How often does Rudy Giuliani mention September 11?

Take a look, great job by Talking Points Memo.

Here's Rudy's actual ad running tomorrow in Iowa and then in New Hampshire -- those early states the news says he doesn't need. No mention of 9/11, only that "he's been tested."

Rep. Jim McGovern has a column up at HuffPo today quoting Barack Obama in earlier days on the War in Iraq.

Talking about how he would have voted on the '02 authorization, Mr. Russert flashed a quote from then-State Senator Obama on the screen that said: "I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don't know." In response, Senator Obama said it was probably the wrong time for him to speak out on the war.

....Mr. Russert also reminded Senator Obama about this comment he made in July of 2004: "There's not much of a difference between my position on Iraq and George Bush's position at this stage."

The point being, Obama is criticizing Hillary for acting like George Bush, when in those early days, he came close to supporting Bush on the war.

McGovern says,

I'm not interested in who was "first" to oppose this awful war. I'm more interested in what's next.

When it comes to ending the war, the question needs to be: Which candidate has the experience, maturity, skill and ability to safely get our troops out of Iraq and bring this sad chapter in our history to an end?

FBI Special Agent George Piro spent 7 hours a day for 8 months with Saddam Hussein after his capture. The goal: to get him to confess to crimes and get information out of him.

He didn't use torture. He used friendship.

Instead of bright lights, loud music or waterboarding, the Beirut-born Arabic speaker - who immigrated to the U.S. as a teen - built a rapport with the dictator nabbed in a spider hole. He treated him with respect and took care of his every need.

And, he got results. Piro's account is contained in a new pro-Administration book, "The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack."

Until 9/11, Saddam thought UN sanctions would go away and he could make a nuclear bomb. His prewar weapons of mass destruction deceptions were a ruse to convince Iran - whom he feared - that he had an arsenal.

Other disclosures:

400 journalists from around the country yesterday attended the media walk-through at Denver's Pepsi Center, the site of the Democratic Convention in August. There were tours of the facility, a general q and a session and break-out sessions. It ended with lunch and a short talk by DNC Chair Howard Dean.

Among the mainstream media in attendance asking questions were the Houston Chronicle, AP, WNYC radio, Tribune Company, Minn. Public Radio, Univision and CNN. One reporter in attendance weirded everyone out with his security question in which he named practically every thing that could go wrong, and essentially asked whether there was an exit plan in case of an attack.

A better question was whether there would be greater food availability than there was in Boston, where the choice was Dunkin' Donuts or ....Dunkin' Donuts. They said yes.

Bloggers in attendance (that I knew): McJoan, Wendy Norris and Cara DeGette of Colorado Confidential and Aaron of Square State.

McJoan at Daily Kos has a good wrap-up. So does AP reporter George Merritt (no relation) who until recently, was a reporter with the Denver Post.

Ok, now the important part. The bottom line for bloggers: [More...]

Maybe now this story will gain some traction in the media. It's been way too lenient on the connection between Bernie Kerik and Rudy Guiliani. There were headlines for one day and then no one asked the tough questions, the ones about what Rudy knew about Bernie and his alleged ties to mob associates and a company with alleged ties to mob associates and when he knew it.

The New York Times reports that publisher and former Fox News talk show host Judith Regan has filed a 70 page lawsuit against News Corp and Harper Collins in state court in Manhattan over her abrupt firing during the firestorm over her planned publication of O.J. Simpson's book about how he might have killed Nicole Brown Simpson. The text of the lawsuit is here.(pdf)

Regan alleges in the lawsuit that a Fox executive told her to lie to federal investigators about her relationship with Bernie Kerik in order to protect Rudy Giuliani. She says another Fox exec told her not to turn over relevant documents.

Among the reported details of the Regan-Kerik affair:

Ms. Regan had an affair with Mr. Kerik, who is married, beginning in the spring of 2001, when her imprint, Regan Books, began work on his memoir, “The Lost Son.” In December 2004, after the relationship had ended and shortly after Mr. Kerik’s homeland security nomination fell apart, newspapers reported that the two had carried on the affair at an apartment near Ground Zero that had been donated as a respite for rescue and recovery workers.

Fox claimed it fired Regan for alleged anti-semitic comments.

Then there's this from the December 15, 2004, New York Post:

Now a part of the cowardly Media.

Congrats to him. Now he is part of the problem . . .

Update (TL): Congratulations, Markos. Newsweek couldn't have picked a better choice. I disagree with Big Tent that he's now part of "the problem." If anything, now more people will get to read him and hopefully be swayed by what he has to write.

Many bloggers write for big media from time to time, myself included, and there's nothing wrong with being paid for our work. To think Markos would change his stripes because he's writing for big media is just silly. He won't.

