The Southern Strategist

By RICK PERLSTEIN

In the small Southern town that produced Harry Dent, the future Nixon White House political aide, Dent’s great-uncle John (The Baptist) Prickett edited the newspaper. One day, an outraged reader called Prickett a “Republican S.O.B.” Prickett, who like everyone else in South Carolina was a Democrat, laid him flat with a punch. The baffled reader, upon recovering, asked what was the matter with calling him an S.O.B. “But you called me a Republican S.O.B.,” Prickett answered — and thereby hangs the tale of why Harry Shuler Dent is such an important figure in American history. He was the behind-the-scenes player who did the most to turn the South from a region that despised Republicans into a Republican bastion.

Digby: Nobody's Right If Everybody's Wrong

Matt Stoller reports that he's hearing tons of stuff on the radio in Iowa about the alleged thirst for bipartisanship among the voters (which I also wrote about the other day in a post called "Bipartisan Zombies.") I hear it too, from a lot of non-political junkies, who are persuaded that the government is broken because of all the partisan bickering. It's a difficult conversation to have because they're half right. The government is broken, but it's not because of some sort of partisan war in which each side refuses to budge. The government is broken because one party has adopted a take-no-prisoners scorched earth philosophy and the political establishment continues to hold the victims equally responsible for the carnage.

Revolutionary air car runs on compressed air

BBC News is reporting that a French company has developed a pollution-free car which runs on compressed air. India's Tata Motors has the car under production and it may be on sale in Europe and India by the end of the year.

Analysis: Iowa votes for change

Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: January 04, 2008 01:03:30 AM

DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa sent the country a message Thursday night: We want change!

New faces. New voices. A new approach to politics.

The voters' message was clear in both parties, but boldest in the Democratic Party. Young people, independents and first-time voters surged into precinct caucuses in record numbers to vote for Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, rejecting the establishment's choice, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

First-ever study to link increased mortality specifically to carbon dioxide emissions

A Stanford scientist has spelled out for the first time the direct links between increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increases in human mortality, using a state-of-the-art computer model of the atmosphere that incorporates scores of physical and chemical environmental processes. The new findings, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, come to light just after the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent ruling against states setting specific emission standards for this greenhouse gas based in part on the lack of data showing the link between carbon dioxide emissions and their health effects.

While it has long been known that carbon dioxide emissions contribute to climate change, the new study details how for each increase of one degree Celsius caused by carbon dioxide, the resulting air pollution would lead annually to about a thousand additional deaths and many more cases of respiratory illness and asthma in the United States, according to the paper by Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford. Worldwide, upward of 20,000 air-pollution-related deaths per year per degree Celsius may be due to this greenhouse gas.

Paul Krugman: Dealing With the Dragon

On both Wednesday and Thursday, the price of oil briefly hit $100 a barrel. The new record made headlines, as well it should have. But what does it mean, aside from the obvious point that the economy is under extra pressure?

Well, one thing it means is that we’re having the wrong discussion about foreign policy.

Almost all the foreign policy talk in this presidential campaign has been motivated, one way or another, by 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Yet it’s a very good bet that the biggest foreign policy issues for the next president will involve the Far East rather than the Middle East. In particular, the crucial questions are likely to involve the consequences of China’s economic growth.

US jobless figures up as economy suffers severe downturn

Shares went into sharp retreat on both sides of the Atlantic today as gloomy jobs data from the United States heightened fears over prospects for the global economy.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 180 points, taking it below the 13,000 level. In London, earlier gains were wiped out, with the FTSE 100 index trading more than 140 points down towards the close.

Trees absorbing less CO2 as world warms, study finds

· Shorter winters weaken forest 'carbon sinks'
· Data analysis reverses scientists' expectations

The ability of forests to soak up man-made carbon dioxide is weakening, according to an analysis of two decades of data from more than 30 sites in the frozen north.

