The Plum Line

* The House passed $26 billion in state aid this afternoon, and Republicans are gearing up to portray it as another Big Government job-killing stimulus boondoggle.

* And GOP Rep. Mike Pence says it's a "bailout" of teachers, which is meant as a negative.

* Rand Paul adamantly denies that he kidnapped the woman in college and forced her to use drugs, though he didn't respond directly to questions about the woman's allegations of blindfolding and forcing her to pray to "Aqua Buddha":

* Ben Smith predicts the hunt for the Paul prank victim will now begin.

* Dem Rep Keith Ellison is the first to call for the resignation of Robert Gibbs, which seems a tad excessive.

* In any case, the White House says Gibbs isn't resigning.

* Markos Moulitsas says the polls clearly show Obama is experiencing slippage with the base.

* In the wake of Charlie Rangel's rambling self defense on the House floor today, Jonathan Capehart reiterates his strong case that it's time for Rangel to go.

* Breaking: A New York Republican comes out for the Islamic center near Ground Zero.

* Here's another problem with that daft plan to use free state land to lure the developers of the Islamic center away from Ground Zero: It may be unconstitutional.

* And right wingers don't think the mosque developers should have the right to build their center near Ground Zero, but they are being granted the right to run ads describing the planned center as the "WTC Mega Mosque."

What else is happening?

Via TPM, I see that New York Governor David Paterson has hatched some sort of compromise scheme to get the builders of the Islamic center to move further away from Ground Zero.

The idea appears to be that government will find some state-owned property for the project if they agree to move. The governor said he supports Cordoba House and the right of the developers to build it on their chosen spot. But he added:

Frankly, if the sponsors were looking for property anywhere at a distance that would be such that it would accommodate a better feeling among the people who are frustrated, I would look into trying to provide them with the state property they would need.

How daft is this idea? Let us count the ways.

First, it puts Mayor Bloomberg in a weird spot. The mayor, you may recall, eloquently defended the religious freedom of the developers and stood up for their right to build on a site of their choosing in the face of withering national criticism. Now the governor's position is that, yes, there's something to that religious freedom thing, but let's give away some state land to make the whole mess go away? What is Bloomberg supposed to say in response? I'm told City Hall won't be commenting on the governor's idea.

Second, let's say for the sake of argument that the center's developers would support this scheme. Who gets to decide how far away from Ground Zero is an appropriate distance, and why should they be accorded that power? Should the governor appoint Sarah Palin or Abraham Foxman to a newly-created post of Mosque Exclusion Zone Czar?

Third, this sets an awful precedent. Other religious groups in New York will be asking why they aren't being given state land to build their own cultural centers. Will the state cheerfully throw free land at the next group whose plans spark controversy?

Separately, opponents of Cordoba House will no doubt be psyched by a new poll finding a majority of New Yorkers opposes the project near Ground Zero. But you know what? This is about protecting the rights of a minority. Polls, by definition, should have no bearing whatsoever on this debate. Unless of course the real goal of opponents is to score political points.

UPDATE, 6:43 p.m.: We have more items about the Cordoba House controversy in today's Happy Hour Roundup.

Must-watch video: Here's a sign that the immigration wars have made the issue a hot one even for Democrats in districts that aren't grappling with illegal immigration.

Blue Dog Dem Joe Donnelly of Indiana is up with a tough talking ad about illegal immigration that targets President Obama on the issue, deriding him as part of "the Washington crowd." Donnelly is being challenged by state Rep. Jacki Walorski in a contest that both sides view as a real race.

Donnelly's 30-second spot slips in the hit on Obama subtly and quickly: It flashes a picture of Obama with John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi and features Donnelly saying: "I don't work for them." The key moment starts at around the 18 second mark:

Strikingly, Donnelly's ad appears to hint that Obama and Dems don't oppose people getting "rewarded for breaking the law."

Donnelly rattls off all the tough measures he's taken against illegal immigration, explaining them this way:

"Because no one should be ever rewarded for breaking the law. That may not be what the Washington crowd wants. But I don't work for them. I work for you."

As Donnelly says the words "Washington crowd," we see Obama, Boehner and Pelosi.

