Afternoon Thread

Enjoy.

Blogger Ethics Panel

So why is "Democratic pollster" Celinda Lake running push polls about Obama and Clinton? Why are Cillizza and the Devil running them as news? More importantly, why isn't Cillizza telling us that Celinda Lake works for the rival Biden campaign. I know he knows this, because he told me himself.

More Bobblethread

Enjoy

The Devil Reports on Push Pulls

This is really getting absurd.

While the average lead of Democratic House members stands at 19 percentage points in the 31 vulnerable districts -- all but two of which are part of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's incumbent-protection program known as Frontline -- that number sinks considerably when the lawmakers are linked to either front-runner.

"Some people say [your Democratic incumbent] is a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton and will support her liberal agenda of big government and higher taxes if she becomes president," the poll stated, before asking respondents whether they would still vote for their incumbent or choose a Republican candidate.

Whether the question named Clinton or Obama, the Democratic incumbent's lead shrank to an average of six points: 47 percent to 41 percent with Clinton leading the ticket, 44 percent to 38 percent with Obama as the nominee.

"The images of the two early favorites are part of the problem," Lake and Gotoff wrote. Clinton has a "very polarized image" in the districts, while Obama's "image is soft, and one-fifth of voters do not have a firm impression of him."

Not surprisingly, the Obama and Clinton campaigns sought to play down the poll's findings.

Sunday Bobbleheads

Document the atrocities.

# Meet the Press" Guests: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

# "This Week" . Guests: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and filmmaker Ken Burns.

# "Face the Nation" Guests: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

# "CNN Late Edition" . Guests: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.; Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt; French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner; Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.; former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski; former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

# "Fox News Sunday" Guests: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; and filmmaker Ken Burns.

Morning Thread

Welcome to the Tower of Bobble.

--Molly I.

Silly Sully

After all these years, he still has no clue about US politics.

hint to sully: the body politic does not reside in your belly button.

Late Night

Rock on.



Illuminea

Speaking of Yurp

I always thought this post by the ole perfesser was a classic.

It sounds like Enron, only with tax money. And, naturally, with less moral outrage.

He's discussing the fact that Yurp "is on the brink of collapse." In 2002.

Fantasy Europe

Without getting into the specifics of this post, it is incredibly striking in general just how insane/ignorant/whatever your typical wingnut sounds when they talk about some continent called Yurp which doesn't actually exist.

Though, on reflection, I'm not sure how different that is from anything else.

1.5 Million

Maybe I can convince Arlen Specter to sponsor an amendment condemning me.

What Would I Do Without David Brooks?

Without him there just wouldn't be enough totally fucking wrong in my life. MTP, 7/8:

MR. BROOKS: Privately it’s collapsed already. The question is whether they talk about it publicly. And so what the White House is trying to do is head all that off at the pass.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. BROOKS: I think by September they’re going to have a new plan, and that plan will probably involve getting out of Baghdad, withdrawing to some of the bases, reducing U.S. casualties, we’re trying to tamp down on al-Qaeda. So I think the White House will change the dynamic by September.

The Devil

The smell of sulfur infuses our political discourse.

Sane Republicans

I do not think they exist. Sully, last May:

Yes, we should keep our eyes on the ball this summer. But September is a sane and sensible moment for national cloture on the matter. And the sane Republicans - the ones who still have brains between their antennae - will have to make the call.

Ooops, Wrong Again

And I was right again. Advantage me! Andrea Mitchell on The Tweety Show last May:

Ms. MITCHELL: And you have the election calendar here, as well, which is
another part of the timetable. But basically, there is no belief in the
region that Maliki, that his government can sustain this. You can't sustain
it militarily and you can't sustain it politically here at home. So the basic
calculation by Republican and Democratic senators is, when General Petraeus
briefs in September, if this thing has not turned a corner, you're going to
start to see withdrawal.

The Big Money

For some reason it's off limits in our political discourse to mention this, but the $200 billion Bush wants for Iraq could buy a lot of that health insurance for kids he's going to veto.

Blogger Ethics Panel

It almost goes without saying that the creepy collusion between our elite media and the Bush administration is... creepy as hell.

FREEEDOM!

Afternoon Thread

Enjoy.

We're All Lefties Now

Polls:

CBS News Poll. Sept. 14-16, 2007. N=706 adults nationwide. MoE ± 4.
						.
"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation with Iraq?"
						.
		Approve	Disapprove	Unsure
		%	%	%
	9/14-16/07	25	70	5
						.
"Do you approve or disapprove of the way Democrats in Congress are handling the situation with Iraq?"
						.
		Approve	Disapprove	Unsure
		%	%	%
	9/14-16/07	31	57	12
						.
						.
"Looking back, do you think the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the U.S. have stayed out?"
						.
		Right Thing	Stayed Out	Unsure
		%	%	%
	9/14-16/07	39	53	8
						.
"From what you know about the U.S. involvement in Iraq, how much longer would you be willing to have large numbers of U.S. troops remain in Iraq: less than a year, one to two years, two to five years or longer than five years?"
						.
		Less Than A Year	One to Two Years	Two to Five Years	Longer Than Five Years	Other/ Unsure
		%	%	%	%	%
	9/14-16/07	49	23	12	5	11
						.
						.
"From what you have seen or heard about the situation in Iraq, what should the United States do now? Should the U.S. increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, keep the same number of U.S. troops in Iraq as there are now, decrease the number of troops in Iraq, or remove all its troops from Iraq?"
						.
		Increase	Same Number	Decrease	Remove All	Unsure
		%	%	%	%	%
	9/14-16/07	6	21	39	29	5
						.
"President Bush has proposed reducing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to pre-surge levels by the summer of 2008. Do you think by next summer he should remove more troops than that, remove fewer troops than that, or is that the right amount to remove?"
						.
		Remove More	Remove Fewer	Right Amount	Remove All Now (vol.)	Depends (vol.)/ Unsure
		%	%	%	%	%
	9/14-16/07	47	7	29	3	14

And still NPR talks about how "The Left" wants out.

Tin-Pot Dictatorships

Indeed.

The idea of granting blanket retroactive amnesty for private companies and high government officials who repeatedly broke the law in how they spied on Americans is the stuff of tin-pot third-world dictatorships. It is so corrupt and reprehensible that it ought to be beyond the ken of what could even be considered. But with an indescribably (and increasingly) accommodating Democratic Congress, along with Democratic power brokers like Gorelick working in tandem with telecoms and their Republican lobbyists to bring about such legislation, its passage -- as both the NYT and Newsweek are reporting -- is close to guaranteed. The MoveOn ad was terrible.