Froomkin: "There is plenty of reason to doubt the White House spin."

Dan Froomkin, in a column that he could have written in 2003 or 2004 or 2005 or 2006 or 2007, dissects yet another version of the Bush victory speech, while Basra and Baghdad are in chaos (again):

As fighting rages in Basra, the White House is unleashing a forceful spin campaign to frame the Iraqi government's offensive there as a positive outcome of the U.S. troop surge and a symbol of better days to come.

Speaking to an invitation-only audience at an Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio, this morning, President Bush argued that the Basra incursion "shows the progress the Iraqi security forces have made during the surge" and "demonstrates to the Iraqi people that their government is committed to protecting them. . . .

"The enemy, you know, will try to fill the TV screens with violence," he scoffed. "But the ultimate result will be this: Terrorists and extremists in Iraq will know they have no place in a free and democratic society."

But is the bloodshed in Basra an example of a unified central government asserting itself and the Iraqi army standing up? Or is it further evidence of the internecine strife ravaging the country? Will Basra become a symbol of the restoration of the rule of law? Or will it turn out to be a step toward heightened violence?

There is plenty of reason to doubt the White House spin. Just look at what's happening on the ground, compare that to what the U.S. military is saying about it, and recall the administration's many previous statements of optimism about Iraq.

Oh yes, we can recall many, "many previous statements of optimism about Iraq." Many. And, they've all been misleading, if not outright lies. If one wanted to challenge Bush's optimism, one could take note of the current working situation for U.S. embassy personnel in the Green Zone:

On Thursday, the State Department instructed all Embassy personnel not to leave reinforced structures. A memo sent to embassy staff and obtained by The Associated Press says employees are required to wear helmets and other protective gear if they must venture outside and strongly advises them to sleep in blast-resistant locations instead of trailers.

Read the rest of this post...

Tibetan monks overtake staged Chinese media event

Reuters has the details:

Tibetan monks stormed a news briefing at a temple in Lhasa on Thursday, accusing officials of lying about unrest and embarrassing Chinese authorities during a stage-managed tour by foreign reporters.

CNN has the video:
Read the rest of this post...

Bill Clinton reportedly terrified that Hillary is about to officially lose Texas

You'll recall that the media declared Hillary the winner of Texas before it was actually over. Texas had a primary and a caucus, and Hillary only won the primary. The winner of Texas is decided by adding the delegates from both the primary and the caucus. Come this weekend, we should find out that Obama really won Texas. A NY Daily News reporter accidentally got invited to a private conference call Bill Clinton was holding today with Texas delegates. Seems the campaign is terrified that people may finally figure out this weekend that Hillary lost Texas. Read the rest of this post...

No dogs OR cats in the bakery?

"We regret that we cannot accept your friends"

What kind of uncivilized country is this? I got a hoot out of the sign on the way into a popular Parisian bakery near the Rue Daguerre (I think it's called Moisan), that made clear that not only weren't dogs permitted in the bakery, but cats weren't either! As you may know, pets are king in France. They go into restaurants, the metro, grocery stores, department stores, you name it. I remember my mom visiting me during my junior year abroad in Paris. We were at a pretty nice restaurant, and all of a sudden a woman sits down next to her and there's a dog knocking around at mom's feet. Mom was not amused. :-)

Below is a lady, yesterday, walking Fido into the grocery/department store - she's standing at the cafe counter, next to the bakery. I think my sister Kathy needs to bring Carmela to France when she finally visits Paris.

Read the rest of this post...

Clinton campaign knew of threatening letter to Pelosi and stand by it: The "letter speaks for itself"

UPDATE: Give to the DCCC, the congressional body in charge of electing and re-electing Dems to the House. They're the group that Hillary is threatening to boycott if Pelosi doesn't hand her the election. Let's show Hillary and her rich donors that they're no longer relevant in a party where millions of small donors now rule the day. You can give securely via our ActBlue page. And, we will be setting up ActBlue pages for more individual House and Senate races soon, too.

My contribution: $

Oh, yes, the letter does speak for itself.

Sam Stein from the Huffington Post reports on yet another Clinton campaign conference call:

Aides to Sen. Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that they knew key fundraisers for her campaign were sending a letter to Nancy Pelosi, castigating the Speaker over her position on superdelegates and threatening, vaguely, to withhold campaign donations.

And while they did not go so far as to say they approved of the letter's content -- "we didn't know what was in it," said spokesman Phil Singer -- they did argue that the "letter speaks for itself."

"There is clearly a broad feeling among many Democrats and many people who are active in the party," said Singer, "that the role of superdelegates is to exercise independent judgment and make a decision that is best for the party and best for the country."

Wow. The Clinton campaign really has gone off the deep end if they think that letter helps them in any way. Outside of the Clinton bubble, the letter has been a disaster. The letter that "speaks for itself" screams "blackmail" and when the term "blackmail" is being used, it's never good.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Party leaders and superdelegates should listen just once to a Clinton campaign conference call. Then, knowing that Clinton cannot win the nomination, they need to ask if we need three more months of that vitriol. Read the rest of this post...

