Welcome To Italy, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Hereby Under Arrest For War Crimes

Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.

-- JOHN ASHCROFT

With the drip drip of revelations that the decision to torture enemy combatants and other detainees in the so-called War on Terror began not with commanders and interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq but at the highest levels of the Bush administration, arguments that these insiders should and could be tried as war criminals have become more credible.

Just not tried in the U.S., of course.

As if we needed to be reminded that the White House has worked as hard to prevent these insiders from facing the consequences of their dirty deeds as they worked to rationalize the use of Nazi-like torture techniques, there is a provision in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that would immunize them against prosecution.

But only in the U.S., of course.

Overseas is another matter, and any Geneva Conventions signatory nation has the right -- indeed, the responsibility -- to detain someone suspected or accused of violating Article 3 of the conventions.

Indeed, courts in Italy and Germany have issued warrants demanding the arrest of CIA operatives for kidnapping and torturing citizens and residents of their nations, although the warrants have not been executed for diplomatic reasons.

And an effort to prosecute former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in France for the torture of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, the flagship accommodation in the Rumsfeld Gulag, has foundered because no court was willing to take on this hot potato.

But with every new revelation comes a flurry of articles suggesting that Bush administration big shots, present and former, might want to think twice before jetting off to Europe this summer for some sightseeing.

The insiders in the cross hairs include Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Ashcroft and his successor, Alberto Gonzalez, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his successor, Condoleezza Rice, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, Vice Presidential Counsel David Addington and, of course, President George Bush.

To which I would add former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo for good measure. This is because it is now obvious that Yoo was asked to write legal memos justifying the ongoing use of torture, not whether its possible future use was legal.

The New York Times makes a huge point in noting in an editorial that:

"These officials did not have the time or the foresight to plan for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq or the tenacity to complete the hunt for Osama bin Laden. But they managed to squeeze in dozens of meetings in the White House Situation Room to organize and give legal cover to prisoner abuse, including brutal methods that civilized nations consider to be torture."

Now comes Jeremy D. Mayer at The Politico, who suggests that the arrest of an administration official abroad could throw an enormous monkey wrench into the presidential campaign. Mayer offers this nightmare scenario:

"It's early October 2008, and Democratic nominee Barack Obama maintains a steady lead in the presidential race, although Republican standard-bearer John McCain, the most dogged campaigner in American politics, remains within striking range.

"Suddenly, something happens overseas that throws the presidential campaigns off the TV screens entirely:

"Rumsfeld, on vacation in Italy, is arrested and brought to The Hague to face war crimes charges.

"Presidential campaigns try to prepare for these 'October surprises,' late-breaking events and crises that can radically alter the race for the White House, such as the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000. But now there’s a new element in the mix, something presidential campaigns have never had to plan for.

"What if the October surprise is the greatest legal conflict between America and Europe since the creation of the Atlantic alliance?"

Although a crisis like this might energize the McCain campaign in unforeseen ways, and that is not a good thing, I admit to a certain amount of schadenfreude. This is borne of seven-plus years of frustration over the draconian policies of a presidential administration that has adamantly refused to be held responsible for its actions -- the embrace of torture certainly being the most ghastly.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE WATERBOARD . . .

In other torture related news:

* FBI Director Robert Muller says that the bureau's hands are tied when it comes to torture because it needs a green light from the Justice Department to investigate, and we all know where Justice stands on the matter.

* The CIA concluded that criminal, administrative or civil investigations stemming from its "harsh interrogation tactics" were "virtually inevitable," leading the agency to seek legal support from the Justice Department, and well all know where Justice stands . . .

* It appears that General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2001-2005, may have been hoodwinked by a White House determined to push through those "aggressive interrogation techniques" on Guantánamo detainees.

* There is some breathtaking excuse-making going over the administration's embrace of torture, and a too familiar meme invoked by Megan McArtle, among others, is that those Situation Room insiders were not motivated by the Iraq war. As if that matters.

Anzac Day 2008

Dawn service at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne

Remembrances for the dear departed and best wishes
to our brothers and sisters in Australia and New Zealand.
More here.

Ella Fitzgerald: An Appreciation

Play an Ella ballad with a cat in the room, and the animal will invariably go up to the speaker, lie down and purr.

-- GEOFFREY FIDELMAN

Like many teenagers, I went my own way when it came to the music my parents played, so I was not particularly moved by their fondness for Ella Fitzgerald and other jazz vocalists.

But as I grew older and my musical horizons expanded, I kept bumping into Lady Ella, mostly as I devoured Duke Ellington albums, and it wasn't too long before I was smitten by this singer with a mountain spring water purity of voice, a three-octave range and extraordinary interpretive powers.

My father especially loved Ella and her "My Man" was his favorite:

It's cost me a lot
But there's one thing that I've got,
It's my man.
Cold and wet, tired you bet
But all that I soon forget,
With my man.

He and my mother finally got to see Ella perform live, and in honor of his birthday she dusted off "My Man" and sang it for him. It was to be his last birthday.

* * * * *

Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born 91 years ago today in Newport News, Virginia, the child of a common-law marriage that fell apart shortly after her birth.

Mother and child moved to Yonkers, New York, and Ella grew up listening to jazz vocalists like Connee Boswell, whom she idolized. Her life was shattered at age 15 when her mother died. She began doing poorly in school, worked for a time as a lookout at a bordello and for a Mafia-affiliated numbers runner, was sent to and escaped from reform school, which she was beaten, and for a time was homeless at the height of the Great Depression.

