Barack Obama: From Messiah to Pariah?

There is something comical but ultimately rather sad about the widespread dropping of jaws over Barack Obama's support of the expansion of government surveillance powers and other recent actions that reveal him to be someone whom he has been all along -- a hard assed and thoroughly pragmatic politician who does not walk on water but has been astute at harnessing this image to power his own ambitious path to the Democratic presidential nomination and White House.

Part of the disappointment has to do with Obama supporters having much more to lose as the scales fall from their eyes.

When John McCain does one of his routine flip flops, it is par for the course. But the howls of outrage in the blogosphere and sense of betrayal on the part of some Obamaniacs as he suddenly seems to be running against form still is surprising considering how cynical many of these bloggers have been about the presidential campaign in general.

Not that there are no flies on me.

I have bought into Obama's hope-and-change message while expressing concern early and often as to whether he has enough experience and can surround himself with enough people who do have the experience to lead us away from the Age of Bush to the promised land of electoral and government reform. So I am disappointed that he endorsed the FISA bill after having said earlier that he would filibuster the measure, which is an atrocious piece of legislation because it legalizes illegal behavior.

I am disappointed that Obama put himself in the position of having to apologize to two Muslim women after they were barred from a campaign photo op, as well as his tap dancing in general on all things Muslim. I am disappointed that he has pandered to the ethanol crowd, which is making a further hash of energy and agriculture policy. And I am disappointed . . . well, you get the point.

Indeed, there have been several times recently when Obama has seemed more an insider than fresh upstart. I am disappointed yes, but not surprised.

Eight presidential campaigns and a snoutful of realism forces me to acknowledge that you can't be a politician without being a member of the political class, and that even the most principled politician carries in their hip pocket an adjustable wrench known as pragmatism.

It is in this context that Obama is doing exactly what anyone in his position should do: Run to his base in the primaries and run to the center in the general election. And hope that what he says over the next five months helps bring to bear what could be a signal accomplishment of the opening months of his presidency -- consensus building in an era of divide-and-conquer politics.

Cartoon du Jour

Tony Auth/The Philadelphia Inquirer

Karl Rove: Still Armed & Dangerous

Karl Rove's enduring legacy and great shame will be his role as the master of a divisive and fear mongering brand of politics that came to epitomize the Bush administration. Yet he is treated as some sort of a revered senior statesman and not a Lee Atwater knockoff by a culpable news media that breathlessly reports his every word, including claptrap like this:

"ABC News' Christianne Klein reports that at a breakfast with Republican insiders at the Capitol Hill Club this morning, former White House senior aide Karl Rove referred to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, as "coolly arrogant."

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy," Rove said, "He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

More here.

The Willful Distortions of Justice Scalia

A friend believes that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is certifiably crazy. I believe that he is crazy like a fox. And once having staked out a position on a particular case, then backfills by willfully distorting the record to suit that position just as his presidential patron does.

A pungent example in that regard is Scalia's claim in his minority opinion in Boumediene v. Bush that:

"At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the battlefield."

This assertion was central to Scalia's appalling argument that even innocent people taken into custody in the Global War on Terror should be held indefinitely because of what they might do if they were allowed to return to their old neighborhoods.

Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings reviews the record and concludes that Scalia not only was playing way loose and fast with the facts.

Flushed With Pride Over Their President

While the good burghers of San Francisco have a penchant for doing things differently, their patriotism certainly can't be questioned.

And so it is with the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, which wants to rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant in January when the next president is sworn in.

During the inauguration, the group also wants supporters to participate in a "synchronized flush"- a way to send a gift to the renamed plant, which supporters say, would be a "fitting monument to this president's work."

Some 8,500 signatures in support of the plan - 1,300 more than the minimum needed to put the question to city voters in November -- already have been collected.

More here.

Hat tip to Sarabeth at 1115.org

Another Victim Of The Forgotten War

SARAH BRYANT WAS 26. MORE HERE.

Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish

JOSEPH BRUNO IS OUTTA HERE.

My Favorite George Carlin Routine

BASEBALL VERSUS FOOTBALL

Baseball is different from any other sport; very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs.