TSA or T&A;?

Nipple rings and airport security. I can see, perhaps, why asking anyone to remove their nipple rings with a pair of pliers is a bit much, but the press release, below, is also complaining that another woman had her breasts inspected because of her nipple rings, suggesting that such an inspection would also be objected to. So, what's the alternative? We trust people when their chest sets off the metal detector? Terrorists have used their pregnant girlfriends to try to blow up planes. They've put kids in a car to disguise the fact that it was about to blow up. People like to laugh about over-inspections at airports, but I don't laugh anymore. Your thoughts?

Nipple Rings and Airport Security
Woman Forced to Remove her Nipple Rings in Order to Fly

A woman who was forced by TSA security to remove two rings in her pierced
nipples in order to pass security to board a flight will hold a news
conference with her attorney, Gloria Allred, today March 27, 2008 at 12:30
pm at 6300 Wilshire Blvd., #1500, Los Angeles.

The woman was given a pair of pliers in order to remove the rings in her
nipples. The rings had been in her nipples for many years.

Several years ago, another woman, actress Nicole Richie, had her breasts
inspected by security at a different airport because of her nipple rings.

At the news conference Ms. Allred will display two nipple rings on a
mannequin, and explain what she and the woman will do in order to ensure
that no other person is forced to suffer what the woman did in order to
board a plane.

Read the rest of this post...

Hillary threat against Pelosi and DCCC backfiring on the Hill

UPDATE: Give to the DCCC, the congressional body in charge of electing and re-electing Dems to the House. They're the group that Hillary is threatening to boycott if Pelosi doesn't hand her the election. Let's show Hillary and her rich donors that they're no longer relevant in a party where millions of small donors now rule the day. You can give securely via our ActBlue page. And, we will be setting up ActBlue pages for more individual House and Senate races soon, too.

My contribution: $

From Jake Tapper at ABC:

ABC News' Political Director David Chalian reports that a Democratic operative unaffiliated with either campaign and familiar with the reaction to the letter among Members of Congress says, "Members of Congress - who are superdelegates - make up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee" or DCCC from which the donors seemed to be threatening to withhold funds.

"Threatening the DCCC is equal to threatening the superdelegates Sen. Hillary Clinton's trying to court. The Clinton donor letter will just push undeclared superdelegates in Congress leaning toward Obama to endorse him sooner. It also reinforces the narrative that she'll destroy the party to win."

Read the rest of this post...

Reuters: "Somebody forgot to tell Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential race is over and Barack Obama won."

Hillary has lost her inevitability, her come-back status, and now the entire media narrative. That first sentence of the Reuters story is devastating. The media finally gets it. The race is over. Hillary is simply causing as much damage as possible before the inevitable. Read the rest of this post...

Maine's Tom Allen needs our help. Help turn Maine very blue.

Tom Allen can beat Susan Collins in November.

There aren't very many races that offer a clearer choice: Collins is a loyal Bushie who supported the Iraq war and she's given Bush a free pass. Tom is a true progressive who opposed the war from the start.

It's Susan's misfortune that her right wing politics and constant shenanigans are catching up with her. Last fall, she attacked Tom Allen for missing votes in the House. Tom was at a funeral for his cousin. In January, Collins brought the Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction to Maine to campaign for her. Senator Frank Lautenberg called that visit "inappropriate."

Collins already broke her promise to Maine voters that she would only serve two terms. She has to run on a ticket with her good friend and pro-war ally, John McCain. Oh, Joe Lieberman already endorsed Collins, too.

Tom has a challenge on his website to raise $250,000 by March 31st, the deadline for the campaign finance reporting period.

AMERICAblog has an ActBlue page set up for Tom - donate here. Let's help him hit the target. Our contributions go directly to his goal. Turn Maine Very Blue. Turn the lobster blue (Lobster, it's a Maine thing).

The Lobster has been updated -- over half way to the goal:
Read the rest of this post...

Recession: The Movie

Read the rest of this post...

Hillary is now risking our House majority. Let's call some SuperDelegates and see if they agree.

UPDATE: Give to the DCCC, the congressional body in charge of electing and re-electing Dems to the House. They're the group that Hillary is threatening to boycott if Pelosi doesn't hand her the election. Let's show Hillary and her rich donors that they're no longer relevant in a party where millions of small donors now rule the day. You can give securely via our ActBlue page. And, we will be setting up ActBlue pages for more individual House and Senate races soon, too.

My contribution: $

As you know, Hillary got her top donors to threaten to pull to pull their support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Basically, 20 top donors wrote Speaker Pelosi and told her that if she doesn't publicly endorse Hillary's effort to steal Obama's elected delegates, they may pull their money from the DCCC. Make no mistake, Hillary was behind yesterday's letter threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Your top donors don't make a public move like that against our more important elected official in the House without Hillary's approval (and most likely, Hillary's coordination).

The thing is, Hillary has now moved beyond endangering our race for the White House. She's now risking our House Majority.

