on the Ellen DeGeneres Show:

A presidential primer on the Middle East

July 22, 2008 7:45 AM CDT

by Richard Boudreaux

JERUSALEM -- To: Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain

From: The Holy Land

Re: Well, it's complicated. . .

-- So you're competing to become the umpteenth American president burdened by the conflict over this hallowed patch of ground.

Like nearly every other candidate in recent decades, you make a pilgrimage here to show voters back home how much you care about peace and Israel's security. Sen. McCain, your spring visit to Sderot, that rocket-battered Israeli town, was a striking gesture.

This week, Sen. Obama, the Holy Land awaits you. Israelis and Palestinians. Skeptical eyes and ears, tuned to every gesture and word. A verbal minefield for even the most adept campaigner.

You'll get a helicopter tour, a feel for the intimacy of the land in dispute: Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip crowd a space smaller than Maryland between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

Yet the conflict here is but one element, if indeed the centerpiece, of a wider regional crisis. Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon all impinge, in ways that make Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking more complicated than ever.

Here are 10 realities to keep in mind about the Holy Land, previous American efforts to pacify it, and the broader conundrum and choices one of you will face when President Bush leaves office six months from now:

*1* It could be worse. At least some of the players are talking about peace.
*2* The conflicts Israel faces have become maddeningly intertwined.
*3* Israel, which has nuclear weapons, and Iran, which might develop them, are openly threatening each other.
*4* Diplomatic success here requires a mix of Arab or Israeli initiatives and American persistence.
*5* America's "special relationship" with Israel can hurt its credibility as a mediator ...

Richard Boudreaux writes for the Los Angeles Times. Read the full story about things a president should know about the Middle East at latimes.com.

Rudy Giuliani: 'Not on the short list'

July 22, 2008 7:15 AM CDT

by Mark Silva

Rule out another running mate for John McCain.

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and onetime frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in early opinion polling, said today that he is not a candidate for vice president.

"I am not on the short list. I don't want to be on the short list,'' Giuliani replied, when asked by NBC's David Gregory on the Today Show if he would make a suitable running mate. "Sen. McCain has some excellent choices.''

Of course, the pro-choice, pro gun-control Giuliani may never have made any short list for a Republican candidate unlikely to align with an abortion rights-supporter.

Who should be that running mate? Someone who can step in as president, has all the qualifications that the candidate has, and is readily acceptable by the public as a potential stand-in, said Giuliani, whose own fortunes faded early in the GOP's primaries and who stepped aside after running third to McCain and Mitt Romney in Florida.