In most sports the ball or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out.

Also: In football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball, and without the ball you can't score. In baseball, the ball prevents you from scoring.

In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager; and only in baseball does the manager (or coach) wear the same clothing as the players do. If you had ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders football uniform, you would know the reason for this custom.

Now I've mentioned football. Baseball and football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And, as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values. And maybe how those values have changed over the last 150 years. For those reasons I enjoy comparing baseball and football:

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game. Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park! Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the fall, when everything is dying.

In football you wear a helmet. In baseball you wear a cap.

Football is concerned with downs. "What down is it?" Baseball is concerned with ups. "Who's up? Are you up? I'm not up! He's up!"

In football you receive a penalty. In baseball you make an error.

In football the specialist comes in to kick. In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting, and unnecessary roughness. Baseball has the sacrifice.

Football is played in any kind of weather: Rain, snow, sleet, hail fog . . . can't see the game, don't know if there is a game going on; mud on the field . . . can't read the uniforms, can't read the yard markers, the struggle will continue! In baseball if it rains, we don't go out to play. "I can't go out! It's raining out!"

Baseball has the seventh-inning stretch. Football has the two-minute warning.

Baseball has no time limit. "We don't know when it's gonna end!" Football is rigidly timed, and it will end "even if we have to go to sudden death."

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's a kind of picnic feeling. Emotions may run high or low, but there's not that much unpleasantness. In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you were perfectly capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In football, the object is for the quarterback, otherwise known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line. In baseball, the object is to go home! And to be safe! "I hope I'll be safe at home!"

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

Indeever, a young snow leopard cub, with his mother Dshamilja, after his first vaccinations at the Zurich zoo.

Photograph by The Association Press

Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

A top adviser to John McCain said another terrorist attack on U.S. soil would be a "big advantage" for the Republican presidential candidate, drawing a sharp rebuke Monday from both the presumed GOP nominee and Democrat Barack Obama.

Charlie Black, already in the spotlight for his past lobbying work, is quoted in the upcoming July 7 edition of Fortune magazine as saying such an attack "certainly would be a big advantage to him." Black said Monday he regretted the comment.

Black is also quoted as saying the "unfortunate event" of the assassination of former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto in December 2007 "helped us."

Questioned about Black's comments during a news conference, McCain said, "I cannot imagine why he would say it. It's not true. I've worked tirelessly since 9/11 to prevent another attack on the United States of America. My record is very clear."

. . . Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: "The fact that John McCain's top adviser says that a terrorist attack on American soil would be a 'big advantage' for their political campaign is a complete disgrace, and is exactly the kind of politics that needs to change. Barack Obama will turn the page on these failed policies and this cynical and divisive brand of politics so that we can unite this nation around a common purpose to finish the fight against al-Qaida."

-- GLEN JOHNSON

You've no doubt heard that Cindy McCain got caught -- again -- plagiarizing someone else's recipes.

-- EMPTYWHEEL

The notion of an "enthusiasm gap" between Democrats and Republicans this year is not new. In fact, it’s been a staple of the political landscape for most of the year. Democratic voters were excited about their presidential choices; Republicans kept wondering if someone new might throw their hat into the ring. Democratic turnout broke records; Republican turnout was average.

The phenomenon was not limited to the nominating fights. . . . an NBC News/WSJ poll found that most of Obama’s supporters are motivated by their support for him. Fewer than 40% of McCain voters could say the same. The Journal's pollster noted, "It is not that these voters aren't for McCain." What’s lacking is "the enthusiasm, the passion, the energy" of the other side.

Various intangibles — Bush's record unpopularity, a struggling economy, dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, a strong desire for change — make McCain's task difficult. But if voters inclined to support him aren't especially engaged, and aren't particularly excited about the campaign, it makes his campaign’s task all the more challenging. What’s more, it’s not just the horserace. The "enthusiasm gap" is manifesting itself in a variety of ways right now.

-- STEVE BENEN

I haven't seen this much anger in a long, long time. nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president.

