Tom Edsall of the Huffington Post watches Fred Thompson on Hannity and Colmes so you don't have to:

Hannity[:] "They have attacked you, they have attacked your family, and now, they come out in the Los Angeles Times with a piece that says you lobbied for abortion rights. You say that's absolutely not true."
[THOMPSON]: "You need to separate a lawyer who is advocating a position from the position itself."

In others words, sorrry, Sean, it is absolutely true. Edsall wry notes:

If ever an answer demanded a follow-up, this fit the bill. . . . Hannity, however, must have missed that.

Read Edsall's whole piece. It is a good one.

A 13 minute video will be released by New York firefighters tomorrow debunking Rudy Giuliani's claim to being a 9/11 hero. ABC News reports:

The nation's largest firefighters union is set to launch a video on Wednesday that seeks to tarnish former mayor Rudolph Giuliani's reputation as a strong leader before and after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The 13-minute video -- set for distribution to firefighters and the general public courtesy of the International Association of Fire Fighters -- uses interviews with New York City firefighters and families of 9/11 victims to argue that Giuliani has exaggerated his record as mayor.

"He's running on his 9/11 leadership and it was lacking -- and there was none," Jim Riches, a deputy chief in the New York Fire Department and a father of one of the 9/11 victims, says on the video, according to a transcript obtained by ABC News. "I blame Giuliani. He was the leader that day. And he was the leader for the eight years leading up to that."

Bill Clinton spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival Saturday night, suggesting that if Hillary is elected President, an appropriate title for him would be "First Laddy."

He also spoke of terrorists and made a point that too few acknowledge:

Terrorism highlights the problem of identity, Clinton said. The suspects in the Britain bombing plot did not feel like they belonged in the world they were in, he said.

An appropriate foreign policy to address those issues, he said, includes a security policy and a policy "to make more partners and fewer terrorists." The world's poor and disenfranchised are "just as good as we are and need to be given a chance to feel that life has more meaning," Clinton said.

And yes, Bill Clinton is enough of a celebrity that even those in star-jaded Aspen gawk when he passes by.

Here's Rudy Giuliani in 2001 on the pardon of Marc Rich:

MAYOR RUDOLPH GIULIANI, New York: Well, I'm shocked that the President of the United States would pardon him. After all, he never paid a price. He got on an airplane, took all his records, and ran off to Zug, Switzerland, where he's remained a fugitive, and has made untold efforts to try to get the charges reduced, including many, many overtures and entreaties based on the use of influence.

Here's Giuliani now on the commutation of Scooter Libby:

"After evaluating the facts, the president came to a reasonable decision, and I believe the decision was correct," Giuliani said in a written statement Monday evening.

Did he forget that Scooter Libby hasn't paid a price yet? At least Marc Rich proceeded within the system and "made untold efforts to try to get the charges reduced." He even had Scooter Libby representing him in those endeavors.

It should be noted that Giuliani indicted Rich in 1983. Benji Sarlin at TPM's Election Central has more.

More...

So, Fred Thompson may have been a mole for the Nixon Whitehouse.

Howie Klein at Down With Tryanny has the details.

Via a WSJ interview with Giuliani, h/t to Josh Marshall for pointing to the interview, Rudy says that:

I think that terrorism should be approached the way we approach organized crime and the way we approach crime.

Of course, that is contra the Republican talking point about what the US did wrong in dealing with terrorism before the great and powerful Bush Administration and what is part of Rudy's basic strategy of criticizing the Clinton Administration. In fact, not two minutes earlier in the SAME interview, Giuliani said:

The World Trade Center was attacked in 1993; we saw it as a criminal act and not an act of war. It was an act of war. That was a mistake.

Sounds like Rudy proposes we return to the 1980s, when he was filing RICO cases against the Five Families. We need some nicknames though - Osama "The Chin" bin Laden? Has a nice ring to it doesn't it?

Senator Barack Obama (D-Il) shattered Dem fundraising records when he raised $32.5 million in the last quarter. He has now raised nearly $59 million for his campaign for the Presidency.

Sen. Hillary Clinton raised $27 million, also surpassing previous Democratic highs. John Edwards raised his stated goal of $9 million.

