For GOP only

[Balta1701]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...ml?id=110010855

Since it's the GOP only thread I won't excerpt, and I expect to be torn to shreds somehow, but here's Paul Krugman's response and links to his work on the same subject.

[Jenksismyhero]

His response makes no sense to me - he's essentially saying, don't listen to the WSJ article because even though poorer people are making more 10 years later, the same amount of rich people are making less. So? The point is that there are more people at a higher income level than there was 10 years ago, even if the same number that increased their levels also decreased. How can income equality not go down when you have more people making more money and less people making more money?

Edited November 14, 2007 by Jenksismybitch

[southsider2k5]

Since it's the GOP only thread I won't excerpt, and I expect to be torn to shreds somehow, but here's Paul Krugman's response and links to his work on the same subject.

 

It is pretty funny actually. He doesn't actually refute any of the information provided, or even the results gathered from the information provided, he just provides an antecdote where the theory fits the conclusion he wants to give. There is no meat to that at all. Its all a misdirection away from actually proving anything of substance. It would have at least been interesting if he had actually tried to disprove the information instead of that pie in the sky stuff. He's usually better than that.

[southsider2k5]

Kos and Rove are being hired by Newsweek

 

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2...es_new_gig.html

 

Less than three months after leaving the Bush White House, Karl Rove is becoming a member of a community not all that popular with administration officials: the media.

 

Newsweek has signed the president's former deputy chief of staff as a commentator who will turn out several columns on the 2008 campaign through inauguration day. The move is not likely to prove popular among liberals who believe the mainstream media have been too soft on the Bush administration.

 

"We want to give readers a feel for what it's like to be on the inside," says Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham. "Our readers are sophisticated enough to know that what they get from Karl has to be judged in the context of who Karl is...Readers will have to decide if he's simply an apologist."

 

Newsweek (which is owned by The Washington Post Co.) will announce tomorrow that it is granting regular space to both Rove and Markos Moulitsas, the liberal firebrand who founded the Web site Daily Kos. "I'm fully prepared for both the right-wing and left-wing blogosphere to be outraged, which means we're doing our job," Meacham says.

 

Rove, a longtime confidant of George W. Bush, rarely granted on-the-record interviews during his 6-1/2 years in the White House, and he wasn't shy about criticizing the press.

 

In a speech last year, Rove said that journalists often derided political professionals, perhaps because "they want to draw attention away from the corrosive role their coverage has played focusing attention on process and not substance." On another occasion, he said the press has an "obsessive reliance" on polls and that news organizations unfairly created the impression in 2001 that the president's No Child Left Behind bill was stalled in Congress.

 

Rove was a source in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame for columnist Robert Novak and then-Time correspondent Matthew Cooper, and his repeated grand jury testimony in the case drew intensive coverage.

 

Often dubbed "Bush's Brain" or "The Architect," Rove received considerable credit for Republican victories in 2000, 2002 and 2004, and substantial blame for the GOP losing control of Congress last year.

 

He even bypassed the mainstream press in leaking his resignation to the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Rove said he ignored media criticism, telling Rush Limbaugh: "If you have to wake up in the morning to be validated by the editorial page of the New York Times, you've got a pretty sorry existence."

 

The movement of politicians and strategists into media roles was deemed controversial when the Times hired Nixon White House aide William Safire as a columnist in 1973, but has since become commonplace.

 

The Post and Newsweek hired Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter, as a columnist soon after he left the White House. George Stephanopoulos, now ABC's chief Washington correspondent, joined the network shortly after leaving the Clinton White House. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a Fox News commentator, and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum just signed on as a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist.

 

Meacham says he contacted Rove the day he announced his resignation. He says Newsweek will insist on disclosing any fundraising or partisan activity on the part of Rove and Moulitsas.

 

"Love him or hate him, Karl Rove has been at the center of the American political story for the last few years," Meacham says.

 

--Howard Kurtz

[Texsox]

One year from now and Rove will be just another liberal whore in the media.

[mr_genius]

One year from now and Rove will be just another liberal whore in the media.

 

what a sell out. i bet he even votes for Hillary. i hate him now.

[Texsox]

Maybe he stays the token REP so the Washington Post can point to him and claim to be balanced.

[mr_genius]

Maybe he stays the token REP so the Washington Post can point to him and claim to be balanced.

 

yea, thats probably their evil plan.

 

[Cknolls]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/111...censes1115.html

 

Preach what we practice? NAHHHHHHH.

[kapkomet]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/111...censes1115.html

 

Preach what we practice? NAHHHHHHH.

Already posted.

[YASNY]

Dispatch from Iraq: Come Home

[EvilMonkey]

 

Bob Hope had the right idea about Democrats a long, long time ago!

Edited November 17, 2007 by Alpha Dog

[southsider2k5]

So what is the story if this is true?

 

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23467

 

Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.

