The Plum Line

Yesterday I reported here that Sharron Angle agreed with a talk show host's claim that we have "domestic enemies" within the "walls of the Senate and the Congress."

Now Harry Reid is personally calling on Angle to name names.

Reid, who rarely goes after Angle directly and mostly leaves the attacking to surrogates, just issued a rare statement hammering Angle over the exchange:

"Sharron Angle's rhetoric is irresponsible and over the top. Let me be very clear. While I may have some differences of opinion with my Republican colleagues in the Senate, I have never questioned their patriotism. For Sharron Angle to agree that any of them -- Republican or Democrat -- is an enemy of the state is not only an insult to every United States Senator, it's a disgrace to our country. If she is going to use such rhetoric, she has an obligation to name names and explain to the American people exactly who she thinks is a domestic enemy."

Reid's decision to personally go on the offensive against this Angle-ism suggests that the Reid camp sees another perfect opportunity to use Angle's own words to paint her as extreme, dangerous, and temperamentally unfit for the Senate. Reid's broadside seems likely to force some media attention to what Angle said here.

What's more, you can bet that the exchange, which took place with conservative talk show host Bill Manders on the day Angle launched her Senate campaign in 2009, will find its way into an ad soon enough. Here it is again:

MANDERS: We have domestic enemies. We have home-born homegrown enemies in our system. And I for one think we have some of those enemies in the walls of the Senate and the Congress.

ANGLE: Yes. I think you're right, Bill.

Because the host is the one who made the incendiary claim, this exchange might not be newsworthy if it had occurred in a vacuum. But Angle clearly and unequivocally agreed with it.

And in light of other recent Angle statements -- such as her claim that people might resort to "Second Amendment remedies" if Congress continues on its current course -- it is entirely possible that this is, in fact, what Angle believes. She should be asked about it.

The chief of Dem efforts to keep the House came out swinging hard against John Boehner's speech criticizing Obama on the economy, arguing in an interview with me that Boehner had only helped Dems by confirming that a vote for the GOP is a return to "Bush economics on steroids."

DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen also scoffed at Boehner's call for Obama to fire his economic team, claiming that Republican efforts to push that issue would be seen by voters as a "distraction" and "political gamesmanship."

The comments from Van Hollen suggest that both sides are girding for an intense game of chicken this fall on the economy, one that is shaping up as a showdown between, in effect, Obama and Bush. In the interview, Van Hollen said the DCCC would advise Dem candidates to seize on Boehner's speech.

"The Boehner speech is Exhibit A that they want to take a U-turn back to Bush policies that failed," Van Hollen said of Republicans. "We will be using it to encourage our candidates to draw a clear distinction between continuing on the road to recovery or turning back the clock to the failed Bush economic agenda."

Van Hollen added that Boehner's speech -- which presented an extension of the Bush tax cuts as a panacea but added few other policy prescriptions -- had only helped Dems by giving them a target, because it would enable Dems to present the election as a choice, rather than just as referendum on them.

"No longer is the Republican plan a blank slate," Van Hollen said. "Their proposal is Bush economics on steroids. By making that clear, he has sharpened the choice in these races. What he's proposing will provide ammunition for our candidates."

When I pointed to evidence this message isn't sinking in -- a recent polling memo circulated by Dems found only 25 percent believe the GOP wants a return to Bush policies -- Van Hollen didn't respond directly. "Boehner's speech opened up greater opportunities to have that conversation," he said.

This morning, the NRCC announced that they will be amplifying Boehner's call for Obama to fire Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, by pressuring Dem candidates to say whether they agree. But Van Hollen dismissed this strategy as a transparent stunt.

"People will see that as pure political gamesmanship," Van Hollen said. "If they focus on just that piece it will demonstrate that they lack any seriousness. The Geithner Summers piece is obviously a political effort at distraction."

Asked to respond to Charlie Cook's much discussed analysis predicting that Dems would lose the House in a wave election, Van Hollen dismissed the argument. "Unlike in 1994, in 2010 Republicans are not seen as a viable, credible alternative to Democrats," he said. "This is where John Boehner's speech comes in."

"This is not going to be 1994 redux," Van Hollen added. "Democrats will retain a majority in the House."

