Biden Wasted No Time In 2008 (2)
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What a spring Sen. Joe Biden has had: President Bush signed into law: Biden's (and Sam Brownback's) Second Chance act, which appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars to help criminals transition back to society. Next week, Bush will sign PEPFAR, a global HIV/AIDS bill that Biden played a key role in shepharding through the Congress. He led a CODEL to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey. His legislation reducing the crack/powder cocaine disparity will be considered in ...
Macker Said What?!?!?!? (1)
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Uber Clinton loyalist Terry McAullife wants Obama to choose his guy for VP. You heard it right. His guy. The former national chairman of the Democratic Party who ran Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign this year told 200 Democratic activists in Fairfax County Tuesday that Virginia Governor Tim Kaine would be his party's best choice as Barack Obama's vice presidential running mate. McAuliffe was adamant in his recommendation of Kaine as the Democratic Party's vice presidential ...
Obama Team Begins Work On Presidential Transition (2)
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With less than six months to go before he would be sworn in as the nation’s 44th president, Sen. Barack Obama has directed his aides to begin planning for the transition. "Barack is well aware of the complexity and the organizational challenge involved in the transition process and he has tasked s small group to begin thinking through the process,” a senior campaign adviser said. “Barack has made his expectations clear about what he wants ...
Chalabi's Revenge (1)
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The estimable Jeffrey Goldberg: Two sources, one in Iraq, the other in Washington, told me that Ahmed Chalabi was key in Maliki's decision to rather ostentatiously endorse Barack Obama's Iraq withdrawal time-line. Chalabi, of course, has been in and out -- mostly out -- of favor with the Bush Administration, but it's not merely revenge that motivated his advice to Maliki. "Chalabi knows American politics better than nearly every other Iraqi politician, and he knows ...
The "I Can't Put My Finger On It" Problem For Obama (3)
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The woman's name is Maria VanderMolen. She is 86 years old, and she lives in Spring Lake, Michigan. She is "a lifelong Democrat." But she's undecided in the presidential race. Why? "He's just come out of nowhere," she said. She worries, she said, "about the way things are coming out about his life. I haven't got one thing specific. I just don't know." The political cognoscenti might call this the Hart Problem, after the Democratic ...
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Ian said:
"Maybe" this is her way of admitting to racial bias? "Maybe?" Come on. She might as well just say "he just ain't right." This post is such silly nonsense. An 86-year-old woman in a state Obama is going to win by 10 points won't vote for a black man. WOO, ALERT THE MEDIA
Vanity Fair Spoofs New Yorker; Portrays Cindy McCain As Drug Abuser (4)
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The jocks of the glossy magazine world have spoofed the nerds. Conde Nast's Vanity Fair has posted a mock cover showing Sen. John McCain dapping his wife Cindy, who cradles a armful of prescription drug bottles. A portrait of George W. Bush hands in the background of their fictional "house." McCain is shown resting on a walker. Write the editors: "We had our own presidential campaign cover in the works, which explored a different facet ...
A Million For Obama In Berlin (1)
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From everyone's favorite newspaper these days: The Siegessäule is located about a kilometer down the Strasse des 17. Juni from the Brandenburg Gate. His speech is set to begin at 7 p.m. and Berlin is expecting a massive number of Obama fans to show up -- between 10,000 and a million according to one city official quoted in the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel.
Obama's New Plane (4)
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And What Else Is Going On? (2)
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As Maliki endorses Obama's timetable, the United States government is negotiating (basically) with Iran.
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Rick Klau said:
Appeasing appeasers! Oh, wait. No, nevermind. That's just when Democrats set a policy. When we flip-flop to try and save our legacy, that's leadership.
Al-Maliki's Announcement: A Big Deal (10)
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This could be one of those unexpected events that forever changes the way the world perceives an issue. Iraq's Prime Minister agrees with Obama, and there's no wiggle room or fudge factor. This puts John McCain in an extremely precarious spot: what's left to argue? to argue against Maliki would be to predicate that Iraqi sovereignty at this point means nothing. Obviously, our national interests aren't equivalent to Iraq's, but... Malik isn't listening to the ...
