Ezra discusses a Hillary Clinton quote, via Joe Klein, that describes her views on the relationship between political rhetoric and policy. Like Ezra, I find it persuasive:

Obama has added a fillip of honesty by telling his audiences that [his energy] program might result in higher energy prices. I asked Clinton why she hadn't been similarly honest, and she immediately turned it around: Obama wanted to spend the proceeds of the pollution auction — perhaps as much as $50 billion — on alternative-energy research and development. "I have committed to putting money from that auction into programs to ... cushion the economic impact on working and poor families," she said. And then she added scornfully, "So if you want to go and get some debating point telling people this is going to cost you money, then I don't think you've thought through the policy as carefully as you could ... This is going to be a tough transition. It's got to be done politically. One of the ways to make it politically palatable is to rebut the Republican talking point that ... it's another huge tax increase on Americans. You know what? It isn't."

Politics is more than "straight talk." (I believe it has little to do with straight talk.) It is about presenting your policies in ways that will succeed politically. To govern, you must win. To enact your policies, you must persuade the public.

The strange thing to me is, as I have repeated often, Obama can not only do this, he can probably do it better than anyone. But he chooses not to. It baffles me immensely.

Booman writes:

Which gets straight to the problem with so many Democratic nominees. Was Michael Dukakis a tough guy? Could you believe Bill Clinton? Which Al Gore was going to show up to which debate? Where did John Kerry stand on the war? As Terence Samuel notes, this is not the kind of image that we need in our next nominee. Hillary has worked hard to project an image of toughness, but she hasn't mastered it at all, the art of creating trust. . . . [S]he isn't really all that tough and, more importantly, she isn't trustworthy. She doesn't project trustworthiness. . . .

What nonsense. There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton is perceived as tough. Indeed, that is one thing the "castrating bitch" GOP meme has accomplished. But she has been attacked as untrustworthy. The funny thing is Booman notes that no Dem GE Presidential candidate seems to have figured out how to be viewed as trustworthy. But he thinks Clinton is the problem. What myopia! Bob Somerby has covered this extensively and it is amazing that Booman does not seem to know about it:

John Edwards is announcing a plan to help veterans with PTSD today in New Hampshire.

Under Edwards' plan, veterans could seek counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder outside the Veterans Health Administration system; the number of counselors would increase; and family members would be employed to identify cases of PTSD.

PTSD among vets has increased 70% in the last fiscal year. There is currently a backlog of 600,000 claims.

Edwards said that despite his opposition to how the war has been waged, the enlisted men and women deserve the nation's support when they complete their service. "Warriors should never be ashamed to deal with the personal consequences of war."

The five point plan will cost $400 million, which Edwards proposes to fund "through closing tax loopholes and more efficient tax collection."

Speaking for me only

Brad DeLong is a great progressive commentator on matters economic. But, for a second time that I know of, DeLong has demonstrated a thoughtlessness about race issues. The first, in which he was joined by Matt Yglesias, involved a defense of Bill Bennett's offensive remarks regarding fighting crime through termination of African American pregnancies. (See also Nathan Newman's great piece on the subject.) Today, in pointing out factual errors in a Bob Herbert column (Herbert erroenously confused the Consumer Price Index with the core inflation rate and confusingly used the technical term recession when making an argument about our skewed economy), DeLong, in my view, innocently but insensitively, asked:

How has the New York Times managed to pick Bob Herbert out of the 75 million liberal adults in America? It is a mystery.

Now, everyone is entitled to their opinion about Bob Herbert. Mine is that he is a national treasure. Certainly NOT liking Herbert is a respectable, though wrongheaded opinion. But surely DeLong SHOULD have known what his comment would invite.

For example, "respectable" champion race baiter, Andrew "Bell Curve" Sullivan wrote:

A question only a left-liberal could ask:

"How has the New York Times managed to pick Bob Herbert out of the 75 million liberal adults in America? It is a mystery." Is he kidding me?

Get it? It's because Herbert is black. Ha! What a funny racist idiot Sullivan is. And make no mistake. Andrew Sullivan is a racist. More.

As promised earlier, Obama on MTP:

SEN. OBAMA: . . . [O]n Social Security, for example, she has maintained, it appears, that if we just get our fiscal house in order that we can solve the problem of Social Security. Now, we’ve got 78 million baby boomers that are going to be retiring, and every expert that looks at this problem says “There’s going to be a gap, and we’re going to have more money going out than we have coming in unless we make some adjustments now.” . . .

Ah, the Social Security "crisis." More.

The Denver Post begins a series today on the inadequate job the feds are doing with respect to prosecuting crimes on Indian reservations.

Since Indian reservations fall under federal jurisdiction, crimes occurring on them are prosecuted by the Justice Department in federal court. Today's article highlights the number of sex assault and other violent crimes that never make it to prosecution. Two thoughts come to mind: [More...]