* Ominous read of the morning: Don't miss this interesting, if ominous, overview of the political predicament Obama and Dems face. Cliff notes version: With the recovery faltering as election day approaches, Dems are simply running out of policy options to turn things around.

As Duncan Black keeps saying, Dems had better roll out some new product this fall or else.

* Takedown of the day: Ruth Marcus versus John Boehner over his speech attacking Obama's economic policies, in which he used the phrase "job-killing" at least a dozen times.

* Jake Sherman sums up the GOP game plan:

Not a Contract with America, but a Contract on Obama. A continuous battering of the president's advisers, policies and legacy. A recital of every Democratic misstep, misstatement and miscue of the past 20 months. An attack strategy that is thus far short on Republican vision and long on bashing Democrats.

* The Cheney-ification of the GOP: I noted yesterday that it's another subtext to the Cordoba House controversy, and it turns out Matt Duss has already taken a long and well researched look at the recent rise of Cheney-ism within the party. Worth a read.

* Tea Party and Sarah Palin roar in unison: Attorney Joe Miller, who's backed by the Tea Party and the Mama Grizzly in Chief, took a surprising and unexpected lead over Senator Lisa Murkowski this morning, edging Murkowski 52-48 with 77 percent of precincts reporting.

* Also: Kendrick Meek's victory in Florida may show that labor is still a force to be reckoned with, which could help limit Dem losses this fall.

* But: Meek may be the weakest of the three candidates in the Florida Senate race, meaning national Dems face a difficult choice as they weigh how much to invest in the race.

* Privatize Social Security? Moi? No matter how many times they try to deny it, conservatives did try to privatize Social Security.

* The spirit of Breitbart lives on: Here's still more evidence that anti-mosque zealot Pamela Geller pulled a major Breitbart in her latest effort to slime Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

* "Un-American": Michael Bloomberg mounts another impassioned defense of Cordoba House: "To implicate all of Islam for the actions of a few who twisted a great religion is unfair and un-American."

The whole speech is worth a watch, particularly his point about the idiocy of efforts to establish a Mosque Exclusion Zone and his allusion to JFK's Catholicism.

* And Sharron Angle agrees there are domestic enemies within Congress: ICYMI, the GOP Senate candidate in Nevada unequivocally agreed with a radio host who asserted that there are "domestic enemies" within the "walls of the Senate and the Congress."

What else is happening?

* Breaking: A new Pew poll finds a sizable majority, 62 percent, supports the right of Muslims to build mosques in local communities, even if the neighbors object.

* But: A majority opposes this if the project in question is not a mosque and it's near Ground Zero. The poll also finds 51 percent oppose Cordoba House.

* It's not just wacked out lefty media watchdogs anymore! Ed Chen, the former chief of the White House Correspondents Association, says Fox's front-row White House seat is a "travesty."

* Questioning Obama's faith is a hoot! Sam Stein reports that the RNC is distancing itself from its new media director's Tweet poking fun at the idea that Obama may be a Muslim.

* But: Credit to RNC spox Doug Heye for stating unequivocally that Obama's faith is "both crystal clear and a non-issue."

* Jed Lewison suggests it's not all that outlandish to imagine that Sharron Angle actually believes the things she says.

* Groundbreaking assertion of the day: Josh Marshall says we can hold two ideas in our heads at the same time -- Cordoba House very well may never be built, but the project is still important to defend for its larger symbolic value.

* Ben Smith reports that administration insiders may be quietly pushing Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary, which will make Beltway bipartisanship fetishists swoon with joy.

* John Boehner's dress rehersal as House Speaker continues: He's now set to give a speech on Iraq on the same day that Obama's scheduled to do the same. Boehner will hammer Obama for opposing "the surge."

Friendly reminder: A majority thinks the Iraq War will be judged a failure -- and that's with the surge.

* A new Reuters poll finds the public divided on whether to extend the Bush tax cuts. I'd like to see the question wording on this one.

* Steve Benen keeps making an important point: The stimulus wasn't big enough, which is why it fell short, but its shortcomings are persuading people that government spending doesn't work.

* Obama will say no more about Cordoba House. Dammit. Can't we come up with a new way to fault his handling of this controversy?

