Bill Clinton once said:

"The main idea here is still the old idea of the American dream ... that if you work hard and play by the rules, you ought to have a decent life and a chance for your children to have a better one, " he said.

Ezra Klein and Ady Barkan wonder why Dem Senate Leader Reid does not go to the mattresses for Sen. Webb's amendment for resting troops:

Harry Reid should bring the amendment up for consideration in September, and he should make clear that he's not going to table it. If he demands that the bill get an up-or-down vote and sticks to his guns, Reid will almost surely emerge victorious. Why? First off, the Webb amendment is exceptionally popular. Republicans can't seriously oppose more rest and recuperation time for soldiers and marines. They'll say that Congress shouldn't micro-manage the war, but with many troops on their third tour in Iraq, that argument doesn't carry much weight. Second, because the vote was so close last time, at the outset of this debate the outcome would be in sincere doubt. Add to that the fact that such Very Serious Republicans as John Warner and Dick Lugar have long billed September as the moment of truth regarding Bush's surge, they may finally (with some pushing) feel the need to vote against the president, and the Webb amendment offers the perfect "non-defeat" bill on which to do it. All of this adds real uncertainty -- which constitutes exactly the drama that the press loves. If Reid can keep the floor debate going for 3 or 4 days, the excitement will only build -- if the Senate is deadlocked over the fate of thousands of U.S. soldiers, America will tune in.

Assuming each of these very dubious assumptions is true, I think each and every one is NOT true, then what? Why the least suspenseful veto in history will occur. I have to ask this question - is anyone interested in ACTUALLY getting the troops out of the Iraq Debacle? Because if they do they need to come to grips with the fact that there is only one way to do it - by not funding it after a date certain. More.

Update: Here's just the 13 second clip of the end of Hillary's statement, Olbermann and the booing:

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The tv pundits are saying that the audience at the AFL-CIO debate booed Hillary after her criticism of Obama for saying what he thinks about Pakistan.

I've watched the replay twice. Her answer was done, there were no boos until Olbermann interjected asking Chris Dodd to respond. That's when the audience began booing.

I think they were booing Olbermann for giving Dodd instead of Obama the chance to respond.

On a related note, Thomas Edsall, writing on Huffington Post, has some campaign contribution numbers from Open Secret for Clinton, Obama and Edwards.

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The AFL-CIO Democratic candidate's debate, moderated by Keith Olbermann, is tonight at 7pm ET. MSNBC will air it live. More than 12,000 union members and guests are expected to attend.

Here are the candidates' two minute opening statements.

Seven of the eight contenders are participating. (Mike Gravell is not.)

I'll be watching and will live-blog in updates below.

The TL kid is in town for a few days, fresh from taking the NY bar exam, so my blogging will be light today. Here's an open thread for you.

If you've always wanted to work for the FBI but had a little problem because you couldn't swear you never smoked pot or tried other controlled substances, relief is at hand.

Old guidelines barred FBI employment to anyone who had used marijuana more than 15 times in their lives or who had tried other illegal narcotics more than five times.

But those strict numbers no longer apply. Applicants for jobs such as analysts, programmers or special agents must still swear that they have not used any illegal substances recently -- three years for marijuana and 10 years for other drugs -- but they are no longer ruled out of consideration because of more frequent drug use in the past.

The explanation is that the FBI has to face reality.

But FBI officials say the move is simply an acknowledgment of reality in a country where, according to some estimates, up to a third of the population has tried marijuana at some point.

Turns out the intelligence agencies and law enforcement communities relaxed their standards some time ago.

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Just the other day I was complaining that a New York Times editorial opposing the death penalty referred to an investigative article by its reporter Adam Liptak that was behind its "Times Select" wall and how the wall prevented the excellent article from getting out. I wouldn't link to it because people couldn't read it without paying.

The New York Post reports today the Times is ending the "Times Select" wall and all of its content will be free.

Smart move.

I'm angry but not surprised that the Democrats propelled the FISA Amendment to passage this past weekend. Matt Stoller today has the response from the ACLU to his post yesterday accusing it of dropping the ball. They didn't of course. It was the Democratic leadership who not only dropped the ball, but picked it up and ran with it. The ACLU writes to Matt:

We met with Pelosi and with Reid -- we spoke with the staff from every leadership office. They did not listen to us. It was dem leadership who scheduled the vote on these particular bills. Why be mad at us and not at them? We met with them. They rebuffed our arguments.

We weren't notified that the bill was moving until 6 days before when Rep. Harman let it slip on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. We gave it the full court press: with action alerts, meetings with Members of Congress and Senators and their staff.

Pelosi and friends spent the entire week negotiating with the DNI and cut out ALL the civil liberties groups - not just the ACLU.

The Democrats have pulled this before, including the last-minute wrangling right before the August recess. Their reason then, like now, was that they were afraid of appearing soft of crime and terrorism.