The finding published today is crucial, because it means that more of the CO2 we release will end up affecting the climate in the atmosphere rather than being safely locked away in trees or soil.

Why the era of cheap food is over

Corn, milk, bread, and other farm products hit record high prices in 2006 – and will likely keep rising in 2008.

Food prices worldwide hit record highs in 2006, and all the signs are that they will go on rising this year, and for the foreseeable future. The era of cheap food, the experts say, is over and we are going to have to get used to it. This is easier said than done for millions around the world, as evidenced by protests in Mexico over the cost of corn tortillas, and in Italy last September about the price of (wheat) pasta. Staff writer Peter Ford looks at why.

The Unease Factor

It would be grossly unfair to charge that Hillary Clinton is endeavoring to stir up the same kind of fear that George Bush did four years ago. But there is little question that she is trying to make voters feel unsettled.

Paul Waldman | January 3, 2008

It seemed like this day would never come: Americans are about to actually start voting in the presidential primaries. And as the clock wound down, the policy differences, small as they were to begin with, receded into the background. While the Republican race is a factional contest pitting different arms of the GOP coalition against each other, the Democratic race has become, as Mark Schmitt so astutely argued, the "theory of change" primary. Hillary Clinton's talking point -- "Some people think you hope for change. Some people think you demand it. I believe you work for it" -- is a reasonably fair summation of the three candidates' perspectives, even if none of them have actually told us anything in particular about how they'd go about overcoming opposition to enacting things like health-care reform. When Clinton says she'll work really hard and bring her experience to bear, what exactly does that mean? When John Edwards says he'll "fight" the insurance companies, what sort of fight is he talking about, with what kinds of weapons? When Barack Obama says he'll bring people together to solve problems, how is he going to overcome the opposition of people who simply don't want to go along? No one knows.

DNA tests get man freed after 27 years

A man who contended throughout his 26 years in prison that he never raped a woman who lived five houses down from him was freed Thursday after a judge recommended overturning his conviction.

Charles Chatman, 47, was released on his recognizance as several of his eight siblings cheered. He was freed on the basis of new DNA testing that lawyers say proves his innocence and adds to Dallas County's nationally unmatched number of wrongfully convicted inmates.

US shares slump on work worries

US shares fell sharply on Friday after the country's unemployment rate rose to a two-year high in December, raising fears about a possible recession.

The Dow Jones index slumped 256.54 points, 2% to close at 12,800.18 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged 98.03 points, 3.8% to 2,504.65.

The US Labor Department said employers added 18,000 jobs to their payrolls, far below economists' forecasts.

What Obama's Iowa Win Means for Everyone

By Arianna Huffington, HuffingtonPost.com
Posted on January 4, 2008, Printed on January 5, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/72596/

Even if your candidate didn't win tonight, you have reason to celebrate. We all do.

Barack Obama's stirring victory in Iowa -- down home, folksy, farm-fed, Midwestern, and 92 percent white Iowa -- says a lot about America, and also about the current mindset of the American voter.

Katha Pollitt: Maternity Fashions, Junior Size

[from the January 21, 2008 issue]

Teens getting pregnant: bad. Teens having babies: good. If this makes no sense to you, wake up and smell the Enfamil. It's 2008! The hot movie is Juno, a funnyquirkybittersweet indie about a pregnant high school hipster who gives her baby up for adoption. The hot celebrity is Jamie Lynn Spears, 16-year-old sister of Britney and star of Nickelodeon's Zoey 101, who's pregnant and having the baby because she wants to "do what's right." The teen birthrate, after falling for fourteen years, is up 3 percent, a phenomenon perhaps not unrelated to the fact that abstinence-only sex ed, although demonstrably ineffective at preventing sexual activity and linked to higher rates of unprotected sex, is the only sex ed taught in 35 percent of our schools. (Although maybe teens are having babies for the same reasons grown women are--the birthrate for adults is up, too.)

