Last week, Matt Yglesias wrote what I found to be a silly post in which he argued:

I have to say that I find the idea that Hillary Clinton has been "vetted" and thus we can expect "no surprises" in terms of damaging campaign information to be pretty unconvincing. . . [T]his almost seems like a calculated effort to bait me in bringing up things I really don't want to bring up. . . . There's tawdry BS to be dragged up on everyone -- she's no exception and shouldn't be pretending that she is.

Ridiculous to believe that there has not been concerted efforts to bring up everything about the Clintons in the past two decades. And the Obama campaign makes a similarly silly argument (though I can see why they do politically), as Josh Marshall notes:

I really hope the Obama camp is kidding when they say Barack is the most scrutinized candidate in the race. If they're not, they're living in a fantasy world that makes me question whether they're up to the rigors of a national campaign.

Josh is right of course but I think it underplays a very important advantage Barack Obama has - he is a Media darling. Before Obama supporters complain, they should realize this is a VERY good thing. Obama is almost certain to get better coverage than the other two leading Dem candidates, Clinton and Edwards, in a general election campaign. This is no small thing. Furthermore, if when the GOP Swift boaters go on the attack, Obama's status with the Media will put him in a much better position to fend off those attacks than any Dem candidate I can remember. This, to me, is a very strong argument for supporting Obama for the nomination.

Paul Krugman points to a September Boston Globe article on Barack Obama's work on healthcare in the Illinois legislature. Krugman writes:

This story gives a lot of context to the debate over health reform now. Obama clearly sees himself playing the same role as president that he did as a state legislator — as a broker among groups, including the insurance industry, as someone who can find a compromise solution that’s acceptable to a wide range of opinion.

My thoughts: being president isn’t at all like being a state legislator, Illinois Republicans aren’t like the national Republican party, 2009 won’t be 2003, and the insurance industry’s opposition to national health reform — which must, if it is to mean anything, strike deep at the industry’s fundamental business — will be much harsher than its opposition to a basically quite mild state-level reform effort.

. . . My worries about Obama are that he doesn’t seem to understand this — that he thinks that in 2009, as president, he can broker a national health care reform the same way that as a state legislator, in 2003, he brokered a deal that mollified the insurance industry. That’s a recipe for getting nowhere.

Good points from Krugman.

Matt Bai writes:

Some Democrats, though, and especially those who are apt to call themselves “progressives,” offer a more complicated and less charitable explanation. In their view, Clinton failed to seize his moment and create a more enduring, more progressive legacy . . . because his centrist, “third way” political strategy, his strategy of “triangulating” to find some middle point in every argument, sapped the party of its core principles. . . .

David Brooks wrote a glowing piece on Barack Obama. The piece was an obvious swipe at Paul Krugman's evaluation of Obama. Some, like Matt Yglesias saw Krugman as engaging in payback, demonstrating that they have not been reading Krugman at all on this issue). Here is part of what Brooks wrote:

[Obama] has a worldview that precedes political positions. Some Americans (Republican or Democrat) believe that the country’s future can only be shaped through a remorseless civil war between the children of light and the children of darkness. . . . But Obama does not ratchet up hostilities; he restrains them. He does not lash out at perceived enemies, but is aloof from them. . . . This is a worldview that detests anger as a motivating force, that distrusts easy dichotomies between the parties of good and evil, believing instead that the crucial dichotomy runs between the good and bad within each individual.

A post-politics "Third Way" has been Obama's message. His message is the most like the 1992 message of Bill Clinton. The question is is that the right one for this political climate? Are Democrats, are progressives, is the country, where they were in 1992? On Hardball yesterday, John Edwards said:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Harry Truman [and Hillary Clinton] said they were going to bring healthcare to the people, what was wrong with them? JOHN EDWARDS: First of all, they were living in a different environment . . . If you look at what is happening to healthcare today as opposed to when Senator Clinton was addressing it, the health care system has gotten much worse. . . . I think we are in a place where the American People are ripe for change. We just need a leader who will stand up.