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Rick Klau said:
This strikes me as not a big deal, but as a HUGE deal. It's much, much harder to argue that we should stay there in our current set-up when the government that we instituted is saying unequivocally that we should get out. And it's much, much harder to argue that Obama's weak on national security when he's able to (from thousands of miles away) show that his consistently-held policy has now been endorsed by that same government. In other words, he was right, he had the foresight to see this coming, and had he been in charge we wouldn't be in this spot in the first place.
Obama's Foreign Policy Voice (1)
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Turns out there are 301... Not mentioned in this morning's New York Times piece on Barack Obama's foreign policy team is Ben Rhodes. Rhodes, 30, is Obama's principle foreign policy speechwriter. He does a large share of the staff work and writes Obama's foreign policy talking points, turning ideas into words. Rhodes isn't simply a background ghostwriter; Obama calls him an "adviser" -- a distinct title from "writer" -- and lets him speak directly on ...
Obama's iPhone App (3)
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Another evolution in technology: a fan of the Obama campaign has created an iPhone Web app -- a countdown for change clock. And why not? Probably a half hour or less of coding. Even if toys like these don't pick up any votes, they contribute to the idea that the Obama campaign has immersed itself in the modern consumer experience.
Management Secrets Of Barack Obama (7)
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Why is there not In the land of Obama only more than A hint of drama? Barack Obama's presidential campaign is a sight to behold for many reasons, but among the least appreciated is its allergy to the disunity and spatting that generally convulses even the most successful of endeavors. Obama, who never managed so much as a newsstand, has turned out to be a fairly remarkable leader of a what's becoming a billion dollar ...
Outrages Upon Outrages (2)
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So a number of readers were OUTRAGED that the media seems to be defending the OUTRAGEOUS New Yorker magazine cover. They're OUTRAGED that people aren't OUTRAGED enough. Another strand in the vast media conspiracy is unveiled. Reasonable people ought to be able to disagree about whether, had they been sitting at David Remnick's desk, they would have commissioned the same cover. We can debate whether it's funny, whether it's in poor taste, whether it's banal ...
Military Officers Want More Diplomacy And Development Assistance (2)
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Here's a sneak preview of a poll of 606 commissioned U.S. military officers conducted for the Center for U.S. Global Engagement, which holds a conference on national security in DC tomorrow. ## A significant majority of the officers recognize the need for non-military tools and diplomacy. ## They see the top national security threat by far as terrorism and Islamic extremism; what's missing from our policy, they say, is (a) more diplomacy and (b) long-term ...
Gore To Give Major Speech On Energy And The Environment (1)
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His office says Gore will lay out "an unprecedented challenge" on energy and climate change and will set a national goal for a "clean energy future." Per Gore's office: The speech will offer a new way of thinking about our energy production and consumption and a new sense of what is possible when we choose to work together. It will propose a means of tapping America's innovative skills to build a more secure energy future. ...
Fake Crisis v. Real Crisis (2)
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So the New Yorker is headquartered in Conde Nast's Times Square palace. A few blocks away are the sturdy skycrapers housing Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers. And other banks that are going bust. The financial system continues to unravel, rapidly for itself but slowly for our news cycle, which I guess confuses everybody. And we're in a tizzy over a magazine cover?
McCain Opposes Gay Adoption (2)
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Curious as to why cultural conservatives haven't picked up on this. Maybe because it was in the New York Times? Q: President Bush believes that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt children. Do you agree with that? Mr. McCain: I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption. Q: Even if the alternative is the kid staying in ...
Obama's Michigan Campaign Will Be 2x The Size Of Kerry's (1)
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A Michigan source sends along a memo from the Obama campaign's Michigan state director, Amy Chapman -- an "update," she calls it, on what the campaign is doing. And what they are doing is bringing jobs to Michigan: To date, the campaign has hired more than 90 paid staffers and plans to hire another 80 by the national convention. There will be five full-time "constituency voter coordinators" who work with coalitions and affinity groups, like ...
Obama-Reed? Obama-Hagel? (1)
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TNR's Jonathan Cohn makes the case for Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI). All I can add to this is that as of last week, Reed had not been asked to submit documents, and people close to him say that he worries about the effect of a vice presidential run on his young daughter. Also: note that Reed is up for re-election this year and that a Republican governor would fill the vacancy. Choosing Reed would give ...
