Charles Franklin of pollster.com, one of the better analysts of polls, demonstrates the limits of relying on both polls and pollsters. Franklin opines that there has been a significant uptick in how Americans feel the "military efforts" in Iraq are going:

So what to make of the upturn in positive views of how the war is going? Republicans (including the president) have made real progress in swaying opinion to their side, while 10 months of Democratic efforts have failed to persuade citizens that the war continues to be a disaster. The war of partisan persuasion has tilted towards the Republicans and away from the Democrats, at least in this particular aspect.

This is just wrong. Franklin takes a result, "the Surge is working," and turns it into support for the Iraq Debacle. As the most recent polling suggests, Americans seem to understand that whatever success Petraeus is perceived as having militarily (and I think not much of it personally, but that is another issue), the american People understand that the Iraq Debacle is and will be a Debacle irrespective of Petraeus' efforts. Think of it this way - the American People are blaming Bush AND the Iraqis now. Petraeus and the troops are heroic and blameless. Sometimes pollsters can't think past the questions they want to focus on. Franklin is guilty of that here. More.

One thing about the Beltway is that no matter what the topic, its thinking is always at least 2 years behind the curve. As TechPresident reports, Karl Rove and Max Cleland are no different than the rest of the Beltway:

For most of us in the audience, the presentation was an elaborately-delivered (think Tom Cruise as Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia) compilation of overused Pew research points and carefully-selected stock photos. Clearly, we are not the intended audience. Those who would find this presentation helpful are those who still think internet users are 12-year-old kids in their mother's basement posting visceral blog comments in virtual echo chambers. In other words, Karl Rove and Max Cleland.

Heh and more.

Reuters is reporting Bernie Kerik was indicted this afternoon. He'll be arraigned tomorrow in federal court in White Plains New York.

Speaker Pelosi today announced:

House Democrats said Thursday they would send President Bush $50 billion for combat operations on the condition that he begin withdrawing troops from Iraq.

The proposal, similar to one Bush vetoed earlier this year, would identify a goal of ending combat entirely by December 2008. It would require that troops spend as much time at home as they do in combat, as well as effectively ban harsh interrogation techniques like waterboarding.

In a private caucus meeting, Pelosi told rank-and-file Democrats that the bill was their best shot at challenging Bush on the war. And if Bush rejected it, she said, she did not intend on sending him another war spending bill for the rest of the year.

"This is not a blank check for the president," she said later at a Capitol Hill news conference. "This is providing funding for the troops limited to a particular purpose, for a short time frame.

As always, we know Bush will veto.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Bush would veto any bill that sets an "artificial timeline" for troop withdrawals.

As always, I applaud the Speaker's STATED stance today.

As always, the important point here is that the House Dems MUST stick to their guns and tell the President - if he vetoes then he is abandoning the troops in the field. I repeat, the President of the United States will be ABANDONING AMERICAN TROOPS IN THE FIELD!

President Bush is proposing to stab the troops in the back by vetoing funding for them.

A disgraceful man. The worst President in history.

One of the biggest ideological fault lines in the Democratic Party is trade. I stand on the pro-free trade side of this issue. I supported and support NAFTA and its extension to Peru.

Among the Dem Presidential candidates, Open Left reports:

Barack Obama supports the pact while John Edwards opposes it. Hillary Clinton has yet to take a position, though she has suggested the nation may need a little "timeout" from new trade agreements pending a review of the effects previous pacts have had on American workers.

I agree with Barack Obama on this issue. More.

Not very unifying if you ask me:

I think there's no doubt that we represent the kind of change that Senator Clinton can't deliver on and part of it is generational. Senator Clinton and others, they've been fighting some of the same fights since the '60's and it makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done."

This is not new for Obama, in spite of Sully's ridiculous claim that he came up with this. Obama said the same thing last year:

. . . Basically, where the country is at right now, [Obama] asserts, is that you’ve got to move beyond ideology and you’ve got to address real problems in real time in real ways. He argues that it’s time to get beyond the ways in which issues were defined by the 1960s. He said ‘We don’t want to re-litigate the 60s,’ that many issues that were popular, that the interests and interest groups that were defined in the 60s have run out of steam and that we’ve got to move beyond them.