So the question is do we want and need the Clinton Third Way political approach of the 90s?

It's a travel day for me which means another open thread for you. Here's what I read in the past hour or two. I'll be back to regular blogging tonight.

• U.S. executions at lowest number in 13 years
• WaPo-ABC News Poll: Clinton tied with Obama in Iowa, Edwards in third place. Another poll has Edwards ahead.
• Edwards in the homestretch, his star is rising in Iowa
• Military Commission Applies Geneva Conventions to Guantánamo Detainee -- ACLU Says It's Six Years too late
• Judge Orders Hearing in CIA Tape Destruction
• Senate Adds $70 Billion for Iraq War in Funding Bill
• DEA Trying New Tactic Against Calif. Pot Clubs

More from around the blogosphere:

Via The Termite, Speaker Pelosi said yesterday that:

. . . [S]he had underestimated the willingness of Republicans to stand behind President Bush’s Iraq policy despite the drubbing the GOP took in the polls in 2006. "The assumption I made was that the Republicans would soon see the light," she said. Instead, the minority stuck to the president’s war policy in the face of unrelenting pressure from congressional Democrats and powerful lobbying campaigns by anti-war groups. "That was a revelation to me, because I felt the American peoples' voices were so strong and still are in this regard that I hoped that with some compromise and reaching out there might be some change in direction," Pelosi said. "But they are sticking with the president on this."

No kidding. Who would have predicted that?. But do not feel bad Madame Speaker, you had good company waiting for the Godot Republicans. Frank Rich, liberal bloggers and the much vaunted Move On. None of us has much to be proud about in all this. The question is have we learned our lesson? Are Dems in Congress ready to not fund the Iraq Debacle? I hope so. Then again, perhaps I am as naive about the Democrats as Speaker Pelosi has been about the Republicans.

Update: Nothing on classified information or telecoms and NSA surveillance requests. Neither side brought it up.

I'm in the courtroom at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals waiting for oral arguments to begin in the appeal of former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio who was convicted earlier this year of insider trading. I'll be live-blogging over at 5280.com for as long as my batteries and internet connection last.

Update: Conclusion: This is no slam dunk for the Government, particularly on whether Judge Nottingham erred in excluding expert defense witness Fischel without a Daubert hearing and perhaps on the materiality instruction. The judges were definitely harder on the Government than on Maureen Mahoney. You can't predict the outcome of an appeal based on the questions. Still, two of the judges seemed more favorable to the defense than the government on the materiality issue and all three had problems with the exclusion of the defense expert witness without a Daubert hearing. If I were Nacchio, I'd be cautiously optimistic. If I were the Government, I'd be concerned. But no one has a crystal ball and everyone will have to wait until the opinion is rendered.

Digby spotlights this nonsense from Fox Dem Bob Beckel:

Fox political analyst Bob Beckel mourned last night that Sen. Joe Lieberman’s endorsement of John McCain is “the price…us Democrats pay for MoveOn.org and others who drove Joe Lieberman out of the party,” said Beckel. “They campaigned against him actively and raised money against him and he was beaten in the Democratic primary. … Now we’re paying the price and all I can say is ‘a pox on their house."

The pox of course is on the Fox Dem house, and its leading practictioner of mendacity and petty vindictiveness, via Kagro, Joe Lieberman:

Lieberman: "I want Democrats to be back in the majority in Washington and elect a Democratic president in 2008. This man [Ned Lamont] and his supporters will frustrate and defeat our hopes of doing that."

Of course Lieberman was not telling the truth. And we knew he was not. But Beckel's theory is, in many ways, more condemning of Lieberman than we are. Beckel is saying Lieberman is endorsing McCain for President out of spite. Beckel also seems to share Lieberman's delusion that Lieberman's endorsement actually matters. As Lieberman himself said, no Democrat wanted his endorsement. It is unclear whether anyone except McCain even asked for it. No poxes there Mr. Beckel.

It's time for the Tuesday open thread. I'm starting my day early with court, followed by a visit to the jail, then on to the Tenth Circuit for the oral arguments in the Joe Nacchio appeal, which I hope to be live-blogging at 5280.com, provided the court doesn't decide to ban laptops from the courtroom.