 

This word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent. It comes during a dip for the front-running Clinton after she refused to take a stand on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's now discarded plan to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

 

Experienced Democratic political operatives believe Clinton wants to avoid a repetition of 2004, when attacks on each other by presidential candidates Howard Dean and Richard Gephardt were mutually destructive and facilitated John Kerry's nomination.Continued

[kapkomet]

So what is the story if this is true?

 

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23467

I called this two years ago. The Clinton Spin Machine is ready... just in case.

 

[Texsox]

Setting up for a push poll.

[southsider2k5]

So what is the story if this is true?

 

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23467

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Pa...L20071119c.html

 

Clinton Campaign Copying Nixon's Tricks, Novak Says

By Susan Jones

CNSNews.com Senior Editor

November 19, 2007

 

(CNSNews.com) - Columnist Robert D. Novak says two Democrats have told him that supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word that she has "scandalous information" about Sen. Barack Obama -- but has decided not to use it.

 

"The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed," Novak wrote in his column over the weekend.

 

"This word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent," Novak wrote.

 

Appearing on Fox & Friends Monday morning, Novak said his primary source is a "well-known Democrat" who is so far "neutral" in the presidential race. A second neutral Democrat confirmed the information, Novak said.

 

Novak said the Clinton campaign is taking its cue from Richard Nixon, who once said he had damaging information about "the communists supporting George McGovern." Nixon, however, refused to divulge it because "it wouldn't be right -- I'm just too good of a guy."

 

Novak said he doesn't know if the Clinton campaign actually has any dirt on Obama -- but he said he's "confident" that his sources have heard information to that effect from the Clinton campaign.

 

Over the weekend, Obama -- reacting to the information contained in Novak's column -- suggested the Clinton campaign was engaging in "slime politics."

 

"In the interest of our party, and her own reputation, Senator Clinton should either make public any and all information referred to in the item, or concede the truth: that there is none," Obama wrote in an email to reporters.

 

He accused the Clinton campaign of trying to "Swift Boat" him, a reference to political attacks on John Kerry in the 2004 campaign.

 

The Clinton campaign accused Obama of falling for a Republican trick: Obama is "parroting Republican talking points from a columnist of questionable credibility," Clinton spokesman Jay Carson was quoted as saying. "If you don't have the experience not to fall into a Bob Novak trap, you have no business seeking the presidency."

 

Novak on Monday said he didn't talk to any Republicans -- only to two Democrats -- who gave him the information contained in his weekend column.

 

According to Novak, Obama is in a difficult position because he must win in Iowa -- and his "only hope" is to portray Clinton as a manipulator -- an almost Nixonian type of candidate who will do anything to win and can't be trusted."

 

On another topic, commenting on former Gov. Mike Huckabee's rise in the polls, Novak said Huckabee is more of a social conservative than a fiscal conservative.

 

Novak also said that political journalists who flocked to the McCain campaign in 2000 are now attracted to Mike Huckabee could be a factor in "If he could give an impression of having won the Iowa primary -- even if he doesn't come in first - it could be a factor in New Hampshire," Novak said.

[YASNY]

Sounds to me like Obama is calling her bluff. We'll see.

[YASNY]

The Clinton campaign accused Obama of falling for a Republican trick: Obama is "parroting Republican talking points from a columnist of questionable credibility," Clinton spokesman Jay Carson was quoted as saying. "If you don't have the experience not to fall into a Bob Novak trap, you have no business seeking the presidency."

 

I don't think the Dems thought he was of questionable credibilty with the Valarie Plame affair.

[kapkomet]

I don't think the Dems thought he was of questionable credibilty with the Valarie Plame affair.

Amazing, isn't it?

[Balta1701]

I don't think the Dems thought he was of questionable credibilty with the Valarie Plame affair.

I don't think anyone would have actually believed him had the CIA not requested the DOJ investigate a couple months after that column came out.

[Texsox]

I don't think anyone would have actually believed him had the CIA not requested the DOJ investigate a couple months after that column came out.

 

details details

[Balta1701]

details details

Grabbing the timeline from NPR:

July 6, 2003: Wilson's op-ed column, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," is published in The New York Times. In it he concludes, "some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

 

July 7, 2003: President Bush boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington en route to Dakar, Senegal. It is the start of a weeklong tour of the continent that become overshadowed by questions about alleged Iraqi WMD.

 

Also onboard is a top-secret briefing book containing a memo prepared by the State Department identifying Valerie Wilson (Plame's married name) as a CIA officer and as the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

 

July 9, 2003: Speaking to a White House press pool in Pretoria, South Africa, the second stop on the president's Africa tour, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer says the State of the Union address should not have included the reference to Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Niger. Fleischer says: "With the advantage of hindsight, it's known now what was not known by the White House prior to the speech. This information should not have risen to the level of a presidential speech."

 

July 14, 2003: Robert Novak, in his syndicated commentary, reveals that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA operative. Novak attributes the information to "two senior administration officials."