* Dems gear up for action in response to the court ruling banning Federal funding of stem cell research.

* And Adam Sorensen notes some disconcerting similarities between Tim Pawlenty's new book and Sarah Palin's recently released tome:

The snark fails me on this one. Supply your own.

What else is happening?

On a radio interview conducted on the day she announced her Senate run in 2009, Sharron Angle clearly and unequivocally agreed with an interviewer who asserted flatly that there are "domestic enemies" and "homegrown enemies" in the "walls of the Senate and the Congress."

A Democrat sends over audio of the exchange, which came in an interview Angle did on October 21, 2009, with conservative radio host Bill Manders. Here's the transcript:

MANDERS: You know I talk often about this oath that they give and it is to defend the Constitution and all that. But one of the things that is very important to me in this oath that they give is that they will defend against foreign and domestic enemies.

ANGLE: Yes. Yes.

MANDERS: We have domestic enemies. We have home-born homegrown enemies in our system. And I for one think we have some of those enemies in the walls of the Senate and the Congress.

ANGLE: Yes. I think you're right, Bill.

You can listen to a longer version with more context right here. Manders confirmed the authenticity of the audio to me, and he also said he didn't recall her contradicting this claim at any other point.

In fairness to Angle, the incendiary remark was made by Manders. But Angle -- who was at that time already a Senate candidate -- clearly agreed with him. And given some of her previous claims -- particularly her assertion that people may soon resort to "Second Amendment remedies" if Congress continues along its current course -- it's perfectly legit to ask her if this is what she really believes.

There's a reason the White House and Dems are throwing everything they have at John Boehner's speech attacking Obama's economic policies: Dems and White House advisers know they must not allow Boehner and the GOP to achieve a clean relaunch of their party and their ideas heading into the midterms.

The big underlying fight right now is over whether Republicans will succeed in rebranding themselves, achieving separation from Bush and the party that ran Congress before the Dem takeover, or whether Dems will successfully convince the electorate that a vote for the GOP is a vote for the party that brought our economy to the edge of doom.

So the White House is circulating a new set of talking points instructing Dems on the Hill and outside allies to reiterate these ideas:

In a speech in Cleveland today, House Minority Leader John Boehner laid out Congressional Republicans' economic dream. Their prescription for the future = the same policies that led to the worst recession since the Great Depression. They want more tax breaks for the rich, less oversight of Wall Street, and a tougher burden for middle-class families...

Representative Boehner is ignoring his party's own record, and he's hoping that American families will, too. In the eight years before the Obama Administration took office, the Republican Leadership took the record surplus and turned it into a record $1.3 trillion deficit. Their irresponsible policies helped to create the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, resulting in 22 months straight of job losses across America.

Congressional Republicans are offering nothing new. If they were to control of Congress, the Republicans have pledged to go back to "the exact same agenda" they were pursuing before President Obama took office. They think the policies they had in place during the Bush years were the right ones.

Fresher-faced GOP leaders like Eric Cantor have mounted an aggressive push to rebrand the GOP and separate it from its previous incarnation by openly conceding the errors of the previous GOP leadership and vowing a new direction. So Dems are hoping to elevate the overly tanned and too-slick-by-half Boehner as the face of the Bad Old GOP, in hopes of reminding the electorate who ran the place only two years ago.

The problem for Dems, though, is that there's some evidence that the Dem message on Bush may not be sinking in. It's not impossible that today's GOP has already achieved separation from Bush and the previous leadership. Dems recently circulated a polling memo finding that only 25 percent think a vote for today's Republicans represents a vote to return to Bush policies. That's why the White House and Dems have been pushing the Bush line so hard today and in recent days -- they don't know if they're winning this argument, and they know it's imperative that they do.

Jonathan Chait makes the case that the battle over the "Ground Zero mosque" is more than just a war over issues surrounding the Constitution and religious freedom. Chait notes, crucially, that this is also an intra-party struggle over the future direction of GOP foreign policy:

The second question is about laying the groundwork for Republican foreign policy for the next GOP presidential administration. George W. Bush pursued a policy of attempting to divide the mass of the Muslim world from the dangerous and radical hard core, reassuring and praising the former while opposing the latter. President Obama has pursued the same policy, adding onto it the personal touch of using his identity and unique history to dramatize the same basic message.