Ella made her singing debut at 17 in 1934 at the Apollo Theater in Harlem after her name was pulled out of a hat during an amateur night competition.

Once on stage and confronted with boos and murmurs of "What's she going to do?" from the rowdy crowd, a scared Ella screwed up her courage and asked the house band to play Hoagy Carmichael's "Judy," a song she knew well because of Connee Boswell's rendition. Ella quickly quieted the audience, and by the song's end they demanded an encore.

Within a year, Ella was performing with Tiny Bradshaw's band and then with Chick Webb, who had been reluctant to sign her "because she was gawky and unkempt, a diamond in the rough."

Her first hit songs, among them "Love and Kisses," and one of my faves, "(If You Can't Sing It) You'll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)" brought her acclaim among jazz fans, and after Webb died in 1939 his band was renamed Ella Fitzgerald and her Famous Orchestra with Ella taking the role of bandleader.

She recorded nearly 150 sides during her time with the orchestra, most of which were novelty songs like "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," and to my mind mostly forgetabble and a result of her career lacking direction.

That changed dramatically in 1942 when Ella hired jazz impresario and civil rights activist Norman Granz as her manager, signed with the Decca label and began a solo career that included several hits with the Ink Spots, Louis Jordan, and the Delta Rhythm Boys.

With the demise of the Swing era, and the decline of the great touring big bands, Ella's vocal stylings began to change as she collaborated with Dizzy Gillespie and his big band. She started scat singing, and her 1945 scat recording of "Flying Home" would later be described by The New York Times as:

"One of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade. . . .Where other singers, most notably Louis Armstrong, had tried similar improvisation, no one before Miss Fitzgerald employed the technique with such dazzling inventiveness."

Her be-bop recordings of "Oh, Lady be Good!" and "How High the Moon" also were popular and cemented her reputation as a leading jazz vocalist.

In 1955, Granz created the Verve Records label to showcase her and she quickly moved into the musical mainstream with the release of her landmark 1956 album, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook.

Recalling that period, Ella told an interviewer:

"I had gotten to the point where I was only singing be-bop. I thought be-bop was 'it', and that all I had to do was go some place and sing bop. But it finally got to the point where I had no place to sing. I realized then that there was more to music than bop. Norman felt that I should do other things . . . It was a turning point in my life."

Seven other songbook albums spotlighting composers and lyricists would follow over the next eight years and taken together are a cornerstone of the Great American Songbook. Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook (1957) is my hands down favorite Ella album and the only Songbook on which the composer she interpreted played with her.

She also did many collaborative albums, including those with Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Joe Pass. A long planned album with Frank Sinatra, with whom she appeared on stage, never materialized.

After the Verve label was sold to MGM in 1963, Ella's contract was not renewed and she recorded for several labels until Granz founded Pablo Records in 1972. She recorded some 20 albums for the label that sadly documented the inevitable decline in her voice, which grew harder and forced her to use shorter, stabbing phrases. Plagued by health problems, Ella made her last recording in 1991 and her last public performances in 1993.

During a 60-year career, Ella sold over 40 million albums, performed 26 times at Carnegie Hall and won 13 Grammy awards. She would have to be considered the most popular female jazz singer on that basis alone.

Ella was painfully shy in public and even among friends, but on stage she was fearless.

There was a flawlessness to her voice and her command of scat was incredible considering that she made up the phrasings as she went along, but never stumbled over or repeated them. I gave yet another listen to her Songbook album with Ellington as I wrote this and was blown away yet again by her grasp of beat and harmony.

Following Ella's death in 1996 at age 79, Times columnist Frank Rich wrote that she:

"[P]erformed a cultural transaction as extraordinary as Elvis's contemporaneous integration of white and African-American soul. Here was a black woman popularizing urban songs often written by immigrant Jews to a national audience of predominantly white Christians."

Yes, indeed.

* * * * *

My mother lived another 19 years following my father’s death, and among the tapes I made for her to listen to as her health failed and she became bedridden were some of the very same Ella songs that they had listened to in my youth.

The dreaded call came from my sister on a warm June evening. My mother had died. I threw on some clothes and bounded out to the car and drove off to the nursing home.

My radio was set to my favorite jazz station, and I find it hard to believe that it was merely a coincidence that Ella Fitzgerald's "My Man" came on.

* * * * *

This is the fifteenth in a series of appreciations of the people who have moved and inspired me over the years. It is based in part on the Wikipedia entry on Fitzgerald.

Previous appreciations have included Duane Allman, Hoagie Carmichael, John Coltrane, Aaron Copland, Jerry Garcia, Bill Graham, Stéphane Grappelli, Learned Hand, Jack Kerouac, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Bob Marley, Laura Nyro, Eleanor Roosevelt and Tennessee Williams.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

BOOKS
By Matthew Gafsou
Hat tip to Woods' Lot

Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

One explanation for the Clintons' suicidal behavior (apart from the fact that we have two sociopaths on our hands) is that they believe that the real struggle for the White House is now. They believe that the GOP is doomed this fall and so the prize really is worth risking the implosion of the Democratic party, and alienating an entire generation and most African-Americans for the foreseeable future.