Return of the Swift Boaters

by CHRISTOPHER HAYES

[posted online on January 2, 2008]

More than three years after John Kerry's bitter defeat, at the dawn of what looks like a far more promising campaign cycle for the Democrats, the party is still haunted by the specter of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Once upon a time, "Swift boat" denoted an obscure military vessel, but thanks to the activities of this group it has come to represent movement conservatism's penchant for ruthlessly (and effectively) smearing any and all political opponents, from a sitting senator and war hero to an 11-year-old boy with a cranial fracture.

Research by The Nation into Federal Election Commission records of the group's top twenty donors reveals that they've been remarkably active in this cycle, contributing and bundling nearly $200,000 to presidential candidates. This does not bode well. During the last presidential campaign, the wealthy backers of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth--now rebranded as Swift Vets and POWs for Truth--didn't do their real dirty work until the general election, where as a tax-exempt 527 group they operated outside the restraints of direct campaign contributions. We may wish we were done with the Swift Boaters, but they aren't done with us.

Bonus payments frozen

By Jim Tice - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 3, 2008 7:47:39 EST

The Army has temporarily halted bonus payments for more than 20 enlistment, re-enlistment and service extension programs pending enactment of authorizing legislation.

President Bush, to the surprise of Congress and the Defense Department, vetoed the fiscal 2008 Defense Authorization Act on Dec. 29 after months bargaining with House and Senate leaders.

What’s Your Consumption Factor?

By JARED DIAMOND

Los Angeles

TO mathematicians, 32 is an interesting number: it’s 2 raised to the fifth power, 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2. To economists, 32 is even more special, because it measures the difference in lifestyles between the first world and the developing world. The average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world. That factor of 32 has big consequences.

To understand them, consider our concern with world population. Today, there are more than 6.5 billion people, and that number may grow to around 9 billion within this half-century. Several decades ago, many people considered rising population to be the main challenge facing humanity. Now we realize that it matters only insofar as people consume and produce.

How Bush Took Us to the Dark Side

Journey to the Dark Side

The Bush Legacy (Take One)
By Tom Engelhardt

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

-- Emma Lazarus, 1883

If you don't mind thinking about the Bush legacy a year early, there are worse places to begin than with the case of Erla Ósk Arnardóttir Lilliendahl. Admittedly, she isn't an ideal "tempest-tost" candidate for Emma Lazarus' famous lines engraved on a bronze plaque inside the Statue of Liberty. After all, she flew to New York City with her girlfriends, first class, from her native Iceland, to partake of "the Christmas spirit." She was drinking white wine en route and, as she put it, "look[ing] forward to go shopping, eat good food, and enjoy life." On an earlier vacation trip, back in 1995, she had overstayed her visa by three weeks, a modest enough infraction, and had even returned the following year without incident.

Bush's Final Year

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, January 2, 2008; 12:38 PM

As President Bush begins his final year in office, the White House is aiming for one last major domestic legislative triumph: permanent expansion of government spy powers, including retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that assisted in warrantless surveillance.

In an impromptu briefing aboard Air Force One, as Bush returned to Washington from his Texas vacation yesterday, White House counselor Ed Gillespie told reporters that an administration-supported bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is Bush's top priority.

Unsupported and Untrue

WSJ lacks evidence to support a sweeping, front-page claim against mortgage borrowers

By Dean Starkman
Wed 2 Jan 2008 01:33 PM

The lead story in a recent Wall Street Journal says that borrower fraud “goes a long way toward explaining why mortgage defaults and foreclosures are rocking financial institutions, Wall Street and the economy.”

In other words, some significant share for the blame mortgage crisis rests not just on borrowers, but on dishonest, even criminal borrowers.