A Dem strategist who advises candidates on their races tells me that this isn't an attack on Obama; rather, it's about achieving separation from all of Washington on illegal immigration. "He showed his independence in this ad by condemning Washington on the issue," the strategist said.

The spot is another mark of how successfully the anti-illegal-immigration camp has dragged the debate to the right and turned immigration into a hugely contentious national issue in unlikely places.

UPDATE, 3:27 p.m.: Donnelly's second district is not known for immigration problems, but a strategist familiar with the situation tells me that the issue plays heavily to the "union protectionists, which this district has a lot of." I've edited the above a bit.

With the controversy still simmering over Robert Gibbs' slam on the "professional left," the Dem firm Public Policy Polling offers a reality check on what liberals think of Obama. They overwhelmingly approve:

On the national poll we'll release this week 85% of liberals approve of the job Obama is doing to 12% disapproving. 88% support his health care plan looking back with only 7% opposed.

Not only are those numbers good, but they're steady. Obama's favor with liberals hasn't been on the decline. In May his approval with liberals was 87/10. In February it was 81/15. In November it was 87/4. Even as his ratings have declined overall he's stayed in that sort of mid-80s range with liberal voters.

The volume of the voices of liberals who don't like Obama is much greater than the volume of their numbers, which probably means Robert Gibbs shouldn't let the select few get him so irritated.

This bears out what other polls have found. It suggests that Gibbs was right when he said that rank and file liberals still like Obama, and some will point to this as proof that Obama's liberal critics don't speak for the left and just get attention because they have big megaphones.

But there may be another conclusion to be drawn here. If criticism of the White House from the left isn't meaningfully depressing Obama's support among liberals, than what's the harm? Seems to me that the liberal rank and file are capable of listening to left-leaning opinionmakers taking issue with various aspects of the Obama presidency without concluding that they should stop supporting the president entirely.

In other words, liberal voters appear capable of keeping two ideas in their heads at the same time. First, Obama does not always live up to their expectations, whether or not he should bear the blame for this unfortunate reality. And second, this isn't grounds to abandon him completely.

If anything, this demonstrates that lefty critics should keep it up. They can keep pressuring the White House and Dems to try to expand the realm of what's politically possible, and keep trying to hold the president accountable to his promises and to the expectations he has created for his own leadership. After all, the President himself has told us he wants us to keep doing that. And if liberals aren't turning on him in advance of the midterms, what's the downside?

UPDATE, 1:38 p.m.: One other thing: Given that Obama is still polling extremely well among liberals in multiple polls, it's unclear why the White House overreacts to liberal criticism.

Robert Gibbs, under fire for his attack on the "professional left," sends over a statement walking it back, conceding it was "inartful," and clarifying that the views he expressed frustration about are not widely held:

I watch too much cable, I admit. Day after day it gets frustrating. Yesterday I watched as someone called legislation to prevent teacher layoffs a bailout -- but I know that's not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about.

So what I may have said inartfully, let me say this way -- since coming to office in January 2009, this White House and Congress have worked tirelessly to put our country back on the right path. Most importantly, to dig our way out of a huge recession and build an economy that makes America more competitive and our middle class more secure. Some are frustrated that the change we want hasn't come fast enough for many Americans. That we all understand.

But in 17 months, we have seen Wall Street reform, historic health care reform, fair pay for women, a recovery act that pulled us back from a depression and got our economy moving again, record investments in clean energy that are creating jobs, student loan reforms so families can afford college, a weapons system canceled that the Pentagon didn't want, reset our relationship with the world and negotiated a nuclear weapons treaty that gets us closer to a world without fear of these weapons, just to name a few. And at the end of this month, 90,000 troops will have left Iraq and our combat mission will come to an end.

Even so, we will continue to work each day on the promises and commitments that the President made traveling all over this country for two years and produce the change we know is possible.

In November, America will get to choose between going back to the failed policies that got us into this mess, or moving forward with the policies that are leading us out.

So we should all, me included, stop fighting each other and arguing about our differences on certain policies, and instead work together to make sure everyone knows what is at stake because we've come too far to turn back now.

Gibbs's general message seems to be that the left's criticism risks being counterproductive and could imperil the Dems' broader agenda. But at the same time, in that last graf Gibbs is clearly conceding that White House attacks on the left are equally counterproductive.