-- BILLY ROPER

In an era of information and ideas moving at the speed of light, the rehabilitation has begun on both sides of the Atlantic.

Over here, David Brooks celebrates Bush's "stubbornness" and asserts that "when it comes to Iraq, Bush was at his worst when he was humbly deferring to the generals and at his best when he was arrogantly overruling them. During that period in 2006 and 2007, Bush stiffed the brass," took the advice of such strategic geniuses as Dick Cheney, John McCain and Lindsey Graham and, lo and behold, the Surge "has produced large, if tenuous, gains."

. . . On the other side of the ocean, Andrew Roberts of the Telegraph sees Bush as a latter-day Harry Truman "who set the United States on the course that ended decades later in the defeat of Communism.

"If the West wins the modern counterpart of that struggle, the War Against Terror, historians will look back in amazement at the present unpopularity of George W Bush, and marvel at it quite as much as we now marvel at the 67 per cent disapproval rates for Truman throughout 1952."

If, as the saying goes, wishes were horses, we would all be riding in style and George W. Bush would be leading the parade. It's comforting that we may be "misunderestimating" him, but there will be plenty of time to think about that when he is out power and has stopped saving the world.

-- ROBERT STEIN

Andrew Roberts in The Telegraph brushes the dust bunnies off the weak and overused Truman analogy to explain once again why the Bush administration -- which has been a perfectly evident disgrace to anyone not toting around a paper bag and several jars of rubber cement -- will someday be viewed as a triumph of democracy, whiskey and sexy.

-- D

Democratic Leaders Stick It To Obama

One of the tragic consequences of the 9/11 attacks has been the acquiescence of the so-called Loyal Opposition to the Bush administration's extralegal war and extraordinary abridgment of civil liberties.

There certainly came a time after the dust had settled at Ground Zero when the Democrats should have begun pushing back in a serious and sustained way. With few exceptions, they have not done so even after winning convincingly in the 2006 mid-term elections.

I was going to write about that but the estimable Booman beat me to it:

"There's no question that Barack Obama has been riding the wave of a generational zeitgeist, having captured in an elegant form the feelings of disgust and longing and sudden hardship of the younger half of America. There is no question about that. But even though that's been the case until now . . . now, Barack Obama has cracked up on the shoals and rang out a tremendously discordant note.

"The whole party has been riding on the crest of a high wave that promises to inundate and destroy the rot of a Washington Establishment that has failed us . . . dishonored our past and robbed us of the future we deserved and our children deserved. But we cannot forget that Barack Obama is but one man. And the Washington he hopes to lead is currently run entirely by the very people that have been instrumental in the failures that have so disappointed the nation. What has happened is that failures like Jay Rockefeller and Silvestre Reyes, and political strategies like those espoused by the Blue Dogs and the Democratic Leadership Council's New Democrats, have reached up from beneath the sea foam and tossed Obama off his board. Obama is a skilled surfer of political waters, but he is not a world champion. Not yet, anyway.

"It shouldn't have been this way. Barack Obama is running against history, he's running against the Clinton diehards, he's running against the Common Wisdom of the punditocracy, he's running against John McCain and the sitting president. He shouldn't be forced to run against the leadership of his own party in Congress, as well. It is a failure of leadership on Pelosi, Reid, and Hoyer's part to even put this added burden on Obama. But they put this burden on him nonetheless and we are forced to ask him to take on this burden. We are forced to ask him to take on this burden because he is our last line of defense. No one else has the power to stop the bulldozer that threatens to earth over our Fourth Amendment rights."

More here.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

Jeff Koons' "Balloon Flower (magenta)" on display in London
Photograph by The Press Association

And Now A Word From Your Sponsor

The transition to the otherwise wonderful new Firefox 3.0 browser as the blogging platform for Kiko's House over the weekend has coughed up a few hairballs in the form of how older posts are formatted. Some of the type is a bit riotous and while we take pride in our appearance, there's not a whole lot to be done about it.

Apologies.