The DCCC is the body responsible for electing and re-electing Democrats in the House. By getting her rich super-donors to threaten to stop funding the DCCC, Hillary is threatening to severely damage our efforts to hold the House in the fall. If the DCCC doesn't have as much money, then every candidate the DCCC supports will get less money.

Ever single Democrat in the House, all 232 of them, are SuperDelegates. Perhaps it's time we asked those SuperDelegates who are supporting Hillary, and those who are undecided and inexplicably not choosing sides, whether they agree that it's appropriate for Hillary to threaten a boycott of the DCCC, effectively holding hostage every Democrat in the House. If they agree, perhaps we can start with a financial boycott of those members themselves.

Feel free to give them a call, and report back here on what they have to say.

MESSAGE FOR EVERY SUPERDELEGATE: Does your office support Hillary's attempt to blackmail Speaker Pelosi and boycott the DCCC?

1. You can find a list of Hillary's SuperDelegates here (click the link, then scroll down a bit, the ones in the House of Representatives will have a "Rep." before their name).

2. You can find a list of uncommitted SuperDelegate House members here.

3. Use the House Web site to find the Web site of each House member, and thus their phone number (and/or email address). Read the rest of this post...

Shouldn't McCain know what he's talking about on the economy?

It's understandable that many politicians depend on a teleprompter but c'mon, shouldn't a presidential candidate know at least something about the problem? Is it asking too much for Mr. Straight Talk to actually give straight talk? Telling us we have a problem is obvious to anyone in the country, so we're going to need more than stumbling through a Phil Gramm prepared speech. It's bad enough that on McCain's big issue - the unpopular war in Iraq - he never managed to keep a watch on taxpayer spending but the economy will be so much more critical and McCain has no idea. Maybe it's because of his connection to the Keating 5 scandal/S&L; bailout but considering the importance of the credit crisis, he's shockingly out of touch. If anyone ought to remember those problems which were ALSO tied to lack of regulation, it ought to be McCain. But no, he just parrots the "let industry self regulate" rubbish until you want to scream.

Come November, Iraq is going to be important but way down on the list of important topics for America and McCain has nothing to offer on the key topic that will be on the minds of voters. What about the economy? What exactly does McCain have to offer? I'm not seeing much of anything. Read the rest of this post...

At least 30% of Hillary donors who threatened Pelosi slept in the Lincoln Bedroom during Bill's presidency

It looks like some gifts just keep on giving. At least 6 of the 20 big Dem donors who are now threatening to exort Nancy Pelosi on behalf of Hillary slept in the Lincoln Bedroom while Bill and Hillary were in the White House. (We only have the list of who slept in the bedroom during four years, i.e., half, of the Clinton presidency. Some reporters need to ask the Clinton campaign if anyone else on this list slept in the Lincoln Bedroom.) You'll recall that some 831 or so special friends of the Clintons got to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom during four years of the Clinton presidency (that's about 4 a week, every week, for 4 years). You would think that this is the kind of bad publicity that Hillary's little band of extortionists wouldn't want. Well they're going to get it. Here's the list of big Dem donors who are now threatening the party if Pelosi doesn't cave to their demands and help Hillary - the ones in bold are Lincoln Bedroom guests, per CNN (CNN only has the list for 4 years):

Marc Aronchick
Clarence Avant
Susie Tompkins Buell
Sim Farar (CNN says a "Sym" Farar stayed in the bedroom)
Robert L. Johnson
Chris Korge
Marc Lasry
Cathy Lasry
Hassan Nemazee
Alan Patricof
Susan Patricof
JB Pritzker
Amy Rao
Lynn de Rothschild
Haim Saban
Bernard Schwartz
Stanley S. Shuman
Jay Snyder
Maureen White
Steven Rattner

Stoller also notes that nearly half of the group donated to Lieberman's Senate campaign. Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

George Bush is giving a big speech about Iraq today. That can only mean trouble. Anyone keeping track of what's going on over there, knows it's bad. Remember, John McCain just said a few days ago that we're winning, and he's also said that it's okay if we're there for another 100 years.

John McCain is getting a free ride these days. That has to end. Democrats need to wrap it up. I do get a kick out of Hillary Clinton's concern that voters in every state should be heard when: 1) she said the race would be over February 5th; 2) she's dissed caucus states, small states, red states and every other state she lost; and 3) now she's telling Obama's pledged delegates (i.e., the ones you elected in the primaries and caucuses) that none of your votes mattered anyway, the delegates can vote for whomever they want. In other words, nobody's vote counts.

Start threading. Read the rest of this post...

Iraq oil - another black hole of corruption

It's hardly a surprise considering all of the other areas of corruption and missing millions and billions. So far for each story of failure and missing money, the result from the Bush administration (and Congress, for that matter) has been a shoulder shrug. We continue to throw money in to that pit, allowing Republican talking points to dominate the discussion and rule the day. Somehow, we expect a different end result despite no evidence that suggests anything has changed. If the administration is afraid of taking action, why would Iraqi ministers change their behavior? Either way, as the bill for the Wall Street bailout hits home, American opinions on more spending in Iraq is going to change. When the question is bailout at home or bailout of Iraq, who do you think Americans will choose? Read the rest of this post...