The Park51 episode has become a proxy fight on this question among Republicans, many of whom see the foreign policy struggle as a clash of civilizations between Islam and Christianity/Judaism.

It's also worth adding that if the battle over the Islamic center has revealed an intra-Republican struggle over whose foreign policy vision will prevail, it's clear who's winning this fight: The Cheney-ites. Consider: Virtually all leading Republicans who are currently in positions of power, or are currently lining up to run for office in 2012, have adopted the Liz Cheney line.

The project is opposed by many of the leading GOP officials in Congress, from John Boehner to Eric Cantor to Mitch McConnell. What's more, the battle over the Islamic center has actually become a litmus test for the 2012 GOP hopefuls, with Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Tim Pawlenty all trying to out-demagogue each other on the issue.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the Republicans who have stepped forward to support the project are largely former Bush officials who are no longer in positions of power or aren't running for office anytime soon. In other words, the Cheney-ite line has become the required position of thise with actual influence within the GOP -- or those who are currently in the process of seeking it.

This development is actually part of a larger story that hasn't really gotten the attention it deserves: Ever since Obama took office, there's been a widening rift between Republican officials and politicans on one side, and the GOP's former allies in Washington's permanent national security establishment on the other.

Obama's positions are more in line with the old-line GOP defense establishment in D.C. -- people like Colin Powell and James Baker, as well as Bush holdovers who are working for Obama, like Robert Gates and David Petraeus. Yet Republican elected officials and office seekers have almost uniformly adopted the Cheney-ite critique of Obama on issues like torture, Mirandizing terrorists, and whether to close Guantanamo.

In other words, the widespread opposition to Cordoba House among Republicans is only the latest installment in the ongoing Cheney-ization of the GOP. I don't need to tell you that this trend has ominous ramifications in light of the possibility of a GOP takeover of Congress or even of the Presidency.

As you may have heard, former Bush senior adviser Karen Hughes came out against Cordoba House over the weekend. Hughes called on Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to move the project in order to "provide a path toward the peaceful relationships that he and his fellow Muslims strive to achieve."

What was mystifying about her opposition, as TPM noted, was that she did not mention that Rauf had a long-term relationship with the Bush administration. Nor did she mention that as the Bush State Department's chief of outreach to Muslims she participated with him in multiple bridge-building efforts to the Muslim world.

Here's her explanation: Hughes claimed in a statement to me that she doesn't remember any of the work she did with him.

As it happens, when people first started pointing out the connections betweeen Hughes and Rauf, I asked Ms. Hughes' office to comment. She sent me a statement, which I didn't get around to posting. Here it is:

"As Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, President Bush asked me to focus on interfaith dialogue to try to encourage greater understanding and respect between leaders of different faiths, and to encourage leaders of all faiths to speak out against all acts of terror and violence. As a result, I met with many Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders and attended numerous events and conferences across the world and it's entirely possible he was at some of those, but I don't have specific recollections of that. I believe acts of violence pervert all faith and I continue to encourage religious leaders to speak out against suicide bombings, terrorist attacks and all acts of violence."

As TPM points out, Rauf repeatedly participated in events with Hughes, who saw improving relations with the Muslim world as an imperative. Rauf even claims he met with her. So I'll leave it to you to judge how likely it is that Hughes wouldn't remember any of their work together.

* John Boehner's audition for Speaker: Tax cuts to help solve deficit. The GOP leader is giving a speech this morning that gives us a glimpse of how he might handle the gig of Speaker of the House.

In it, he's blasting Dems for calling for the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, while claiming that keeping them -- and cutting spending further -- is the way to foster the economic growth necessary to solve the deficit problem.

* Also: Boehner is calling on Obama to fire his entire economic team, which seems like a bid to force media coverage of his speech.

* Dems hit back: The DNC releases a new Web vid reminding folks that Boehner was part of the crop of Republicans who ran Congress before the 2006 Dem takeover. "There couldn't be a worse embodiment of what is wrong with Washington than John Boehner," a Dem official emails.