Those Good Old '9/10 Mindsets': McCain & The White House Call The Kettle Black

Condi studies briefing paper on Al Qaeda; Twin towers burn

Inconveniently for the Bush administration and presidential wannabe John McCain, the historic record showing that the White House slept while Osama bin Laden and his merry band of terrorists planned the 9/11 attacks continues to grow, which effectively undercuts allegations that Barack Obama (and John Kerry before him in 2004) have dangerously naive "9/10" mindsets."

The GOP noise machine is working hard to drown out any mention of this record of incompetence and failure by, among other things, calling Barack Obama's national security bona fides into question.

The presumptive Democratic nominee is catching flak for correctly asserting that federal prisons and courts worked just fine after the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 in comments following last week's Supreme Court ruling. The top court struck down as unconstitutional for the third time the rump legal system cobbled together by the White House that has resulted in indefinite detentions at Guantanamo Bay, including many innocents swept up in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the post-9/11 frenzy, but only a small handful of prosecutions of real terrorists six-plus years later.

And now Rudy Giuliani, nicely tanned but snarky as ever after taking some time off following an ignominious crash-and-burn in a primary race predicated on his supposedly awesome national-security chops, is shilling for McCain despite his own severe case of "9/10 mindset."

Let's be clear from the jump that the Clinton administration does not get a free pass. This is because:

* With a few notable exceptions that I'll note further down, America's key intelligence agencies -- the CIA, FBI and NSA -- slept contentedly during Clinton's eight-year tenure except when they were fighting amongst themselves. This is exactly what they had been doing during the administration of George H.W. Bush, himself a former CIA director and a card-carrying member of an old-boy network that was a remains resistant to wholesale intelligence agency reforms.

* While some of Clinton's advisors were alarmed about the threat from Al Qaeda, especially after the horrific bombings of two U.S. embassies in West Africa in 1998, they were preoccupied with the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment threat. Only after the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, which killed 17 U.S. sailors, were they brought to a semblance of high alert.

The crux of the debate over what was done to warn people in high places comes down to the 10-month period beginning with the transition between administrations in the weeks before George Bush's inauguration through to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

It is here that the Bush White House -- and McCain by extension -- could plausibly claim that warnings were never received about an Al Qaeda threat on the homeland, but the record screams otherwise. This accounts for the cacophonous Republican pushback whenever 9/11 comes up, as well as explains the administration's stubborn refusal to go along with forming a 9/11 Commission because an investigation would reveal its manifold failures and lies. The White House sort of climbed on board only after a group of World Trade Center widows shamed it into doing so.

Add to that the fact that Bush's assertions during the 2000 campaign that the intelligence community would be shaped up and he would push back against the threats that the new millennium would bring was empty rhetoric.

Clinton administration officials, notably Richard Clarke, counterterrorism coordinator in the Clinton White House and for the first two years of Bush's tenure, have testified and written that urgent and bluntly-delivered intelligence briefings were given in December 2000 and January 2001 to Condoleezza Rice, who became Bush's national security advisor, and incoming officials. Additional testimony to that effect will be offered this week to a congressional committee.

As Richard Wright meticulously documents in Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by August 2001 the CIA knew that three of the men who were later identified as 9/11 hijackers were in the U.S. but refused to share the information with the FBI. Meanwhile, the FBI had separately learned that two other hijackers also were in the U.S. and had in its midst one John O'Neill. Director of the bureau's New York office, the combative O'Neill had intensely studied the roots of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and may have had the best sense of what OBL and AQ were planning of anyone who did not have an Arab name.

In the case of the CIA, the deeply troubling information that its agents had developed was deemed not important enough by higher ups before it reached the highest ups, and in any event not something that it would share with the FBI, while FBI higher ups also refused to share their dope with the CIA and considered O'Neill to be a troublemaker.

While the buck never stopped in a White House allergic to taking responsibility for anything bad, Condi Rice deserves special scorn for her own "9/10 mindset."

In addition to having snoozed through the transition team briefings in December 2000 and January 2001, the president's national security advisor was focused on more traditional threats over the summer of 2001 and was not paying much attention to more contemporaneous threats.