-- ANDREW SULLIVAN

So, a question for Lanny. If Barack is such a bad candidate, and he is so unelectable, and it is such a bad idea to have him as the Democratic nominee, why can't Hillary beat him?

Why is she behind him in every conceivable metric? Why is she behind in pledged delegates? Why is she behind in the popular vote (and don’t insult my intelligence by trying to pass that sheer nonsense the morons at certain pro-Clinton blogs are lapping up)? Why are super delegates flocking to Obama, while Hillary has picked up only a handful in the past few months. Why has she won fewer states? Why is she trumpeting her narrow delegate pickup in PA, when it is less than the number of net delegates Obama picked up in a variety of other states? Why is she behind in fund raising? Why was she unable to turn her double digit lead a year ago into any actual primary wins? Why, with her starting financial advantage and name recognition, was she held to a tie on Super Tuesday?

Why to those questions and a hundred more like them. If your candidate is so much better, why is Obama kicking her ass? Why?

-- JOHN COLE

As an old Virginia man, I’m supposed to speak of Thomas Jefferson as though he were in the next room. So let me say that Mr. Jefferson is as pleased by the prospect that Hillary Clinton will not inherit the office of President as he was displeased when George W. Bush did so

-- PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE

In head-to-head matchups against presumptive Republican nominee McCain, Clinton and Obama perform almost exactly the same. In Gallup's latest tracking of the general election, based on interviewing conducted April 18-22, McCain has a one-point lead over both Clinton and Obama. In the April 18-20 USA Today/Gallup poll, both Clinton and Obama were slightly -- but almost identically -- ahead of McCain among likely voters. In neither instance is there any meaningful difference in how the two candidates stack up against McCain.

-- FRANK NEWPORT

Mr. Obama is not blameless when it comes to the negative and vapid nature of this campaign. He is increasingly rising to Mrs. Clinton’s bait, undercutting his own claims that he is offering a higher more inclusive form of politics. When she criticized his comments about "bitter" voters, Mr. Obama mocked her as an Annie Oakley wannabe. All that does is remind Americans who are on the fence about his relative youth and inexperience.

-- THE NEW YORK TIMES

We've written before about the fact that John McCain has more or less abdicated all of his responsibilities in the Senate while running for president. The man almost never votes anymore: he once went five consecutive weeks without voting. Now we learn that he's the Senate's top absentee, passing Democratic Senator Tim Johnson of North Dakota, who suffered a brain hemorrhage in December 2006 and was unable to return to the Senate until last fall, in terms of votes missed. I guess it takes time to suggest doing nothing about America's economic crisis.

-- JONATHAN STEIN

Cartoon by Pat Oliphant/Universal Press Syndicate

Hillary's Tarnished Feminist Credentials

One of the more maddening threads of the Democratic presidential campaign concerns Hillary Clinton’s feminist credentials: Has she done enough for women? Can successes such as her Pennsylvania primary win be considered victories for feminists? Is she in fact a feminist? And so on and so forth.

I have hesitated riffing on this because along with writing about anything to do with Israel (which I will do at length as its 60th anniversary approaches) feminism is a third-rail in blogging, and all the more so when the blogger is a guy.

My own situation is further complicated because my view of what constitutes a feminist has changed.

There was a time when I would claim to be a feminist. After all, I have been respectful of a woman's reproductive rights, have shared in being responsible for birth control in relationships, abhor sexual harassment and domestic violence, believe in equal pay and went out of my way as a newspaper editor to find, hire and promote qualified women in that male-dominated business.

All that said, I don't consider myself a feminist anymore. Nor do I consider myself to not be a feminist. I have come to believe that the label has become conveniently elastic and is used far too often as a cudgel in drawing battle lines.

But if you consider yourself to be a feminist, does Hillary Clinton fit as someone who:

* Supported an unprovoked war that has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of women and children until it became politically unpopular to do so.

* Would kill millions more by nuking Iran.

* Not merely put up with but defended a spouse who was a serial philanderer.

* Is running for president because of that husband and not despite him.

* Has men in most all of her key campaign staff positions.

* Uses campaign tactics that Lucrezia Borgia would approve of.

* Whines on cue about being treated differently because she is a woman.

For the sake of argument, I'll concede that Clinton is a feminist, but she is of that generation of feminists whom a friend calls feminazis because of their orthodoxy.

This crowd includes the sob sisters at the New York state chapter of the National Organization for Women who excoriated Senator Ted Kennedy for "abandoning" Clinton because he was another "progressive white man who can't or won't handle the prospect of a woman president" and therefore endorsed Barack Obama.

No, my biggest problem with Clinton as a feminist is one that I share with Goldy's Sister at horsesass.org:

"I don’t actually fault Hillary, because as all successful feminists of her generation who struggled to break the glass ceiling—and isn't this the ultimate glass ceiling—she has absolutely mastered the rules of a man's world. Unfortunately, the game is changing, and the old rules are no longer good enough. I wanted the first woman president to be better than the men who preceded her and not simply to be better at their politics. I wanted Hillary to rise above the fray, to inspire and to unite, and to humanize, and to finally be the one to change both how we campaigned and how we governed. While I owe Hillary a great debt for paving the way for the next generation of women politicians, I believe that our first woman president will not come from her generation. The price she and her peers had to pay for playing by the rules, as they existed, was too high. The first generation feminists didn't realize that woman shouldn't simply strive to succeed at the old rules, but they needed to change the rules themselves."

