Coming up presently. Here is Clark's most recent statement on the qualifications issue:

There are many important issues in this presidential election, clearly one of the most important issues is national security and keeping the American people safe. In my opinion, protecting the American people is the most important duty of our next President. I have made comments in the past about John McCain's service and I want to reiterate them in order be crystal clear. As I have said before I honor John McCain's service as a prisoner of war and a Vietnam Veteran. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. I would never dishonor the service of someone who chose to wear the uniform for our nation.

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I'm going to need more than one Tivo tonight:

HBO airs "The Ganja Queen" about Schapelle Corby , an Australian serving 20 years in an Indonesian prison for smuggling 10 pounds of pot into Bali at 9 pm ET.

And on ABC at 8pm, last year's jilted Bachelorette, Deanna Pappas, pares down from the final three to the final two, who almost everyone I've read thinks will be Jason, the single father from Seattle and Jesse, the professional snowboarder from Breckenridge, CO. It's followed by a "Men Tell All" episode with 15 of the guys who got eliminated. I'm rooting for Jesse when she makes her final choice on July 7, but he's definitely the longshot.

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Go Arianna! Check out her latest at Huffpo, Memo to Obama: Moving to the Middle is for Losers.

The Obama brand has always been about inspiration, a new kind of politics, the audacity of hope, and "change we can believe in." I like that brand. More importantly, voters -- especially unlikely voters -- like that brand.

Pulling it off the shelf and replacing it with a political product geared to pleasing America's vacillating swing voters -- the ones who will be most susceptible to the fear-mongering avalanche that has already begun -- would be a fatal blunder.

Arianna references the LA Times article on Obama's move to the center. My post on the article and Obama's move to the center is here.

It's not just guns, NAFTA, FISA, expansion of the death penalty and the promise of a stepped up fight in Afghanistan. It's also his outreach to evangelicals -- the radical right. It's something to keep in mind as he makes his faith speeches tomorrow and Wednesday.

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Shades of Boston in 2004...

In federal court in Denver today, the City and County of Denver and U.S. Secret Service made it clear protesters at the Pepsi Center for the August Democratic National Convention would be behind chain link fences.

The fence around the public demonstration zone outside the Democratic National Convention will be chicken wire or chain link, authorities revealed in U.S. District Court today. That may allow protesters to be seen and heard by delegates going in and out of the Pepsi Center during the convention.

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General Wesley Clark will by the primary guest on friend of Jeralyn's Dan Abrams' show The Verdict tonight at 9 EST on MSNBC.

I will live blog the General's appearance. This is an Open Thread.

Over at daily kos, Lt. Gen. Robert Gard (USA Ret.) defends General Clark's statements. If you are a kossack, please try and get it some attention. It is well worth a read.

Columbia Journalism Review pans the Beltway Media's awful coverage of the Clark event.

Update: ACLU response is here.

The U.S. announced today it will seek to file charges that carry the death penalty against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent captured in 2002 and tranferred to Guantanamo in 2006, who has claimed he confessed because he was tortured during interrogation.

The charges are related to the 2000 USS Cole bombing.

The allegations include conspiracy to violate laws of war, murder, treachery, terrorism, destruction of property and intentionally causing serious bodily injury.

Al-Nashiri was held in an overseas secret prison before being shipped to Gitmo. [More...]

Remember this controversial comment?

I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold. I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy,” [Hillary Clinton] said.

Yesterday, General Wesley Clark said John McCain had not passed that test. But Barack Obama disagrees and "rejects" Clark's assessment. Apparently, Obama agrees that McCain has passed the Commander in Chief test. I doubt McCain will extend the same courtesy. More . . .

VoteVets is with General Clark:

General Clark,

We the undersigned thank you for speaking up forcefully and honestly about what it takes to lead this nation, and the kind of judgment we must look for. You were right to say that Senator McCain has not shown good judgment, despite his extraordinary service to America. Just in the past few years:

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From Obama's patriotism speech:

[W]hat is striking about today’s patriotism debate is the degree to which it remains rooted in the culture wars of the 1960s – in arguments that go back forty years or more. In the early years of the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who questioned the wisdom of government policies of being unpatriotic.

Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself – by burning flags; by blaming America for all that was wrong with the world; and perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day.

Constrast with John Kerry's 2006 speech on patriotism and dissent.

(UPDATE) Josh Marshall thinks Obama made a mistake in rejecting Clark here. A man bites dog day on this. Me defending Obama and Marshall criticizing him.

An e-mail to me:

Your hero [Obama] threw General Clark under the bus. Now, Clark happens to be right and if Obama had any guts he would have stood up for Wes Clark, but alas, he has none and he didn't.

The e-mailer also calls Obama "my guy." Well, anyone who knows me knows that actually Wes Clark is my guy. If I had my drothers, he would be President of the United States. But I do not want Obama defending Wes Clark. Wes Clark will defend himself just fine.

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Update: Here is the prepared text of his speech.

Around noon today ET, Sen. Barack Obama will give a major speech on patriotism in Independence Missouri, Harry Truman's home town.

The Democratic presidential candidate's campaign says he will talk about "what patriotism means to him and what it requires of all Americans who loves this country and want to see it do better."

The speech in Missouri Monday comes in the run-up to the July 4 holiday and as Obama seeks to reassure voters about his commitment to the country as well as to counter questions about his patriotism. He's recently started wearing a flag pin on his lapel.

Tuesday he will give a speech on faith and Wednesday and Thursday on service to the country.

He'll spend the 4th of July in Butte, Montana.

Comments now closed.

Part one of a three part series tells the story of a Texas Tech sophomore and of other women who were abducted and raped in Lubbock, and of a police investigation that focused on Timothy Brian Cole after he flirted with an undercover police detective. A victim identified Cole's picture in a photo array, then identified him in a lineup. Another victim identified a different suspect who had been arrested earlier. A search of Cole's property found nothing that incriminated Cole, and the forensic evidence was inconclusive.

The one identification was enough to convince the DA he had a good case:

"Is identification a bad way to prove a case?" District Attorney Jim Bob Darnell would ask the jury more than a year after the lineups. "If it is, 90 percent of the people that are in the penitentiary, you just let them go."

The innocent ones, anyway. Cole maintained his innocence, but he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years. Part 2 reveals that the true rapist, Jerry Wayne Johnson, kept silent as Cole went to prison. [more ...]