Rice also had a pretty bad case of amnesia. She was unable to recall a July 10, 2001 meeting in her White House office with CIA Director George Tenet and J. Cofer Black, the State Department's counterterrorism director, who say they told Rice in no uncertain terms of the OBL-AQ threat. (The White House covered up the meeting when the 9/11 Commission came calling but finally acknowledged it in October 2006.)

Finally, on August 6, 2001, with at least five of the AQ hijackers in country, Bush was warned at a daily briefing at his Texas ranch that OBL and AQ were determined to strike the U.S. The president's response was to go fishing and he never discussed this alarming information with Rice.

This may help explain Bush's pained look when aide Andrew Card interrupted the president, who was reading a book to a Florida kindergarten class on the morning of 9/11, after the second jetliner crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. In perhaps the most infamous pregnant pause of the young millennium, the president appeared to be confused and indecisive, and continued reading The Pet Goat for another seven minutes before getting up.

By the way, John O'Neill retired from the FBI and went to work as the World Trade Center's chief of security on 9/10. He perished the next day in the collapse of the North Tower.

Photos (top) Stephen Crowley/New York Times;
Thomas Hoepker/Magnum

Osama Obama Arama -- Part Deux

Like a cicada breaking out of its underground digs right on schedule, the Republican noise machine has pushed Osama bin Laden back into the spotlight in the run-up to the November election. You will recall that it did the very same thing in 2004 when it needed to scare the bejeebers out of voters and paint John Kerry as a girlie man who was weak on national security.

The target this time, of course, is Barack Obama, who is being portrayed as a softie who would give Bin Laden One habeas rights should he be captured.

This strikes me as a little disingenuous since the Bush administration has made a hash of going after OBL, and the president at one point even acknowledged that capturing or killing Global Enemy No. 1 was not a priority. This was a roundabout way of saying that going after the Bearded One was turning out to be a lot harder than mere breast beating.

And, let us not forget, the Bush White House has had at least one good shot at OBL in recent years and decided -- correctly, in my view -- that the collateral human damage and political and diplomatic repercussions were too great.

This, as uncomfortable as it is for the Bushies to admit, is exactly the same quandary that a couple of other national security softies faced -- Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

More here.

Sunday Kitty Blogging

THE TOP 10 REASONS THAT I KNOW
MY HOUSE HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY CATS

(1o.) I sprinkle catnip on my salad instead of salt and pepper.
(9.) Small birds have a whole different meaning for me.
(8.) I scratch my chin and lick my moustache a lot.
(7.) I root for Tom instead of Jerry when I watch cartoons.
(6.) I sneak spoons of hair ball medication.
(5.) I snarl at dogs when I'm riding my bike.
(4.) I rub up against doorways a lot.
(3.) I never knew that curling up on the floor felt so good.
(2.) I purr when I take that first sip of beer after work.
And the Number 1 reason . . .
I'm sitting on the toilet one morning, look down and notice
that there are fur tufts growing out of my toes.

Will The Criminals Be Held Accountable?

"There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

-- MAJOR GENERAL ANTONIO TAGUBA, USA (Ret.)

The Irish Vote With Their Wallets, Too

Kevin O'Rourke at Vox discerns a pattern in the Irish rejection of the European Union's so-called Lisbon reform treaty that is oh so familiar on this side of the pond:

"A glance at the electoral map suffices to confirm what earlier opinion polls had indicated: the Irish vote divided along class lines in a stark and disturbing fashion. In the most affluent constituencies of Dublin, such as Dun Laoghaire, where even a modest home can cost upwards of €1 million (although that is changing), 60% or more voted for the treaty. In working class areas of the city, it was the no vote which scored in excess of 60%. Brouard and Tiberj (2006) show that precisely the same division between rich and poor, or the skilled and unskilled, can be discerned in the French 2005 vote. . . .

"The argument would be that globalisation generally, and European integration more narrowly, has overwhelmingly favoured skilled workers, at least in affluent countries such as France, Ireland and the Netherlands. Unskilled workers, by contrast, feel under threat from Romanian (or Asian) competition, or immigration from Eastern Europe and further afield. And while those of us who are more fortunate might regret it, it is hardly surprising that . . . they vote accordingly."