Right on, sister. Right on.

UNBELIEVABLE

Meanwhile, John McMaverick is opposed to equal pay legislation because (sigh) he claims that it would encourage lawsuits and is an example of government meddling in private enterprise when it ought to mind its own business.

Another great example of the perversely convoluted thinking we came to know and love during the long Republican hegemony in Washington.

Damozel has details here.

Cartoon du Jour

Pat Oliphant/Universal Press Syndicate

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

FRAGILE HUT (Vietnam)
By Josef Hoflehner

Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Hillary's campaign now seems to boil down to her playing the role of Lucy, with little more than catcalls that Obama "can not close the deal." "Sure," she seems to say, "he has kicked my ass in every measurable metric this campaign, but why, oh why can he just not finish me off? Clearly that means you should make me the nominee."

Regardless, Hillary's vanity campaign will continue on, trailing in delegates, trailing in the popular vote, trailing in enthusiasm and money, but not lacking in the firm resolve that only Hillary can save us all from our selves. I can not tell you how much I am looking forward to more Clintonian triangulation and McCain worship and plans to nuke Iran over the next two weeks as we wait for the super-delegates and the voters of North Carolina and Indiana to break out the wreath of garlic and wooden stakes so we can finally be rid of this menace.

-- JOHN COLE

The Obama campaign has ruled out going after Clinton on '90s-era controversies, such as Whitewater and cattle futures.

-- GREG SARGENT

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

-- THE NEW YORK TIMES

Even Mrs. Clinton's supporters acknowledge that it would require some enormous shift in the dynamics of the campaign for Mrs. Clinton to ultimately win the nomination; but this at least would give her a few more weeks for lightning to strike.

-- ADAM NAGOURNEY

I don't think the Democrats dare nominate Hillary now that it is a certainty that Obama will win the pledged delegate race. But it is still six weeks to the end of the primary season and Obama seems to be averaging a gaffe every couple of weeks. Perhaps he will really stick his foot in it at some point and force the supers to switch to Hillary.

But his handlers have scrapped the idea of any more debates and the candidate himself is dodging the press as if they all had ebola. Being thus shielded, all we will see of the candidate and read about are the issues he and his supporters wish to highlight.

Which "issues" are those? The adoring crowds. The spine tingling rhetoric. The fainting women. How charismatic he is.

You know . . . all those important issues the left was complaining weren't covered at the ABC debate last week.

-- RICK MORAN

I think too often we get caught up the day-to-day, whether it's a heated debate or a new gaffe or a bowling score of 37. Truth is, the story line in Pennsylvania was cast long before 4/22/08.

-- WILL BUNCH

Carly Fiorina for vice president? The former Hewlett Packard CEO, an economics adviser and fund-raiser for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, has never run for public office before. But in an interview, former McCain campaign official and current Republican National Committee Deputy Chairman Frank Donatelli refused to rule her out. "I am so impressed with her," Donatelli said. "We could do a lot worse than Carly."

--MARY JACOBY

The Hillary Clinton campaign keeps ducking on the Weathermen issue that it tried to use against Barack Obama.

-- DAVID CORN

If the children who have inhabited the White House are America's princes and princesses, Senator Barack Obama already got a head start in collecting royal blessings with Caroline Kennedy's endorsement earlier this year.

But soon after Ms. Kennedy made her very public endorsement at the end of January, one of her predecessors of Republican lineage made her own private one.

Yes, Julie Nixon Eisenhower is an Obama-can.

Just before the crush of states that voted on Feb. 5, Ms. Eisenhower, one of two daughters of President Richard M. Nixon and his wife, Pat, made a $1,000 contribution to Mr. Obama, according to campaign finance records. Two weeks later, she gave another $1,000. And early last month, she donated another $300, reaching the contribution limit for individuals for the primary.

-- MICHAEL LUO

Obama seems either bummed or pissed or exhausted. He could be near death and still be a pretty good speaker, but he's very much off his game right now. Clinton, by contrast, is on fire--as energetic and passionate as I've seen her.

-- JOE KLEIN

If anything, McCain has the look of an Internet stock circa 1999: Great numbers, lousy fundamentals.

-- JONATHAN COHN

Senator Barack Obama's recent comments regarding bitter Pennsylvanians clinging to guns and religion were personally offensive to me, even before I took the time to consider how spot on they really were. My first instinct was to hunt him down, but I was fresh out of ammo and late to church. This is particularly vexing for Jews who don’t own a gun.

Upon deeper reflection, however, I realized my personal holy war was actually the result of Senator Obama's flagrant omissions. Truth is, there are many other things we Pennsylvanians cling to. Some of us cling to crystal meth.

Unfortunately, there was recently a massive raid in the Lehigh Valley on a sprawling crystal meth ring, and now the stuff is harder to get around here than 87 gasoline for under 3.26 a gallon.

-- RICK HERSCHLAG

Compliments to American Digest for the image

Damning Hillary Clinton With Faint Praise As The Bloodletting Finally Nears An End

In this strangest of campaign seasons, Pennsylvania has stood out for how much and how little has changed in the most ferociously fought and one of the most expensive primary campaigns ever. And when the fat lady finally sang, it turned out to be pretty much meaningless except in one important respect.