Here's something else that's problematic about Robert Gibbs' attack on the "professional left": It directly contradicts previous claims by the White House and the President himself that they value ongoing pressure on them from liberals.

Back when anonymous White House sources leaked that they view bloggers as part of a "left fringe," senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer cleaned things up by emailing me a statement asserting that the White House sees the online left as invaluable, because it keeps the focus on what really matters:

"That sentiment does not reflect White House thinking at all, we've held easily a dozen calls with the progressive online community because we believe the online communities can often keep the focus on how policy will affect the American people rather than just the political back-and-forth."

What's more, the President himself has repeatedly said he wants criticism to continue during his presidency. Glenn Greenwald unearths this from September of 2008:

As president, I will lead a new era of accountability in education. But see, I don't just want to hold our teachers accountable; I want to hold our government accountable. I want you to hold me accountable.

And there's this from an Obama diary in 2005:

"In that spirit, let me end by saying I don't pretend to have all the answers to the challenges we face, and I look forward to periodic conversations with all of you in the months and years to come. I trust that you will continue to let me and other Democrats know when you believe we are screwing up. And I, in turn, will always try and show you the respect and candor one owes his friends and allies."

I think this all reflects the degree to which the White House is genuinely conflicted towards the left. In theory, Obama almost surely believes that pressure from his left is useful. He probably hews to the spirit of the famous FDR line: "Now go out and make me do it."

But in the real world, getting hit with criticism from the left on a regular basis has to be frustrating. White House advisers, having been on the inside of negotiations with conservative Democrats and Republicans over health care, the stimulus, and Wall Street reform, would insist that they have a more realistic view of what's genuinely possible amid today's political realities. They would also argue that lefty criticism risks depressing the base's enthusiasm heading into the midterms, conceivably returning one or both houses of Congress to GOP control.

Surely White House advisers want to scream at the left: You think the current situation is lacking, well, wait until you see the wreckage that ensues when Republicans control the House or even the Senate!

There's some validity to the White House's point: Sometimes the criticism is excessive and counterproductive. But in a general sense, the left should continue pressuring the White House and Dem leaders to live up to ideals -- in order to press Dems to take a risk and try to expand the realm of what's politically possible. If the White House wants to argue that they've pushed the boundaries of the possible to their outermost points, and that the left's criticism is counterproductive, fine. But surely it makes more sense to do that without urinating on the heads of allies, even if those allies are not always reliable.

Dumping on the left makes the White House look like they're playing a too-cute-by-half trangulation game, casts doubt on the sincerity of previous outreach efforts, and only sets back the general cause further.

* Robert Gibbs blasts the "professional left": Was it intended as a clever experiment in triangulation, or was it just a momentary stress-related lapse of self-control? Whichever it was, the White House press secretary unloaded on the "professional left" for not being sufficiently enthusiastic about everything President Obama has done, and offered up this odd blast:

"They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we've eliminated the Pentagon. That's not reality."

If memory serves, didn't the White House repeatedly insist Obama was committed to the public option, the central goal of those who Gibbs is now claiming want "Canadian healthcare"?

Also, didn't antiwar sentiment play a pretty big role in electing Obama as president, given that Obama's opposition to the Iraq War was almost singlehandly responsible for allowing him to rise from relative obscurity to defeat Hillary in the 2008 Dem primary? One wonders if the more-than-100 House Democrats who voted against funding the Afghanistan war are meant to be among those who are allegedly in favor of "eliminating the Pentagon."

Maybe the reporter Gibbs spoke to was trying to bait him into what Duncan Black and others call "hippie punching." Unclear, though, what exactly taking the bait and indulging in hippie punching accomplishes. Gibbs says the vast majority of the liberal rank and file remain fully supportive of the president, and that's probably true. But Dems need everyone to turn out, and all hands to be on deck, from the "professional left" on down, and browbeating folks into being enthusiastic seems like a questionable strategy.

* Obama and House Dems to act on state aid: Continuing to frame the debate with the GOP in advance of the midterms, President Obama will surround himself with teachers today as he delivers a Rose Garden statement urging the House to pass the $26 billion aid package.