The DLC could not have said it better. In fact they said the same thing when the were supporting triangulation in the 1980s and 1990s. Too funny. If Hillary had said something like that, she would be excoriated by the Haters. Obama's silly nonsense will, of course, be explained away.

*DFHs.

Atrios points out that the fondest Beltway wish that the American People will turn around and start supporting the Iraq War, exemplified by Howie Kurtz and Michael Crowley of TNR, has been shattered:

Iraq war opposition at all-time high. New CNN poll released today finds:

Support for the war in Iraq has dropped to 31 percent and the 68 percent who oppose the war is a new record.

Despite the drop in violence in Iraq, only one quarter of Americans believes the U.S. is winning the war. There has been virtually no change in the past month in the number of Americans who believe that things are going badly for the U.S. in the war in Iraq.

Let the whining begin.

How long with the "liberal" Media continue to refer to a bald faced liar as a straight talker? Bob Somerby documents the atrocities:

[P]onder this statement by the New York Post’s Charlie Hurt. The boys were discussing Saint Rudy:

HURT (11/6/07): You know, because [Giuliani] is such a gun-slinger, and because he is such a straight-talker, people believe him . . .

Giuliani’s endless, howling misstatements are becoming the stuff of legend—but to Hurt, he’s still a “straight-talker.” But then, Time’s Mike Allen had stated this view roughly one minute before:

ALLEN: . . . It turns out they like his gun-slinging, straight-shooting swagger, that he comes across—he will answer a question, he will say, “No way, no how.” People like that.

To Allen, he’s a “straight-shooter.” . . .

All week, Clinton’s “evasiveness” and “double-talk” have been trashed on Hardball—like Gore’s lies and Kerry’s flip-flops before her. But Giuliani is still a “straight-talker!” There is absolutely nothing on earth that will keep these lads from their Group Tales.

And the Hillary Haters cheer. More.

A few months ago, I wrote about a T A Frank article where he stated that Bob Herbert was boring.

Now that we know what Frank finds interesting, Jenna v. Chelsea, it all makes sense.

Frank is a blithering idiot.

h/t Digby.

What will the true believer capitalists say about this?

Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke urged Congress today to take steps to ease the mounting mortgage crisis as renewed turbulence in global stock and currency markets continues driving down the value of the dollar and raising doubts about U.S. economic performance. . . . Bernanke said Congress should take steps to ensure that home foreclosures are kept to a minimum as aggressive adjustable mortgages reset to higher interest rates in coming months. . . . He suggested that Congress, for example, give final approval to a pending proposal to change Federal Housing Administration programs that help make mortgage loans available to people with middle to low incomes. . . .

Traditionally, a Fed Chairman does not involve himself in specific tax or spending issues. Alan Greenspan obliterated that when he endorsed President Bush's tax cuts. But Bernanke promised he would reverse that:

[Bernanke] said he would be nonpartisan as Fed chairman, offering general economic analysis but no specific recommendations on taxes or spending.

Of course in Washington, promises are made to be broken.

This is not about the Colorado Rockies.

It is about Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue pining for Bill Starbuck.

Perdue's office has begun sending out invitations to a prayer service for rain at the Capitol next week. . . . Perdue, whose son is a Baptist preacher, has had similar prayer services in the past. "Georgia needs rain. The issue at the heart of our drought problems is a lack of rain," [a [Perdue spokesman] said. "And there is nothing the government can do to make that happen. "The governor recognizes that the request has got to be made to a higher power."

Sounds like a job for Elmer Gantry to me. If I were Pat Robertson, I would be tempted to say that this is God's judgment on Georgia for voting for Bush. Luckily for me, I am not Pat Robertson.

h/t balloon juice.

Against the odds, Senator Chris Dodd has led the fight against FISA telco immunity.

The first step is to make sure retroactive immunity doesn't make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- where it will be considered shortly.

If we can get it stripped there, it will have to be offered as an amendment to the overall bill where it will be a lot easier to get 41 votes against retroactive immunity than 41 to sustain my filibuster if necessary

This is a vitally important issue, as the Dodd campaign demonstrates in this video of the whistleblower Marc Klein, who told the story of the telco's failure to respect the privacy of its customers that the law (the Communication Storage Act) requires.