Hillary Clinton's 9.38 percentage point win over Barack Obama is impressive any way you cut it except where it matters most: It merely forestalls the inevitability of Obama's nomination. As for that one important respect: Exit polls again showed that there are racial, economic and values divisions within the Democratic Party that may be major vulnerabilities for Obama when he takes on presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the fall campaign.

The candidates had six weeks to get their messages out to Keystone State Democrats, which was an eternity considering that there had been 44 primaries and caucuses in the 15 weeks before yesterday's vote, and they turned out in record numbers with over 2.3 million ballots cast.

At the outset of this six-week slugfest, Clinton was favored by about 20 percentage points in most polls. The conventional wisdom had it that Pennsylvania was tailor-made for her with large blue-collar, union, elderly and Catholic populations, besides which she had won other big states like California, Texas and Ohio, albeit by less than impressive margins. Pennsylvania was, but her lead had shrunk to about 5 percentage points in most polls, Obama actually led in one and I had predicted that he would prevail.

What happened?

As has been proven time and again this year, negative campaigning with its many tentacles – including TV advertising, debate rejoinders, push polling, sending out surrogates to sling mud, and so on – just did not appeal to Pennsylvania voters. The Clinton campaign's determined effort to take the low road and risk blurring its message on the real issues with repeated attacks on Obama did not work and diminished her credibility even though that six-week period included Obama dust-ups such as Wright-gate, Bowling-gate, Bitter-gate, Ayers-gate, Waffle-gate and Debate-gate, the latter the ABC News production choreographed by the Marquis de Sade in which the Illinois senator was repeatedly put on the defensive and was ineffectual at striking back.

All of these kerfuffles were variously described as near-death experiences by Clinton's supporters and chortling right-of-center commentators. But while they may have played in the decision of a majority of undecided Pennsylvania voters to go with Clinton -- as much as 11 percent of the primary electorate made up their minds at the last minute with 6 out of 10 going with Clinton, according to some polls -- Obama's lead over her has grown nationally.

Clinton's ability to burnish her reputation as a dirty player has been the singular success of a campaign that was supposed to be a dress rehearsal for her coronation as the nominee and then president.

She has all but forced Obama to alter his game plan and also take off the gloves. He too went on the attack in the waning days of the Pennsylvania campaign and while issues-oriented voters will be the worse for it, expect that to continue until Clintoon finally concedes.

Her favorable-unfavorable ratings in the Washington Post-ABC News poll after the early primary in New Hampshire were a respectable 59-39, but there had been a dramatic 40-point swing by the eve of the Pennsylvania vote and her ratings are now a dismal 39-58, which puts her within hailing distance of George Bush's historically high disapproval numbers. In this respect Clinton is indeed presidential.

She could not have done that by her self, of course.

When historians pick through the wreckage of the Clinton campaign, many will note that the turning point – the moment when the wheels started to come off the Trash Talk Express -- was in the run-up to the South Carolina primary on January 19. That was when Bill Clinton and other race-baiting surrogates unleashed a backlash that reverberated beyond that state, offering a stark contrast between the campaigns of a Washington insider and a fresh-faced outsider.

I wondered for weeks why the Missus had been unable to make adjustments after that debacle, including muzzling the Mister.

But after watching Hillary Clinton in action in Pennsylvania, the answer is obvious. She has proven that she's not merely scrappy, she's just not a particularly nice person. It has finally dawned of me that she had no intention of cleaning up her act after South Carolina, and Bill Clinton merrily continued to throw logs onto the race fire even after the polls had opened.

There are a couple of reasons why there have been no adjustments:

* Bill has played loose and fast with the facts so that Hillary doesn't have to, or at least not as much. True to form, she dodged questions yesterday about her view of her husband's continued race baiting as if they were of no relevance. Incredible.

* While Obama is flush with cash and spent the lion's share of the estimated $20 million expended in Pennsylvania, Clinton is broke and can barely afford TV advertising. But when she and the man with whom she was co-president attack Obama, the news media advertises for her for free.

The upshot was that likely voters said in poll after poll that they had a much better idea of what Obama stood for and, most importantly, what he would do if elected to stanch the hemorrhaging of Pennsylvania jobs (200,000 since 2000) and beefing up job-training programs.

So why was Pennsylvania pretty much meaningless? Because Clinton has run out of road, as well as money.

Clinton technically did not get a double-digit win, although she came close at 9.38 percent. She closed the gap only slightly in the aggregate national popular vote (a 193,000 vote pickup) and gained only 13 delegates (getting 82 delegates to Obama's 69).

Then there are the remaining primaries, with Indiana and North Carolina looming large two weeks hence.

Clinton would have to win both by substantial margins to begin to close the delegate and popular vote gap, but she trails badly in North Carolina and may well lose in Indiana, too.

That presumably -- and mercifully -- would bring and end to a bloody campaign in which Clinton repeatedly sought the low ground and has all but forced Obama to do the same.

Then there is the long term: Obama lost two suburban Philadelphia counties that he probably should have won. He lost both white men and women, union members and non-college educated. He lost elderly voters and, yes, those "bitter" small-town and rural residents.

All are be huge vulnerabilities against McCain because Pennsylvania will be very much a battleground state in November. But even with Clinton's win that showdown -- and hopefully a break from the smear tactics and polarization that she has made the centerpiece of her campaign -- is drawing ever nearer.