Obama will be able to compete dollar for dollar with Clinton. He has at least the same amount of free media access. When the campaign starts in earnest after Labor Day, Obama will have every tool he needs to win the nomination. As will Hillary. Edwards is banking on a win in Iowa to propel him. He has the funds to give it his best shot. The other candidates, including my guy Sen Dodd, will need to capture lightning in a bottle in Iowa.

Money is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for winning the nomination. Ask Howard Dean. So, this does not decide the nomination. If you believe in polls this early, Obama trail Hillary badly. In my view, nothing is decided until Iowa. We'll see what happens. May the best candidate win.

Via Sentencing Law and Policy, I see that at the Democratic debate on Saturday night at Howard University, the candidates spent six minutes on sentencing reform and mandatory minimum sentences.

The Sentencing Project reports:

Democratic Forum, the first of the All-American Presidential Forums broadcast on PBS and hosted by Tavis Smiley, addressed the issues of mandatory minimum sentencing and racial disparity in the nation's criminal justice system Thursday. Hosted at Howard University in Washington, D.C., the forum focused on crime and punishment as one of eight topics presented to the Democratic candidates.

Rep. Kucinich first brought up the need to eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing when asked about the disparate rate of incarceration, because "We know who's serving those mandatory minimums."

Several candidates addressed the need for reform of federal crack cocaine sentencing laws, including Sen. Joseph Biden, who this week introduced the Drug Sentencing Reform & Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2007 which would eliminate the crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity.

The entire transcript is here and the sentencing issue portion begins here. You can watch the segment here.

Shorter version: Kucinich has always seen the light. Hillary and Edwards have made major shifts in the right direction, kudos to them. Richardson disappoints and is the only candidate to evade the question.

As to specifics, here's what each of them said.

Hillary defends people like me:

Taking a swipe at a potential GOP presidential rival, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday criticized Fred Thompson for suggesting illegal Cuban immigrants pose a terrorist threat. "I was appalled when one of the people running for or about to run for the Republican nomination talked about Cuban refugees as potential terrorists," Clinton told Hispanic elected officials. "Apparently he doesn't have a lot of experience in Florida or anywhere else, and doesn't know a lot of Cuban-Americans." . . . The actor and former Tennessee senator not[ed] that the United States had apprehended 1,000 people from Cuba in 2005, Thompson said, "I don't imagine they're coming here to bring greetings from Castro. We're living in the era of the suitcase bomb." . . .

On a serious note, it was an absurd thing for Thompson to say. And it was smart politics by Hillary to slam him for it.

What it surprise you if I told you that 53% of Americans think there should be a 3rd Party? Would you think that was a huge sign that there is room for Bloomberg to make a run as an Independent? If it would let me refer you to this:

8.4%

That was the vote Ross Perot received in 1996 when, as now, 53% of Americans said to pollsters there should be a 3rd Party. Remember that when Broder, Fineman and the DC Gasbags trumpet that poll result.

The second quarter campaign revenue stats are coming in. Hillary's campaign raised in the neighborbood of $27 million, beating her first quarter total, and Obama is expected to equal or best that amount.

John Edwards is third with about $9 million and in 4th place, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has raised $7 million.

Richardson also grew his number of individual donors from the first quarter, from 24,270 to 38,000.

When do candidates like Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, who can't win, drop out and work for the benefit of the Democratic party instead of themselves?

I have always thought Richardson is campaigning for the VP slot on the ticket. So I'll give him a pass and say he should hang in there for now.

Related: HillCam is coming.

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Jon Chait:

Yesterday, Rudy Giuliani traveled to Regent University to kiss the ring of Pat Robertson. For those who don't recall, Robertson is not just a strong social conservative, he's a raving loon. . . . When conservatives are forced to address the subject of Robertson, they usually insist that he's a marginal figure. That's basically what liberals say when forced to discuss the likes of Louis Farrakhan, who is a very close parallel to Robertson. But you don't see Democratic presidential candidates seeking out Farrakhan's warm public embrace. So why isn't the Giuliani-Robertson story getting much national attention?