Let's take a walk back to 1996.

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There has been a fair amount of talk about the demise of the DLC of late. Ed Kilgore's take, cited by Joe Klein, whose column was all wrong on the subject, is a good one. But Ed ignores the political problem with the DLC - its incessant attack on Democratic partisanship. Today in WaPo, DLC Chairman Harold Ford, Jr. co-authors a column that exemplifies precisely what is wrong with the DLC philosophy. Instead of arguing for Democratic ideas, Ford and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley falsely portray Democrats as out of the mainstream:

With President Bush and the Republican Party on the rocks, many Democrats think the 2008 election will be, to borrow a favorite GOP phrase, a cakewalk. Some liberals are so confident about Democratic prospects that they contend the centrism that vaulted Democrats to victory in the 1990s no longer matters.

The temptation to ignore the vital center is nothing new. Every four years, in the heat of the nominating process, liberals and conservatives alike dream of a world in which swing voters don't exist. Some on the left would love to pretend that groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council, the party's leading centrist voice, aren't needed anymore.

But for Democrats, taking the center for granted next year would be a greater mistake than ever before. . . . With an ambitious common-sense agenda, the progressive center has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win back the White House, expand its margins in Congress and build a political and governing majority that could last a generation.

What in blazes are they talking about? On what issue is any Democrat arguing for ignoring swing voters? Why does the DLC insist on negatively caricaturing the progressive BASE of the Party? This is precisely why no one wants the DLC anymore. It is not their stands on any particular issue. It is their insistence on bashing the Democratic Party. The simple truth is a Democratic organization can not be based on espousing anti-Democratic principles an dbeing anti-Democratic Party. And that is what the DLC chooses to be. That is why it is obsolete. More.

Here we go again. Like clockwork, at least once a year, someone starts a dust-up about whether the blogosphere has enough women bloggers.

The Washington Post started the latest one with its assertion that Yearly Kos seemed dominated by white middle age males. Could have fooled me and I was there.

Jane at Firedoglake responds.

I have nothing much to add except to reiterate what I wrote in 2005, I am Woman, Hear Me Blog?

Maybe it's just me, but I am much more attuned to whether the blogger or opinionator has a voice I agree with and find readable, than whether s/he is male or female. There's only so many hours in the day, and I just don't spend many of them reading blogs and columnists who are going to make my blood pressure rise.

I saw an equal number of females and males over the four days at Yearly Kos and almost everyone seemed younger than me. It didn't matter to me one way or the other. I'd also point out that many of those who attended Yearly Kos were not bloggers at all but employees of progressive organizations, media outlets and candidates who were able to attend because their employers (or their campaigns) paid for it.

As for site demographics which also seem to be a topic around the blogosphere today, here are the latest for TalkLeft, from the recently completed Blogads Reader Survey:

Matt Stoller pens a diary that I find troubling and a vicious cheap shot at the ACLU:

Why did this bill happen suddenly this week, with little warning? Why did it create a situation where activists had basically no time to act? Where was the communications breakdown? I've hinted before at the rank incompetence of Anthony Romero's ACLU. . . . We saw that their narrow legalistic strategy failed here (as it often does). The ACLU should have been coordinating with the liberal House leadership on bills like this, giving outsiders weeks of notice so organizing can actually happen. We may not have been able to stop the bill, but at least we as a movement could have fought the fight. That this did not happen suggests an immense and unforgivable incompetence at the ACLU.

Excuse me Matt. Anything and everything I learned about the bill, and I started writing in the short term about this two weekends ago, came from the ACLU. In particular, Rachel Perrone was very helpful and proactive. The failure of the blogs and the self-appointed leaders of the Netroots this year has been abject and complete. From Iraq to FISA. How about looking at our own pathetic performance this year before we start casting stones.

It takes some nerve for a failing Netroots to go potshotting like this. Let's look in our mirrors first.

Thanks to Talking Points Memo for posting video of big portions of Hillary Clinton's breakout session -- including one of the two questions I got to ask her -- "How is your attorney general going to be different than Alberto Gonzales?" My question starts at 1:40 into the clip.

The other question I asked her was about warrantless electronic surveillance. I asked her if she were President, what kind of warrantless monitoring procedures would she authorize and what kind would she refuse to authorize? I haven't seen a clip of her answer to that anywhere yet.

Reportedly, there were 350 people who chose to attend Hillary's breakout session over those of the other candidates. That's 1/4 of those who attended Yearly Kos. I think any notion that Hillary was not enthusiastically welcomed at Yearly Kos is wrong. I thought she excelled during the breakout. As you can see from the entirety of the clip (not just my portion) she was cheered throughout.
As Newsweek reported, "The audience lapped it up."

Peter Daou, Hillary's online communications director, gives thanks here to Yearly Kos and those who attended.