Contributing to this report were American Debate, Associated
Press, CNN, Donklephant, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times,
New York Times and Washington Post.

Photograph by Carolyn Cole/The Los Angeles Times

Dear Criminal: Uncle Sam Wants You

Have you been convicted of armed robbery, arson or burglary and are having trouble making ends meet, let alone getting three square meals a day? Worry not, my fellow American, the United States Army and Marines want you.

In yet another consequence of the Forever War, the Army and Marine Corps recruited significantly more felons into their ranks in 2007 than in 2006.

The number of waivers issued to active-duty Army recruits with felony convictions jumped to 511 in 2007, from 249 in 2006, while Marine recruits with felony convictions rose to 350 from 208.

The numbers represent less than 1 percent of the 115,000 new enlistments last year in the active-duty Army and Marines, but coupled with sharp increases in the number of waivers for recruits with misdemeanors, the numbers are downright shocking:

From Sept. 30, 2006, to Sept. 30, 2007, the Army granted so-called conduct waivers for felonies and misdemeanors to 18 percent of its new recruits, a 3 percent increase from the previous year. So far, in just the first six months of this fiscal year, the Army has granted waivers to 13 percent of its recruits.

While it may be presumed that most criminals -- petty or otherwise -- serve honorably, that is not always the case as rapist-murderer Stephen Green proved. Besides which, The Dirty Dozen was a great idea for a movie. It should be kept that way.

Earth Day 2008

MERCY MERCY ME
By Marvin Gaye

Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Where did all the blue sky go?
Poison is the wind that blows
From the north, east, south, and sea
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas
Fish full of mercury
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Radiation in the ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
What about this overcrowded land?
How much more abuse from man can you stand?
My sweet Lord
My sweet Lord
My sweet Lord

Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

On April 11, French commandos went in with guns blazing and captured a gang of pirates who days earlier had hijacked a luxury cruise ship, the Ponant, and held the crew for ransom. This was the French solution to a crime wave that has threatened international shipping off Somalia; those of us who have been on the business end of a pirate’s gun can only applaud their action.

The British government on the other hand, to the incredulity of many in the maritime industry, has taken a curiously pathetic approach to piracy. While the French were flying six of the captured pirates to Paris to face trial, the British Foreign Office issued a directive to the once vaunted Royal Navy not to detain any pirates, because doing so could violate their human rights. British warships patrolling the pirate-infested waters off Somalia were advised that captured pirates could claim asylum in Britain and that those who were returned to Somalia faced beheading for murder or a hand chopped off for theft under Islamic law.

-- JOHN S. BURNETT

How is it that the bastards that run the country are able to turn their mistakes into opportunities? Energy shortages demand the elimination of environmental restrictions. Food shortages demand more GE crops. The housing crisis requires tax cuts for corporations.

Nothing for the people who are being plowed under by the crisis. All we have to show for our troubles is Obama and Hillary.

-- RONALD PERELMAN

When ordinary citizens have a chance to pose questions to political leaders, they rarely ask about the game of politics. They want to know how the reality of politics will affect them--through taxes, programs, scholarship funds, wars. Journalists justify their intrusiveness and excesses by claiming that they are the public's representatives, asking the questions their fellow citizens would ask if they had the privilege of meeting with Presidents and senators. In fact they ask questions that only their fellow political professionals care about. And they often do so--as at the typical White House news conference--with a discourtesy and rancor that represent the public's views much less than they reflect the modern journalist's belief that being independent boils down to acting hostile.

-- JAMES FALLOWS

The Palestinian public is divided on the rocket attacks on Israel: 39.3% said the firing of these rockets was "useful" to Palestinian national interests, while 35.7% said they were harmful.

-- CARL IN JERUSALEM

In the Iraqi government's fight to subdue the Shiite militia of Moktada al-Sadr in the southern city of Basra, perhaps nothing reveals the complexities of the Iraq conflict more starkly than this: Iran and the United States find themselves on the same side.

The causes of this convergence boil down to the logic of self-interest, although it is logic in a place where even the most basic reasoning refuses to go in a straight line. In essence, though, the calculation by the United States is that it must back the government it helped to create and take the steps needed to protect American troops and civilian officials.

Iranian motivations appear to hinge on the possibility that Mr. Sadr's political and military followers could gain power in provincial elections this fall, and disrupt the creation of a semiautonomous region in the south that the Iranians see as beneficial.

-- JAMES GLANZ and ALISSA J. RUBIN

For John McCain, who has pledged to avoid even the appearance of dispensing official favors for donors, Donald R. Diamond is the kind of friend who can pose a test.

-- DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and JIM RUTENBERG

Why so skeptical?

I hear that question way too often. The short answer is that after a few decades on Wall Street, you learn that when a lot of any money is at stake, people quite easily become completely and totally full of bullshit.

This is why I (to quote someone else) "consistently doubt everything, especially government and mainstream media, and asks questions that have readers asking their own questions."

-- BARRY RITHOLTZ

There is little debate about whether the U.S. economy is in a recession. The question is how painful and long the downturn will be.

There is a growing fear among some economists that the recession will be particularly bad.

-- CHRIS ISIDORE

If [Bill] Kristol were just a conservative hatchet-man, his columns would simply be predictable. After nearly five months of columns, however, the problem is more jarring — his work is that of an awful columnist, a weak writer, and a boring political observer. This isn’t about ideology; it’s about talent, or in this case, the lack thereof.