Hat tip to Henry at Crooked Timber

Al Sharpton Is A Big Fat Idiot

One of the problems with Al Sharpton is that us white folks think that he speaks for black Americans. While I am sure that is true of some black Americans, this so-called civil rights leader has become a tendentious blowhard deeply in love with the sound of his own voice.

So when The Reverend Al, a convicted tax dodger in addition to being a reliable troublemaker and shakedown artist, claimed this week that the IRS was coming after him (again) for unpaid taxes because he had been an early opponent of the Iraq war, it was hard to stiffel a little tee-he.

But alas, not even Fox News's Bill O'Reilly gets it.

More here.

Hell Hath No Fury Like An Alysia Scorned

It has been been five months since we brought you the saga of Alycia Lane, a curvaceous television news anchor who was making the news instead of reading it after she allegedly punched a cop in the chops, which is against the law, and made an all around fool of herself, which isn't.

Lane's bosses at Philadelphia's CBS3 and CW Philly took her off the air and then axed her. She has now replied to those career-stopping indignities with a 40-page legal complaint alleging that the station spread malicious rumors about her and destroyed her reputation.

The complaint, which reveals my life to be spectacularly boring by comparison, asserts that:

* Pictures of Lane in a bikini that she emailed to well-known sportscaster Rich Eisen, intercepted by Eisen's wife and then reported about in the New York Post in May 2007, were not ones she "actually wished to disseminate to anyone, because they were taken without makeup, her hair was a mess, and she did not view the pictures as flattering."

* Lane's 2004 TV appearance on "Dr. Phil" discussing her failed first marriage was a humiliating experience that she claimed was forced upon her by her bosses in a bid to boost ratings. She says she was so "mortified" that she begged them not to air the segment, a request that was denied.

* Larry Mendte, her former co-anchor now suspended by the station and under investigation for hacking into Lane's private e-mails, was someone who was jealous of her growing popularity, resentful when she received a higher salary, and who joked about her private life in a radio station interview.

You can judge for yourself about the bikini pictures, or at least the one above. But if I was a betting man I'd say there is a pretty good payday in Lane's future. After all, Philadelphia court juries usual side with poor working stiffs when their bosses have given them the shaft.

More here.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

MIDWINTER'S DAY (June 20, 2008)
Masterton, New Zealand
By Country Bumpkin

Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

It's good that the Obama campaign apologized to the Muslim women who campaign volunteers barred from a photo-op, but they should go a bit further. The obvious move would be to invite those women to a sit-down with the candidate. The bigger move would be to invite them to the sit-down, and then make a speech forthrightly addressing not only the rumors, but the ugly undertone of the rumors, which implies that the religion of millions of Americans and over a billion people worldwide somehow renders them dangerously "other." There's no worse strategy in "the War on Terror" then deciding our enemies aren't merely a couple terrorist dead-enders, but a couple thousand terrorist dead-enders plus more than one billion other people.

It's doubtlessly a tricky line for Obama to walk, as plenty of racists will simply assume "well that's exactly what a Manchurian Muslim agent would say," but addressing it openly might make it a considerably more toxic charge and ensure it stays contained to those who've already bought in. And, in any case, these rumors have settled darkly on the edge of the election and this event shows that they're affecting the behavior and thinking of otherwise perfectly rational folks. It's time to resolve the tension.

-- EZRA KLEIN

Yeah, a failed war, the worst natural disaster response in modern history, a tattered Justice Department, a broken military, a decimated budget and trillions of additional debt, the taint of torture, an exposed CIA spy, a history of domestic spying, the insertion of religious nuts and unqualified hacks throughout every level of his administration, and a ruined reputation abroad and Bush is worried about a recession ruining his legacy?

-- JOHN COLE

One can hardly blame Barack Obama for opting out of publicly financing his campaign for President of the United States. After all, Jesus was only tempted with all the kingdoms of the earth if he would worship Satan. Obama ’s temptation was winning the presidency at the expense of his image as a truthtelling agent of change and new political messiah.