No more Nice Guy

Gene Lyons
Posted on Wednesday, January 2, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/212492/

Nobody asked, but if I were a congressional Democrat, I’d have two New Year’s resolutions. One: No more Mr. Bipartisan Nice Guy. Two: Less substance, more political theater. If you haven’t noticed, 2008 is an election year. Also, Democrats hold small majorities in both houses. Hence, mewling cries are being heard that ugly partisan wrangling is preventing Americans from joining together in one big joyous hootenanny and solving our problems.

Daily Kos: Why the Blogosphere Went for Edwards

by BooMan23

Wed Jan 02, 2008 at 10:48:26 PM PST

[From the Frog Pond]

I feel like writing this now, before any caucus or primary results, while my feelings are uninfluenced by events that right now remain uncertain. I don't think the mainstream media or the people that work inside the Beltway really understand the blogosphere at all. We may not fully understand them either, but we have a better grasp of what makes them tick than they have of what makes us tick. We're fighters. Fighting is pretty much all we do.

Iowa: Clearing My In-Box

I have to admit I experienced a bit of Iowa Caucus overload yesterday, and as I'm not in Des Moines with every political reporter in the Western World, I went off the grid for a bit and spent much of the day yesterday with family. As such, my mental "in-box" has filled to overflow with thoughts about what the last round of polls are telling about the Iowa Caucuses. What follows is an attempt to sum up and empty the in-box:

1) We Have No Idea Who Will Win. Yes, despite tens of thousand of interviews, polls of every shape, size and method and our own fancy charts featuring regression-derived trend lines of varying degrees of sensitivity, the only thing we can say with confidence is that the Democratic and Republican races are close. It is hard to know much more than that given the small margins and, more importantly, the huge variations in the kinds of likely caucus goers sampled.
link

Single trader behind oil record

The man behind the record rise in oil prices to $100 a barrel was a lone trader, seeking bragging rights and a minute of fame, market watchers say.

A single trader bid up the price by buying a modest lot and then sold it immediately at a loss, they claim.

Doctors Without Borders: Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2007

Displaced Fleeing War in Somalia Face Humanitarian Crisis

Tens of thousands of Somalis are living in camps like this one, north of the capital Mogadishu, suffering from a lack of water, food, shelter, and access to medical treatment.

As violence in Somalia escalated this year to some of the worst levels in over 15 years, both assistance for and attention to one of the most challenging and acute humanitarian situations in the world seemed to wane. Ethiopian troops and Transitional Federal Government forces, supported by international partners such as the United States and the European Union, clashed with a range of armed groups, including remnants of the Islamic Courts Union. The fighting caused an unknown number of civilian casualties and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from the capital, Mogadishu.

Glenn Greenwald: Oligarchical decay

A new lengthy article in this morning's New York Times purports to set forth "new details about why the [CIA interrogation] tapes were made and then eliminated." Written by Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti (who broke the original story), what the article primarily does is rely on anonymous sources to assign principal responsibility for the tapes' destruction to mid-level CIA official Jose Rodriguez. But in doing so, the article identifies, in passing, the critical question that remains unanswered: what was the involvement of George Bush and Dick Cheney in the videos' destruction?

Echidne of the Snakes: Gearing For The Primaries

Do you have a hard time deciding how to assign your vote in the Democratic Primaries? Don't worry, you can ask Maureen Dowd about the details that might matter. Here she explains whether you should vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama:

Has Hillary truly changed, and grown from her mistakes? Has she learned to be less stubborn and imperious and secretive and vindictive and entitled? Or has she merely learned to mask her off-putting and self-sabotaging qualities better? If elected, would the old Hillary pop up, dragging us back to the dysfunctional Clinton kingdom? She is speaking in a soft, measured voice in these final days, so that, as with Daisy Buchanan, you have to lean in to listen. But is she really different than she was in the years when she was so careless about the people around her getting hurt by the Clinton legal whirlwind that she was dubbed the Daisy Buchanan of the boomer set?

Digby: Divisive Dems

This just makes me sad:

I got yapped at the other day by the Obama campaign after wondering if Sen. Barack Obama was unfavorably comparing Sen. John Edwards to Sen John Kerry, regarding being easily painted as a flip-flopper.