-- STEVE BENEN

We have long known that the Justice Department tortured the law to give its Orwellian blessing to torturing people, and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved a list of ways to abuse prisoners. But recent accounts by ABC News and The Associated Press said that all of the president's top national security advisers at the time participated in creating the interrogation policy . . .

These officials did not have the time or the foresight to plan for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq or the tenacity to complete the hunt for Osama bin Laden. But they managed to squeeze in dozens of meetings in the White House Situation Room to organize and give legal cover to prisoner abuse, including brutal methods that civilized nations consider to be torture.

-- THE NEW YORK TIMES

Image: "Captain Keitt" by Howard Pyle (1907)

Why Obama Will Win In Pennsylvania

Although most polls show Hillary Clinton leading Barack Obama among likely Democratic voters in tomorrow's Pennsylvania primary, I will once again stick out my neck and join the most accurate poll of the campaign season and predict an Obama victory.

This is because of two reasons: Clinton's relentlessly negative campaigning has drowned out her message for many voters and the expected record voter turnout will skew heavily toward densely populated Philadelphia and suburbs where the Obama campaign got slews of new voters to register. The likely result is that any gains that Clinton makes in her Western Pennsylvania strongholds will be more than offset in the southeast.

It goes without saying that the Clinton campaign will spin any result to a farethewell, even a loss. Dick Polman's hilarious but probably accurate take on how a defeat will be spun:

"We're very pleased with where we are. We always knew that Pennsylvania would be a very tough environment for us. However, we strongly believe – as we have always believed – that the primary results in any state with 12 letters its name, conducted at a point in the calendar when many potential voters are likely to be distracted by baseball games and spring cleaning, should be deemed an inaccurate representation of the electorate's mood, and therefore illegitimate.

"Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are crucial to this party's prospects in November, and therefore we urge Senate Obama to join us in calling for re-votes in all three states. We think this would be an excellent way for Senator Obama to demonstrate his love of America, which of course is unimpeachable, as far as we know. We are confident that Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Wright, and William Ayers will not influence his decision to support a Pennsylvania re-vote.

"But even if Senator Obama retains his negligible national lead after all the re-votes, and after the remaining nine primaries are conducted, we nevertheless believe there should be no rush to judgment, and that the people should be heard. We'd like to see the democratic process play out. Accordingly, Senator Clinton, in the interests of fairness, fully intends to reset the primary calendar and start over. Come June, we'll see you all in Iowa. Iowa, the great state of corn. When Senator Clinton was a child, traveling through Iowa on car trips, she often ate corn . . . "

A final and perhaps unnecessary thought. If you're registered to vote in Pennsylvania, do so early and often.

Apologies to Pat Oliphant for the colorizing
© 2008 Universal Press Syndicate

Health Care: N.J. Democrats Straightjacket Themselves Over A Hospital Closing Crisis

St. Joseph's in Paterson would lose millions for charity care under Governor Corzine plan that would force some hospitals to close.

There is no question that America's health-care system is in crisis and that extends to all 50 states. But if you want to see where U.S. hospitals may find themselves sooner or later, consider the number of hospitals in New Jersey that have closed or are on life support and how Democratic politicians have put themselves in a straightjacket that is exacerbating this perilous situation.

New Jersey, the most densely populated and second wealthiest state, had 112 hospitals 20 years ago. Today it has 74 after six closed in the last 18 months. Meanwhile, four others have announced plans to close and five filed for bankruptcy protection, with about half of the others losing money like an ER patient hemorrhaging blood because of gunshot wounds.

Hospitals should be no more immune to the effects of bad business practices than any other enterprise, and indeed some of the closings are the result of lousy management, including a failure to remain competitive, as the industry lurches away from community-based facilities to those where making profits for shareholders trump all other concerns.

New Jersey hospitals are not merely just another business, but are the key component of a health-care system that is deeply stressed because of, among other things, a growing nursing shortage, rapacious insurance companies and an economy that has forced more people to rely on hospitals because they cannot afford to go to family physicians for even the simplest ailments.

But the biggest reason for New Jersey's hospital crisis is that the state is cutting way back on funding for them.

Just the other day, state health chief Heather Howard, carrying Governor Jon Corzine's water, warned lawmakers that the state may need "to let" some hospitals close to strengthen others in order to improve the industry's financial woes.

"Unfortunately, because we have too many beds, some hospitals may need to close and when a hospital closes it may make other hospitals stronger in that area," Howard said during a Senate budget hearing. "In some cases we may need to let market forces take effect, which may mean hospitals will close, and what our job is to make sure that we're saving the safety nets and preserving access."

The state's unusual way of providing that safety net will be to cut aid to hospitals by 14 percent as part of $2.7 billion in Corzine-mandated budget cuts to try to reduce the state deficit, high debt and taxes.

Much of the cut would come from money provided by the state to help treat its 1.5 million uninsured residents. Translation: New Jersey will try to balance its budget on the backs of people already struggling to make ends meet, and urban hospitals like St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson would be hit hardest.

Although Corzine has said that he plans to set aside $35 million to help sustain so-called "safety net" hospitals, the New Jersey Hospital Association estimates the cuts would mean no state aid for 26 hospitals and less aid for 37 of the remaining 74.