Senate Dems leapfrogged a GOP filibuster to pass the measure last week, and the House has returned from recess to get it passed today. It's another data point for Dems to use as they make the case that Republicans have placed partisan obstructionism before the good of the American people.

* Rightward, ho: Bush administration officials blast today's Republicans for toying with changing the 14th amendment, arguing that the GOP risks squandering one of its historic accomplishments, another sign of how far to the right the immigration wars are tugging the party.

* Haven't we heard this from Rove before? He predicts that the midterm elections are going to deliver a victory for conservativism that's "durable and lasting." Rove's previous predictions of an enduring GOP majority, of course, unfolded exactly as planned, so...

* Shocker of the day: A poll paid for by Rove's group, and conducted by a GOP polling firm, finds Republicans could conceivably take the Senate back if everything breaks their way.

* But Dems are worried about the Senate: The White House is going all out to ensure the reelection of Patty Murray of Washington State, on the belief that it's a firewall against GOP control.

* Where's the urgency? Bob Herbert says policymakers aren't responding to the unemployment crisis with any sense that we have an emergency on our hands.

*Snark of the day: Steve Benen, on Rand Paul's threats of legal action against GQ magazine: "Maybe the Aqua Buddha offers legal advice."

* And look, ma, I can demagogue Cordoba House, too! Tim Pawlenty, late to the mosque-bashing party, scrambles to catch up with rival 2012 presidential hopefuls Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. Look for Islam-bashing, disguised and overt, to become central to the 2012 GOP primary.

What else is happening?

UPDATE: The Rand Paul campaign is now threatening legal action against GQ magazine over its much-discussed report quoting an anonymous woman claiming Paul kidnapped her in college and forced her to take bong hits.

"We are investigating all our options -- including legal ones," Rand Paul spokesman Jesse Benton emails me. "We will not tolerate drive by Journalism by a writer with a leftist agenda."

This is the most direct denial, or response, yet from the Paul campaign to the allegations in the article, though the campaign has not yet said flat out that the allegations are false. The article quoted a woman who was identified as a former teammate with Paul on the Baylor University swim team recounting this about Paul and another student:

"He and Randy came to my house, they knocked on my door, and then they blindfolded me, tied me up, and put me in their car. They took me to their apartment and tried to force me to take bong hits. They'd been smoking pot."

The author of the piece, Jason Zengerle, is a longtime writer for The New Republic, and few would mistake him as a "leftist," though that's probably how he's seen by conservative Republicans. I've reached out to Zengerle for comment.

UPDATE, 8:56 p.m.: GQ Editor-in-Chief Jim Nelson dismisses the Paul campaign's threats in a statement:

"We've vetted, researched, and exhaustively fact-checked Jason Zengerle's reporting on Rand Paul's college days, we stand by the story, and we gave the Paul campaign every opportunity to refute it. We notice that they have not, in fact, refuted it."

* Are Dems all in this together? DNC chair Tim Kaine warns skittish Dem candidates against running away from the Obama agenda, arguing they risk dampening excitement for Dems overall.

* Jonathan Cohn on why public employees are "the new Welfare Queens."

* Discourse-elevating issue of the day: House Dems push back hard against GOP claims that they're ducking town hall meetings this summer.

* CNN's Candy Crowley: On gay marriage, the White House is "dancing on the head of a pin." Yup -- it's not sustainable.

* Right wing media, determined to reestablish their credibility after the Andrew Breitbart fiasco, launch an all-out assault on Michelle Obama's vacation.

* Is Islamophobia the new anti-communism?

* One other consequence of the conservative base's rising anti-mosque ire: GOP 2012 presidential hopefuls are already falling all over themselves to outdo one another in anti-mosque fervor.

* Adam Serwer wonders why folks who are opposing Cordoba House solely out of sensitivity to 9/11 victims aren't denouncing campaigns against mosques hundreds of miles from Ground Zero.

* Who says he's a bigot? The top Cordoba House foe in New York says he has lots of friends who are Muslims.

* House Dems are also ratcheting up the pressure on Obama to appoint Elizabeth Warren.