On Monday Obama suggested that Kerry and former Vice President Al Gore were divisive.

Digby: Kids Today

...are awesome:

One of the biggest capital punishment cases to come before the U.S. Supreme Court in a generation was put together largely by a young, fresh-out-of-law-school member of Kentucky's overworked and underpaid corps of public defenders.

David Barron, 29, filed an appeal on behalf of two Kentucky death row inmates, arguing that the three-drug cocktail used in lethal injections across the country can cause excruciating pain, and thus amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

Digby: The New Religious Right

From Eve Fairbanks at TNR:

How come the most authentic anti-illegal candidates -- the ones who have been advocating a big fence and no amnesty for years -- were so hopeless? My own views are more liberal on this, so I'm tempted to believe it's because building the fence and deporting millions of people simply isn't what people want to do.

But as Tancredo pointed out, now all the GOP candidates push these same ideas! Really, immigration hardlining is just a new religion. Its early disciples are the weirdos, those harrowed souls chased in their dreams by the specter of Mexicans scurrying across rivers, whose very fervency marks them as people not to be taken seriously.

Glenn Greenwald: 9/11 Commission: Our investigation was "obstructed"

The bi-partisan co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, jointly published an Op-Ed in today's New York Times which contains some extremely emphatic and serious accusations against the CIA and the White House. The essence:

[T]he recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes -- and did not tell us about them -- obstructed our investigation.

More strikingly still, they explicitly include the White House at the top of their list of guilty parties

Evolution education is a 'must' says coalition of scientific and teaching organizations

17 organizations report on national survey to determine public views of evolution education

A coalition of 17 organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Institute of Physics, and the National Science Teachers Association, is calling on the scientific community to become more involved in the promotion of science education, including evolution. According to an article appearing in the January 2008 issue of The FASEB Journal, the introduction of “non-science,” such as creationism and intelligent design, into science education will undermine the fundamentals of science education. Some of these fundamentals include using the scientific method, understanding how to reach scientific consensus, and distinguishing between scientific and nonscientific explanations of natural phenomena.

“In an age when people have benefited so greatly from science and reason, it is ironic that some still reject the tools that have afforded them the privilege to reject them,” says Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal.

Stonewalled by the C.I.A.

By THOMAS H. KEAN and LEE H. HAMILTON

Washington

MORE than five years ago, Congress and President Bush created the 9/11 commission. The goal was to provide the American people with the fullest possible account of the “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001” — and to offer recommendations to prevent future attacks. Soon after its creation, the president’s chief of staff directed all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the commission.

The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

The Possibly Not Coming Storm

Ross Douthat previews the next great conservative crack-up:

It's true that the current conservative intelligentsia, forged in the crucible of Ronald Reagan's successes, is heavily invested in keeping the triple alliance intact - hence the Thompson bubble, the anti-Huckabee crusade, and the "rally round Romney" effect. And it's true, as well, that if the Republican Party recovers its majority in the next election the alliance will be considerably strengthened. But such a recovery is unlikely,

[...]

To which I say: Maybe!

Americablog: Pelosi's First Year

by John Aravosis (DC) · 1/01/2008 12:57:00 PM ET · Link

AP does an interesting analysis of the boom and bust of Pelosi's first year as Speaker.

Nancy Pelosi crashed through a glass ceiling when she became the first female House speaker a year ago. That turned out to be the easy part.

The reality of leading a bitterly divided Congress at odds with a Republican White House is that victories are difficult and disappointments many. Chief among them for the liberal San Francisco Democrat was failure to deliver on her biggest goal: ceasing U.S. combat missions in Iraq and getting troops on their way home.

I'm really terribly divided on the issue of Pelosi and Reid and whether they are to blame for the past year's losses. Their staff will tell you (and they are correct) that's it's very hard to get conservative southern Dems on board a lot of progressive legislation.