If you or I lie to the United States government, we get charged with a crime. If Boeing lies to the government about its ability to complete a contract to build spy satellites, it gets rewarded with a $430 million kill fee.

In September, I wrote about Sarge Brinkley, a young injured Army vet who returned to the U.S. addicted to pain pills. Once home, he robbed two pharmacies for percocet.

I'm writing again because his preliminary hearing is November 16, and he needs your help. Please send a letter to convince the D.A. to offer a reasonable deal.

A West Point graduate who is currently facing twenty-odd years in prison for robbing a Walgreens under California's minimum sentencing laws. He used a gun (unloaded) and robbed the drugstores of only Percocet - no money, harming nobody.

Here's the kicker -- he was addicted to the opiates after smashing his hip while serving abroad in the Army -- the military medical system
kept misdiagnosing him, and feeding him more of the painkillers. Add in some serious PTSD (he guarded mass graves in Bosnia from desecration at one point) and he spiraled down.

Sargent turned himself in, has been in a rehab program in county jail for over a year and a half while he awaits sentencing, and by all accounts is
doing well. The Santa Clara DA wants to chuck the book at him, and he'll be gone.

The California Report covered Sarge's case last week.

More...

My impression of Senator Barack Obama's appearance on Meet the Press (the transcript link will be added when available) was that it was adequate. It was a typical Russert gotcha fest that Obama took in stride and handled with aplomb. Except for one issue. Social Security.

The exchange with Russert on Social Security was particularly damaging because Obama has made a point of calling out Senator Clinton for not speaking forthrightly on the so-called Social Security "crisis." But Russert pulled out quotes from Obama where he said "all options would be on the table," compared it to Obama's most recent rhetoric that appeared to rule out certain options. Obama went back and forth on what was "on the table" and what was not on the table, and how he would deal with Social Security. Ironically, Obama seemed to endorse some type of consensus approach remarkably similar to what Senator Clinton has described.

In the end, Russert asked Obama 'so, all options are on the table?' Obama did not say no. In that exchange, Obama proved why Senator Clinton has taken the right POLITICAL approach on Social Security - a serious approach gets you nowhere in today's political climate with a Media that perpetrates the myth that Social Security is in crisis and a Republican Party that will pounce with mendacity and distortions. Obama gave answers today that CAN be used against him, both by Republicans and his Democratic primary opponents. And discussion of the issue itself has been forwarded not at all. Yet again, Obama should learn the lesson that he does not have the power to change politics. He is just a politican. An extremely talented one to be sure, but still just a politician.

The Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner took place in Iowa Saturday night. It's hard to credit anything any of the candidates say when you read stuff like this:

Obama's raucous supporters dominated the cheering battle, with yell leaders in each of his seating sections coordinating choruses of "Fired Up" and "Ready to Go" -- the call-and-response lines he often uses to close his rallies.

Supporters of Obama and Clinton made up more than half of the crowd, and Edwards also brought a big contingent. They were easy to spot -- Clinton's backers wore yellow T-shirts, Obama's red and Edwards' white.

Each candidate entered the darkened arena in a white spotlight and walked through the crowd to the podium in the center of the floor, giving the event the feel of a prize fight.

The lead quote from Chris Dodd:

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd promised the crowd that if he was president "You will get your Constitution back. No more Guantanamos."

Then why didn't Dodd show up to vote against Mukasey?

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Via andgarden, Paul Krugman notices that David Brooks is a "heinous" dissembler:

So there’s a campaign on to exonerate Ronald Reagan from the charge that he deliberately made use of Nixon’s Southern strategy. When he went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1980, the town where the civil rights workers had been murdered, and declared that “I believe in states’ rights,” he didn’t mean to signal support for white racists. It was all just an innocent mistake. Indeed, you do really have to feel sorry for Reagan. He just kept making those innocent mistakes.

When he went on about the welfare queen driving her Cadillac, and kept repeating the story years after it had been debunked, some people thought he was engaging in race-baiting. But it was all just an innocent mistake.

. . . Similarly, when Reagan declared in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act had been “humiliating to the South,” he didn’t mean to signal sympathy with segregationists. It was all an innocent mistake. . . .

Hopefully people like Kevin Drum will know better than to defend this Brooks tripe.

Rudy Giuliani got heckled in Loveland, Colorado this weekend.

The Boston Globe has a very long feature on Rudy as part of its series on all the candidates. Here's what you need to know:

His endorsement of police "stop and frisk" policies, crackdowns on jaywalkers, and roustings of homeless people provoked outcries. The city's liberal establishment was in a perpetual state of outrage, as were leaders of the city's African-American community, nearly all of whom found the mayor's office closed to them.

....Giuliani fought to limit artists, protesters, porn shops, labor demonstrations, street preachers, and sidewalk vendors. In one case, the court blocked him from banning advertisements on city buses that said New York magazine was "Possibly the only good thing in New York Rudy hasn't taken credit for."

He attacked the reputation of a dead man:

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