"We fear the ultimate losers will be New Jersey's residents, many of whom will see more hospital closures, job cuts and service reductions in their communities," said Betsy Ryan, the association's chief operating officer.

The elephant in this particular room, and one that virtually no one wants to talk about, is the Democratic majority's pathological fear of anything to do with taxes.

When it comes to taxes, which in New Jersey are among the highest in the nation, residents have long memories and short tempers: The Democrats' hold on the statehouse was broken in 1994 when Governor Jim Florio was defeated by Christie Todd Whitman after he raised taxes and cancelled a property tax break.

Most political power in the state is at the local level because of the so-called freehold system, while entrenched moneyed interests pretty much have a stranglehold on public policy.

As Kathy G. notes at The G Spot, straightening out the health-care mess will require increasing taxes and weakening corporate power. But even with a Democratic majority in New Jersey and probably Washington, as well, Democrats lack the will to fight for programs that will cost money.

What Heather Howard and other New Jersey bureaucrats don't say and fail to recognize is that there are too many hospital beds because there aren't enough nurses, and cutting more holes in the so-called safety net jeopardizes the health care of all New Jersey residents.

This, of course, excludes Corzine, who got premier care at one of the state's top trauma centers after his speeding state police-chauffeured SUV crashed and he broke numerous bones because he was not wearing a seat belt.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

TABLE By Luis Gonzalez Palma
Hat tip to Woods' Lot

Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

If money is the mother's milk of politics, lies are what comes out the other end of the digestive system.

-- PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE

The growing world food crisis looks like a montage in a disaster movie--crowd scenes of hungry rioters in Haiti, Egypt and Africa's Ivory Coast; close-ups of emaciated mothers holding out starving children to anyone who will feed them; well-fed gray men in paneled rooms clucking impotently.

-- ROBERT STEIN

President Bush is in the twilight of his presidency and his approval ratings are scraping bottom. So what did the Senate do last week? It confirmed yet another of Bush’s controversial judicial nominees. And Senators are sending signs that they might cave on yet more nominees in the near future.

-- DOWN WITH TYRANNY

For over the past 25 years former president Jimmy Carter has used the prestige of his office to stay in the news, winning a peace prize in the process. Is Carter truly motivated by the quest for peace, or is there something else making him get involved in nearly every major foreign policy issue of the last 17 years?

-- SCOTT KERWIN

Twice-divorced former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani took Communion at a Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict on Saturday, breaching rules that bar those who remarry outside the Church from doing so.

-- REUTERS

In the past week, a parade of Bush administration officials have offered a new threat and new justification for prolonging America's errant war in Iraq: containing Iran. The ironic aspect of this is that Iran not only enjoys intimate relations with the Shiite government in Baghdad, but that its objectives in Iraq largely coincide with those of the United States.

-- RAY TAKEYH

The Pentagon has cultivated "military analysts" in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the Bush administration’s wartime performance.

-- DAVID BARSTOW

Allow me to channel Salvadore Dali: "The difference between Barack Obama and Shaun Mullen is that Shaun is not Barack Obama." Shaun is not running for president. Shaun does not get up in front of 35,000 people and say he is better than every other politician out there because by jing, he’s for a "new" kind of politics while they aren’t. Shaun does not lie through his teeth about the nature and extent of his past associations.

-- RICK MORAN

The airlines have been treating us like cattle for quite a while now or when we're lucky, like dogs, but so far the cattle prods and shock collars have remained the tools of the Federal government.

-- CAPT. FOGG

The Rules Change for Obama. Now he's being treated like a candidate, not a prodigy. He's not pleased with the shift.

-- MICHAEL BARONE

I willingly concede that should we have a national crisis in which the President is faced with the threat of hundreds of reporters questioning his/her use of lapel pins, then Hillary is who I want to confront that problem. For every other crisis, I choose Obama. Hillary is turning into a Saturday Night Live routine.

-- JOHN COLE

Sometimes I feel sorry for folks like John Derbyshire, having to defend Darwin and evolution from the fundie naysayers of the extreme Right. It's not only a thankless and endless task but it must be downright embarassing to realise one shares a political party with such neo-Luddite nutters.

-- CERNIG

Since MoveOn endorsed Hillary Clinton's opponent, it's hardly surprising that Clinton has not-so-nice things to say about MoveOn. But the bad dynamic between Clinton and MoveOn is a reminder of one of the fundamental problems with her candidacy. The Clintons, and many of their key supporters, come out of a school of political analysis which holds that the problem with the Democratic Party in the United States is that progressive institutions are too strong. Only by curbing the influence of these institutions, the theory goes, can Democratic Party politicians engage in the tactical repositioning necessary to win elections.

-- MATTHEW YGLESIAS

[There] are a lot of scary things about the possibility of a President McCain, but the fact that he could make Bush look like a model statesman has to be right at the tippy-top of the list.

-- MELISSA McEWAN

Americans belatedly learned the hard way that the brush-clearing cowboy of the Crawford "ranch" (it's a country house, not a working ranch) was in reality an entitled Andover-Yale-Harvard oil brat whose arrogance has left us where we are now. Voters don’t want a rerun from a Wellesley-Yale alumna who served on the board of Wal-Mart.

-- FRANK RICH

Cartoon by Pat Oliphant/Universal Press Syndicate