TPM´s Great List of Scandalized Administration Officials

By Paul Kiel - December 31, 2007, 11:20AM

Boy, was it time for an update.

Late last year we decided to take stock of all the Bush Administration officials who'd been accused of corruption and/or resigned in the face of scandal. Although we had fun doing it, we altruistically started the project in order to help our friends at Powerline, who professed an inability to think of any Bush officials beset by scandal.

Defaults on Insured Mortgages Rise 35% to Record

By Josh P. Hamilton and Erik Holm

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Defaults on privately insured U.S. mortgages rose 35 percent in November to a record, an industry report today showed, adding to evidence the U.S. housing slump is deepening.

The number of insured borrowers falling more than 60 days late on payments jumped to 61,033 last month from 45,325 in November 2006, according to data from members of the Washington- based Mortgage Insurance Companies of America. The missed payments, often a prelude to foreclosure, represented a 2.9 percent increase from October.

Digby: Spoiling For A Victory

Glenn Greenwald has a nice rundown today on the policies of our lastest post partisan saviour, Michael Bloomberg, of the Wet Bloomer party. Let's just say it all sounds familiar --- a thrice married, pro-choice, New York mayor with distinct authoritarian tendencies and a bunch of jackass supporters and advisors. The only thing truly distinct about him is that he is a big money boy instead of a full-on fascist, a distinction that doesn't matter much when it comes to what he would do as president.

In reading Glenn's rundown I realized, however, just what a problem this could be for the Democrats. It's becoming clear now (and to my surprise, actually) that once Republicans got a look at their own mayor of Sodom, they just couldn't stomach him, even though he explicitly promised to mow down as many dark people as he possibly could. He's just too ethnic, too urban, too culturally removed.

I'm a fighting liberal

An older post from the late Steve Gilliard.--Dictynna

You know, I've studied history, I've read about America and you know something, if it weren't for liberals, we'd be living in a dark, evil country, far worse than anything Bush could conjure up. A world where children were told to piss on the side of the road because they weren't fit to pee in a white outhouse, where women had to get back alley abortions and where rape was a joke, unless the alleged criminal was black, whereupon he was hung from a tree and castrated.

What has conservatism given America? A stable social order? A peaceful homelife? Respect for law and order? No. Hell, no. It hasn't given us anything we didn't have and it wants to take away our freedoms.

Glenn Greenwald: Michael Bloomberg: Trans-partisan savior

Following along in David Broder's excited footsteps, Sam Roberts in The New York Times reports that Michael Bloomberg "is growing increasingly enchanted with the idea of an independent presidential bid, and his aides are aggressively laying the groundwork for him to run." And a handful of retired, mediocre politicians with no following are issuing self-absorbed, thug-like demands, complete with deadlines:

Former Senator David L. Boren of Oklahoma, who organized the session with former Senator Sam Nunn, a Democrat of Georgia, suggested in an interview that if the prospective major party nominees failed within two months to formally embrace bipartisanship and address the fundamental challenges facing the nation, "I would be among those who would urge Mr. Bloomberg to very seriously consider running for president as an independent."

The Big Question: Why has no clear favourite emerged in the 2008 presidential election?

By Leonard Doyle in Washington

Published: 01 January 2008

Why are we asking this now?

On Thursday, voters across Iowa become the first in the nation to have their say about the Republican and Democratic candidates for the White House in 2008. By now, two likely winners should have emerged from the pack, but the Iowa race is still wide open.

The result is important because a strong finish here can catapult an overlooked candidate to the head of a crowded field. In 1975 Jimmy Carter became the first candidate to exploit the caucus selection process. In a low-key guerrilla campaign he rang doorbells saying: "Hi, I'm not a lawyer and I'm not from Washington." Thanks to Carter, the candidates have been criss-crossing the state in sub-zero temperatures doing much the same thing. Thinly populated, evenly balanced between liberals and conservatives, rural and overwhelmingly white, the state has a unique king-maker status in the election.