Update [2007-11-13 19:21:41 by Big Tent Democrat]: I was joking. I totally agree with Jeralyn. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

This is hard to understand:

Even seasoned political journalists describe reporting on Hillary as a torturous experience. Though few dare offer specifics for the record--"They're too smart," one furtively confides. "They'll figure out who I am"--privately, they recount excruciating battles to secure basic facts. Innocent queries are met with deep suspicion. Only surgically precise questioning yields relevant answers. Hillary's aides don't hesitate to use access as a blunt instrument, as when they killed off a negative GQ story on the campaign by threatening to stop cooperating with a separate Bill Clinton story the magazine had in the works. Reporters' jabs and errors are long remembered, and no hour is too odd for an angry phone call. Clinton aides are especially swift to bypass reporters and complain to top editors. "They're frightening!" says one reporter who has covered Clinton. "They don't see [reporting] as a healthy part of the process. They view this as a ruthless kill-or-be-killed game."

Of course, Greg Sargent is right (Michael Crowley stupidly argues that Clinton is getting great coverage, but Michael Crowley is pretty dim generally) that Clinton has every reason to be suspicious of reporters, but my question is why would reporters be fearful of reprisals? What will a campaign withhold? Positive spin? What else does access get them? How stupid can the Media be?

I know, as stupid as all get out. See coverage of the Bush Administration if we have any doubt.

Rachel Perrone of the ACLU sends this Novemebr 1, 2007 letter from Brandon Mayfield to Sen Russ Feingold on FISA. The highlights:

I have read the “FISA Amendments Act of 2007” which is touted as being a balance by those who support it, but it is anything but balanced. The balance between liberty and security has already been hammered out by an earlier, apparently more enlightened generation of Americans and can be seen in the language of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. That perfect balance between criminal investigation and respect for a person’s privacy is known as probable cause. No search or arrest should be made without a warrant, and no warrant should issue without probable cause that a crime has been committed. Further the warrant must particularly describe the place to be searched and the person to be seized. . . .

Full text in extended.

Now that Senator Barack Obama has regained his footing in the Presidential race, it is time for him to go for the win - by demonstrating leadership on the issues NOW! Obama has shrewdly allowed John Edwards to take the path of self immolating personal attacks on Clinton (now he won't say he will support Hillary if she is the nominee, he is self destructing), while reaping the political benefits of those attacks. But Obama has a chance to do more now. He has a chance to define the terms of this contest. He can lead now on the issues. Particularly ending the war in Iraq by not funding it.

Matt Yglesias writes an excellent post that implicitly describes Obama's opportunity:

[S]omeone like Webb or Obama or Dean or Clark who can plausibly claim prescient judgment about what's become an extremely unpopular war is just in a much fundamentally stronger position to go up against a candidate (at either the presidential or congressional level) who's be a die-hard war supporter but not someone who was personally involved in the well-known Rumsfeld-era cavalcade of ineptitude.

Certainly, but it will take more than pointing to the 2002 AUMF vote. It will take leadership NOW. Strong leadership from the Senate. Strong leadership that insists the Congress not fund the war without timetables for withdrawal.

I am a Centrist. I believe the Democratic Party is a centrist Party. I wish the Democratic Party would fight for its centrist ideals. Like ending the the war in Iraq. Like not going to war in Iran. Like bringing balance to our tax system by reversing the extreme and radical Bush tax cuts. Like doing something about global warming. Like protecting equal rights for all Americans. Like protecting the right to choose. Like offering health care to all Americans. And so on. These Democratic principles stand in the center of American public opinion, held by a strong majority of Americans.

The Republican Party is an extreme party whose views are completely out of the mainstream of American thought. The views espoused by the GOP must be marginalized and beaten at every turn. It is because of this that I strongly dislike this view articulated by Sen. Hillary Clinton:

During this campaign, you're going to hear me talk a lot about the importance of balance," she began, after acknowledging that the Bush Administration had gone too far toward deregulation in most areas. "You know, our politics can get a little imbalanced sometimes. We move off to the left or off to the right, but eventually we find our way back to the center because Americans are problem solvers. We are not ideologues. Most people are just looking for sensible, commonsense solutions."

I think the views may be correct but it is poor politicking. Clinton needs to espouse her views on issues. Her problem solving views, not give silly buzzwords that implicitly relegate her Party to the extremes. It ignores that there is an extreme political party in the United States. The Republican Party. It ignores that there is a pragmatic, centrist problem solving party, the Democratic Party. This fight is not beyond politics. It is the CENTRAL political fight going on in this country. I wish Democrats, including Hillary Clinton would get that.

I'll be in court and then at the DNC Media Walk-Through at the Pepsi Center. Here's an open thread -- all topics are welcome.

Bob Herbert provides must reading today, especially for Brad DeLong, Andrew Sullivan, Kevin Drum, Matt Yglesias, Brendan Nyhan, and of course, David Brooks.

Herbert writes:

Andrew would not survive very long. On June 21, one day after his arrival, he and fellow activists Michael Schwerner and James Chaney disappeared. Their bodies wouldn’t be found until August. All had been murdered, shot to death by whites enraged at the very idea of people trying to secure the rights of African-Americans.

The murders were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County’s primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at that time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community. And white supremacy was still the order of the day.

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