I think Obama is getting much the better of the deal.

-- RICK MORAN

Obviously, it's somewhat hypocritical for Barack Obama to have implied that he would accept public financing in the general election and then back out of that once it became clear that he could get more money by not doing so. John McCain, by contrast, is just straightforwardly breaking the law on this issue. Which doesn't make Obama's gambit un-hypocritical, but it shows that if you're voting on the basis of "doesn't play funny games with campaign finance law" you should back Obama.

Clearly there's a larger issue with our campaign finance system here, and the past couple of decades worth of reforms seem to have mostly made things worse rather than better.

-- MATTHEW YGLESIAS

While last year's sagging economy hit the financial fortunes of millions of Americans -- and most lawmakers -- two Senate leaders did pretty well for themselves, according to a new analysis.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., saw his wealth grow by as much as $1.2 million last year, according to a review of lawmakers' new financial disclosure reports by the Hill newspaper. And Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., saw his assets increase by at least $600,000, according to the paper.

-- JUSTIN ROOD

It's worth remembering that presidential polls conducted far in advance of the November election are generally meaningless. Two examples should suffice. In the summer of 1988, Michael Dukakis held a 17-point lead over Vice President George H. W. Bush; in the late spring of 1992, Bill Clinton was running third in the polls...and the guy at the top of the heap was the flavor of the season, Ross Perot.

But the fair-and-balanced pollsters at Fox News always manage to tweak my interest, regardless of the season. They have a gift for crafting ideological-loaded questions in a manner that is intended to provide them with the answers that they seek. Their current priority, it would appear, is to ask people whether they might be inclined to believe that Barack Obama is an unAmerican weirdo.

-- DICK POLMAN

It's no secret that one of John McCain's biggest challenges as a candidate is distinguishing himself from President Bush. I'm not sure why he's eager to spurn President Bush's supporters. I mean, that's walking away from almost 29% of the American electorate and nearly half the Bush children.

But he's so different from Bush already. The only issues they agree on are education, immigration, Iraq, abortion, Supreme Court judges, Social Security, tax breaks for the wealthy, wiretapping, trade, health care, the Middle East, same sex marriage and Medicare.

-- STEVEN COLBERT

Cartoon by Pat Oliphant/Universal Press Syndicate

Happy Longest Day Of The Year, Y'All

SUMMER SOLSTICE
By JADE WAH’OO

Ahh! First
Ray of Dawn

Awakens the heart

In appreciation of life
This morn of Summer's
portent born.

Yes! Love,
My basket,
Yearning to be filled
With all bliss in the ecstatic
Joy garnered from Earth's
Green delight!

Oh! You
Golden orb,
Bless all life brought forth
In the flowers' promise made known
By fruit and bird song
From now on.

Ha! Smile
Upon us,
Lighten each our heart
That every child is fed and loved;
Embraced in green arms
And bloom bright.

Ahh! First
Ray of Dawn:
Summer's Solstice born.
Earth's passionate embrace fulfilled,
Her covenant song

Our troth.

Meet Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al Ginco

You'll be hearing a lot more about the first Guantánamo Bay detainee in the wake of last week's Supreme Court ruling to demand in a federal court that the military show the evidence that justifies his detention. Dozens of others are expected to follow suit.

Blood For Oil: Mission Accomplished

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We Don't Want No Stinkin' U.S. Law

Just when you think that the Blackwater private military juggernaut couldn't say or do anything more outrageous, it has asked a federal court to use Islamic Shari'a law in hearing a lawsuit by the widows of three American soldiers who died on one of its planes in Afghanistan.

The lawsuit "is governed by the law of Afghanistan," Blackwater subsidiary Presidential Airways argued in a Florida federal court. "Afghan law is largely religion-based and evidences a strong concern for ensuring moral responsibility, and deterring violations of obligations within its borders."

If the judge agrees, it would essentially end the lawsuit over a botched flight supporting the U.S. military because Shari'a law does not hold a company responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their work. Shari'a law also calls for the execution of gays, among other decidedly non-Western norms.