Key takeaway: Republicans have been working hard to leave behind the taint of the previous GOP-controlled Congress, elevating new leaders like Eric Cantor in an effort to rebrand the party. Dems hope that a high profile for Boehner will undercut this case, enabling them to argue that a vote for the GOP this fall is a vote for the old Republican Party that ran us into the ground.

* Indeed, Dems are already trying to raise cash off the specter of "Speaker Boehner."

* History lesson: Joan Walsh reminds us that Republicans are the ones who inserted the sunset into the Bush tax cuts, in order to conceal their true costs.

* DISCLOSE Act, anyone? The number of outside groups pumping cash into the midterm elections now totals more than a dozen, and we don't know where that money is coming from.

* Primary day! Here's a useful overview of today's big primaries. Highlights: Kendrick Meek is likely to win; and Repubs will pick a challenger to take on liberal quote machine Alan Grayson.

* Pundit challenge of the day: How to square all the previous talk about this being an anti-establishment, anti-incumbent year with the expected victory tonight of Meek, John McCain and other incumbents and establishment candidates?

* Where do Dems stand on Social Security? DNC spox Brad Woodhouse rips the GOP for lying about Social Security's long-term insolvency, but seems to suggest that the program needs to be "tweaked."

*Did all of Islam attack us on 9/11? Richard Cohen nails it:

If you believe that an entire religion of upward of a billion followers attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, then it is understandable that locating a mosque near the fallen World Trade Center might be upsetting...If, on the other hand, you do not believe that the attack was launched by an entire religion, you have a moral duty to support the creation of the Islamic center.

* It's the hatemongering, stupid: Eugene Robinson links the Cordoba House battle to Shirley Sherrod, immigration and other race-based controversies and discerns a larger pattern "in which the far right embraces victimhood and stokes fear."

* And maybe it's time to stop giving this woman a platform? "Mosque" foe Pamela Geller keeps on makin' it up, pulling a Breitbart in order to portray Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as a terror sympathizer. Quick, book Geller for another round of cable interviews!

What else is happening?

UPDATE, 9:32 a.m.: AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale, responding to Boehner, goes there:

No matter what kind of fake tan you slap on it these are the same washed up Republican policies that only benefit Wall Street and the very rich. Working families in Ohio and across America can't help but laugh at Boehner talking about the economy when he voted against unemployment benefits, voted to fire teachers and firefighters and wants to privatize Social Security.

* Kudos to Dick Durbin for clearly and unequivocally supporting Cordoba House, and for denouncing Sarah Palin and her merry band of demagogues for trying to "divide America with fear and hate."

Also: Durbin is a member of the Senate leadership, so this represents a clean break with Harry Reid.

* Josh Marshall worries that the GOP is on the verge of breaking away from Dems in the midterm matchup.

* And: Aaron Blake crunches the numbers and finds the GOP is just crushing Dems in the enthusiasm department.

* Also: The Rothenberg Political Report shifts five Dem-held House districts in the direction of the GOP column.

* Jake Tapper previews Obama's big upcoming speech about Iraq. The message will be that on national security, the mission is not "accomplished."

* Ron Paul seems to suggest that his son Rand, in opposing the "mosque," has thrown in his lot with the haters and the Islamophobes.

* But: Digby points out that Ron Paul's statement of support for the project isn't all that saintly.

* Sign o' the times: David Kurtz finds that "Ground Zero mosque" is higher on Google than "Ground Zero" itself.

* As Sam Stein notes, it's remarkable how the organizers behind Cordoba House have conspicuously failed to mount any kind of coordinated defense of the project.

* Stephen Stromberg deftly skewers the idiocy of critics who blame the "mosque" controversy on Obama's decision to weigh in long after its opponents had already whipped it up into a national story.

* Coinage of the day, courtesy of a Rhode Island Democrat: "Anchor embryoes."

* Chris Bowers says endorsements from Michael Bloomberg and Chuck Hagel will shift the media narrative Joe Sestak's way.

* Billionaire Jeff Greene, on track to lose tomorrow, really wants Florida Jewish voters to know that he's Jewish. Did he mention that he's Jewish?

* And Mike Tomasky says Dems have nothing to fear but their own fear of Republicans.

What else is happening?