After that it's a holiday party and time with the TL kid who just arrived back in Denver. Wednesday I have a date with Frontier Airlines, flying to Texas and back in time for dinner.

So, while I'm occupied elsewhere, here's a place for you to keep each other up to date on whatever is going on in your world.

Back in 2005 I wrote Welcome to America, It Will Only Cost You a Leg , about Moises Carranza-Reye, an immigrant from Mexico who came to Colorado looking for work. He ended up in a county jail on an immigration hold, where he lost a lung and part of a leg after developing a streptococcus infection.

He sued in federal court, and today his lawyer announced a settlement. Carranza-Reye will receive 1.5 million dollars.

About the Park County Jail:

Park County Jail...houses alien detainees under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).....[It] takes in immigration detainees and overflow inmates from other counties and the state prison system, charging $45 a day per prisoner; "This jail is a revenue-generator for the county," says Colorado Springs attorney Lloyd Kordick. "They're actively advertising for customers. They're also trying to minimize their costs, and they really didn't care about the consequences."

The treatment Carranza-Reyes and the other detainees received will make you sick: [More...]

Sen. Harry Reid pulled the FISA bill today saying there were too many amendments to consider before the Christmas recess.

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat and presidential candidate, spent much of the day attacking the idea of giving immunity to the phone companies, and he took credit for the delay.

“Today we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not tolerate his abuse of power and veil of secrecy,” Mr. Dodd said in a statement.

“The president should not be above the rule of law, nor should the telecom companies who supported his quest to spy on American citizens,” he said. “I thank all my colleagues who joined me in fighting and winning a stay in the rush to grant retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies who may have violated the privacy rights of millions of Americans.”

The ACLU calls today's action "a clear win for civil libertarians."

“The ACLU wants to thank Senator Dodd and all of the senators who joined the effort to protect civil liberties. Senator Dodd was joined by nine other senators who voted in a midday procedural vote and 15 Senators who signed a letter asking for the Judiciary Committee’s bill to be given preference over the Intelligence Committee’s bill.

The House of Representatives has passed a $516 billion appropriations bill that President Bush has said he will sign -- provided Republicans add on $40 billion for the war in Iraq. (Roll call vote on $31 million for funding the war in Afghanistan is here.)

Received by e-mail tonight from Congresswoman Diana DeGette's office:

The Consolidated Appropriations Act passed the House of Representatives tonight on a vote of 253 to 154 [Amendment #1]. On Amendment #2, regarding funding for Afghanistan and prohibiting any funds from being used for Iraq, the vote was 206 to 201. The bill now goes to the Senate.

It invests in health care access, medical research, education, veterans, energy efficiency, and secures money for the Democratic and Republican conventions, to name just a few.

Colorado Congressman Ed Perlmutter also sent out an e-mail with praise for passage of the bill's convention security funding.

Wandering through Google News, it looks like a lot of people are labeling this a pork bill. The House Government Appropriations Committee's website where you can view the provisions for yourself is here. The committee's press release on the bill is here (pdf).

On the upcoming Senate consideration and war funding, the article linked above reports:

Meet Jerry Givens, former executioner for the Commonwealth of Virginia, with 62 state-sponsored killings under his belt. As he tells ABC News, he's sorry now and he has come to oppose capital punishment.

As the state's chief executioner, Givens pushed the buttons that administered lethal doses of electricity to the condemned. He could even choose how many volts to administer. And he is the first to admit that it was largely guesswork.

"If he was a small guy, I didn't give that much. You try not to cook the body, you know. I hate to sound gross,'' he told ABC News in a rare interview.

Givens has no formal medical training. although he once took a first aid course. He was given on the job training by his counterparts in Texas.

Among the reasons he's now opposed to the death penalty:

After the death penalty was reinstated in Virginia, Givens noted, ruefully, "crime went up.''

Givens' real doubts began with the number of wrongful convictions. He says: [More...]