Looking at America

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.

The Five Iraqs

Posted on Dec 30, 2007
By Scott Ritter

It has become a mantra of sorts among the faltering Republican candidates: Victory is at hand in Iraq. Mitt Romney, in particular, has taken to so openly embracing the “success” of the U.S. troop “surge” that it has become the centerpiece of his litany of attacks on the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton.

“Think of what’s happened this year,” Romney recently implored a crowd in Iowa. “General [David] Petraeus came in to report to Congress and Hillary Clinton said she couldn’t believe him. She said she just couldn’t believe General Petraeus. Now think about that. He’s been proven to be right. He should be on the cover, by the way, of Time magazine, and not Putin.”

McCain's Unlikely Ties to K Street

32 Lobbyists Bundle Funds for Longtime Critic

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 31, 2007; A01

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took a break from the presidential campaign trail in March to fly to a posh Utah ski resort, where he mingled with hundreds of top corporate executives assembled by J.P. Morgan Chase for its annual leadership conference.

McCain's appearance at the Deer Valley event, arranged by J.P. Morgan Vice Chairman James B. Lee Jr., a top McCain fundraiser, put him in a room with the chief executives of companies such as General Electric, Xerox and Sony. It was, Lee said, "a chance for him to let them see him for who he is and possibly decide to support him." The effort paid off: J.P. Morgan executives have donated $56,250 to McCain's campaign, two-thirds of which came after his Utah appearance. And his visit there was quickly followed up by dozens of smaller private meetings with corporate executives in New York City arranged by leading Wall Street figures.

Paul Krugman: The Great Divide

Yesterday The Times published a highly informative chart laying out the positions of the presidential candidates on major issues. It was, I’d argue, a useful reality check for those who believe that the next president can somehow usher in a new era of bipartisan cooperation.

For what the chart made clear was the extent to which Democrats and Republicans live in separate moral and intellectual universes.

On one side, the Democrats are all promising to get out of Iraq and offering strongly progressive policies on taxes, health care and the environment. That’s understandable: the public hates the war, and public opinion seems to be running in a progressive direction.

Digby: Bipartisan Zombies

It was inevitable. I wrote about it right after the 2006 election --- as soon as the Republicans lost power, I knew the gasbags would insist that it's time to let bygones be bygones and meet the Republicans halfway in the spirit of a new beginning. GOP politicians have driven the debt sky-high and altered the government so as to be nearly unrecognizable, so logically the Democrats need to extend the hand of conciliation and move to meet them in the middle --- the middle now being so far right, it isn't even fully visible anymore.

Edwards surges, Huckabee's bubble bursts

By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

John Edwards has clawed his way into contention to win Iowa's caucuses on Thursday in the first vote for the Democratic presidential nomination, gaining strength even as rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have lost ground, according to a new McClatchy-MSNBC poll.

As Iraqis See It

By Michael Massing

When it comes to covering the war in Iraq, McClatchy Newspapers has always done things a bit differently. The third-largest newspaper company in the US, it owns thirty-one daily papers, including The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee, The Kansas City Star, and The Charlotte Observer. (It became the owner of some of these papers after buying Knight Ridder newspapers in 2006.) McClatchy has a large bureau in Washington, but without a paper either in the capital or in New York, it operates outside the glare of the nation's political and media elite, and this has freed it to follow its own path.

In the months leading up to the Iraq war, when most news organizations were dutifully relaying the Bush administration's claims about the threat posed by Iraq, Knight Ridder/McClatchy ran several stories questioning their accuracy. Since the invasion, the company has run a lean but resourceful operation in Baghdad. All three of its bureau chiefs have been young Arab-American women with some fluency in Arabic. At home in the cultures of both the West and the Middle East, they have been adept at interpreting each to the other.