* And Sharron Angle may be telling right-wingers she's rebuffing contributions from corporations that back gay rights, but in reality, a new Center for Responsive Politics report finds she's taken thousands from employees of gay-friendly companies.

What else is happening?

As you know, Sharron Angle came under some criticism last week after claiming that Obama and Democrats were trying to turn government into our God. Lest you thought she was being figurative, Angle added that the growth in government constituted "idolatry" and had violated the First Commandment.

Now the Angle campaign is pushing back. They say she was merely arguing that Obama's legislative agenda, passed over public opposition, showed he thinks he's "all powerful." And Camp Angle is accusing Harry Reid's camp of injecting religion into the Senate race. The Las Vegas Review Journal quotes Angle spox Jarrod Agen:

Agen also criticized Reid for playing the God card in the Senate race. He said Angle's point was that the Obama administration had become "all powerful" by passing legislation over the objections of a majority of Nevadans and Americans, including the health care law and divisive stimulus spending.

"It's shamefully hypocritical of Senator Reid to attack Sharron for discussing her religion, since Reid has publicly boasted that his faith and his political beliefs are deeply intertwined," Agen said. "The same man now attacking Sharron Angle is the same guy who not long ago said that he doesn't think he can separate his religion from his politics. Once again, Harry Reid is running from his record."

A couple quick points about this. First, I'm not sure that Angle's suggestion that the growth in government is leading the nation down the road to "idolatry" constitutes "discussing her religion."

Second, Angle wasn't merely claiming Obama thinks he's "all powerful." If you reread Angle's original quotes, there's simply no doubt that she meant them literally. She was not making a figurative point about Obama's inflated sense of himself as some kind of deity. She clearly accused Obama and Dems of trying to "make government our God," and denounced the result of that nefarious plot as "a violation of the First Commandment."

LIke it or not, that's what the woman said.

There's been a great deal of discussion about the new team of consultants Angle has hired, and no question, we're seeing signs that her message is sharpening up, in new ads and so forth. But it's clear that one of their primary missions is a challenging one: To obscure what Angle really thinks.

Heads up: Add Dick Durbin and Carl Levin to the list of Senators backing Elizabeth Warren as Obama's key consumer cop on Wall Street. That makes a total of 15 Senators supporting her. Is momentum building in her favor?

The left has been mounting a campaign to pressure the White House to appoint Warren as head of the newly-created Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which is central to the success of the just-passed Wall Street reform bill. There's ample evidence she's well qualified for the job, and appointing her would throw a big bone to liberals, who strongly support Warren and want to see Obama take a stand on something they care about.

And yet, the White House appears to be waffling on the appointment -- perhaps because bigfoot administration insiders don't like her or perhaps because they don't think she can get 60 votes in the Senate.

Now the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is organizing the campaign to get Warren appointed and has been whipping Senate support, are set to announce the support of senators Durbin and Levin. Durbin, who is a particularly interesting addition because he's a close ally of the president, came out for Warren in the middle of a speech on the Senate floor last week that passed unnoticed, strongly endorsing her as "aggressive" and "intelligent":

"It is critical that the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection be put in place with a director who is aggressive, intelligent, and understands the challenge they will face; a director who is fair, one who believes in the power of the marketplace but understands that markets work better if everybody participating in those markets benefits; a director who will listen to what bankers are saying but can see through them when they try to slant lending markets too far in their favor; a director who thinks, first and foremost, about how American families can thrive in today's complicated economy.

"Fortunately, there is a person who can fill that job effectively. Her name is Elizabeth Warren."

And Senator Levin came out for Warren in a letter to the President.

"The success of the Bureau, a key accomplishment of the financial reform bill, will depend to a significant degree on its first chief," Levin wrote, telling Obama that she would help "bring to fruition one of the important accomplishments of your presidency."

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, you may recall, successively whipped dozens of Dem Senators into supporting the public option. That provision, of course, died a quiet death before health reform passed. But the noise in favor of it unquestionably got far louder than anyone expected. Looks like the same could happen with Warren.

UPDATE, 2:25 p.m.: Speaking of making noise, PCCC reports they've compiled over 200,000 petition signatures for Warren with Credo Action and has sent over 3,000 phone calls to Senators since Thursday.