 

July 17, 2003: Time magazine publishes an online article by Matthew Cooper, Massimo Calabresi, and John F. Dickerson indicating that government officials had disclosed Plame's identity to them.

 

July 22, 2003: At a White House news briefing, McClellan, when asked about the administration leaking Plame's name, states: "That is not the way this president or this White House operates."

 

Sept. 14, 2003: Vice President Cheney, on NBC's Meet the Press, is asked if he had been briefed on Wilson's findings when Wilson returned from Niger. Cheney responds: "No. I don't know Joe Wilson. I've never met Joe Wilson." Cheney adds moments later, "I don't know who sent Joe Wilson. He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back.

 

Sept. 16, 2003: McClellan calls "totally ridiculous" the allegation that presidential adviser Karl Rove was the source of the leak.

 

Sept. 28, 2003: CIA Director George J. Tenet calls on the Justice Department to investigate the leak.

 

Sept. 29, 2003: McClellan reiterates his earlier defense of Rove, adding that he had spoken to Rove about the leak.

 

Sept. 30, 2003: The Justice Department launches a full criminal investigation into the leaking of Plame's name. President Bush, speaking to reporters in Chicago, says, "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of..."

From the other stuff around there, it appears that the CIA first started asking questions about the leak in late July, and the DOJ didn't start getting around to things until September. And when the rumors of the DOJ getting involved started hitting, suddenly the press starts asking people questions, and 2 weeks later a formal investigation was open.

[southsider2k5]

I don't think the Dems thought he was of questionable credibilty with the Valarie Plame affair.

 

The irony is that if you stop and think about it this has "Clinton" written all over it. They love to dealt stuff out through proxies, and anytime they get caught doing something bad, the first thing they do is blame the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy". Its pretty much identical to questioning "patriotism" anytime something bad is brought up on the right side... As long as you have that boogieman to blame, you can skate. The Clintons did it for eight years in office, and there are no signs through this campaign that anything is changing now.

[kapkomet]

The irony is that if you stop and think about it this has "Clinton" written all over it. They love to dealt stuff out through proxies, and anytime they get caught doing something bad, the first thing they do is blame the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy". Its pretty much identical to questioning "patriotism" anytime something bad is brought up on the right side... As long as you have that boogieman to blame, you can skate. The Clintons did it for eight years in office, and there are no signs through this campaign that anything is changing now.

And as you can see by Balta's timeline, there's always a "good" reason or justification for the Democrats to do what they need to do. Now those evil Re-pube-licans on the other hand... they're shady as all get out, and they need to be examined, you know, the full anal probe.

[southsider2k5]

Another take on Mormon-gate

 

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/pos...ThhZDk2MjEzOWM=

 

The Romney Calls: The Rorschach Test of the Righty Blogosphere

 

So far, I think the who-made-the-anti-Romney-calls has turned into a massive Rorschach Test for the righty political blogosphere.

 

If you dislike McCain, you think it's McCain. Nevermind that the Arizona Senator has about a billion better ways to spend the limited financial resources he has than to try a stunt like this. You look at his mother's comments about Mormons and see the definitive clue. (I'm just gonna note that the traditional schoolyard taunt doesn't work in a situation like this, because in a family like the McCain's, with generations of military service, John McCain's mom probably does wear combat boots.)

 

If you don't like Giuliani, you're thinking Western Wats' past work with the Tarrance Group is the important clue.

 

I've heard folks who aren't particularly fond of Huckabee speculate that it's the former Arkansas governor. I've heard a guy in Romney circles speculate that it's disgruntled former Brownback supporters, although in this case, the guy was on good terms with the Senator.

 

If you dislike Romney, you're thinking this was done by someone on his behalf to stir up sympathy, and paint himself as a victim. You're looking at a TargetPoint statement like "TargetPoint Consulting has absolutely nothing to do with the calls in question," and concluding that it doesn't answer the question, ""Did the Romney campaign or Target Point pay for phone calls — survey, push, or otherwise — from Nov. 15-17 in IA, NH, or SC that asked questions about Mormonism?" Beyond the denial, can TargetPoint prove a negative? I guess they could come out and say what the nature of their work with Western Wats was - wouldn't surprise me if it were a corporate client - but they may feel that honoring confidentiality with that client is more important that answering that question.

 

(I should note that somebody who's not particularly a fan of Romney is trying to persuade me, "Romney's the most vulnerable candidate we have! If anything, the Democrats should be trying to get him to be the nominee!" Yes, Democrats do try to determine the winner in Republican primaries - California Governor Gray Davis spent $10 million to influence the Republican primary in 2002, so it's not unthinkable.)

 

The question of who's behind the calls has quickly turned into, who do you trust least? Who do you think is the most likely to make an underhanded move at a time like this? Who has the least benefit of the doubt in your mind, and who are you quickest to accuse

 

Me? Well, no secret, I'm thinking some deep-pocketed liberal like George Soros.