President Bush will be back in the Rose Garden today, this time to issue an executive order that lifts the ban on off-shore drilling.

The ban, in place since his father was President, will need Congressional approval to take effect.

Democrats say they are for drilling, but argue that oil companies aren't going after the oil where they already have leases. So why open new, protected areas? they ask. Democrats say there are 68 million acres of federal land and waters where oil and gas companies hold leases, but aren't producing oil.

....Democrats support more drilling," [Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen] said. "In fact, what the president hasn't told you is that the oil companies are already sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands with the potential to nearly double U.S. oil production. That is why in the coming days congressional Democrats will vote on 'Use It or Lose It' legislation requiring the big oil companies to develop these resources or lose their leases to someone else who will."

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What Obama Needs To Learn:

Politics is not a battle for the middle. It is a battle for defining the terms of the political debate. It is a battle to be able to say what is the middle.

Via Digby, according to the LATimes, I am Centrist because I support stem cell research, immigration, addressing global warming and nuclear nonproliferation. As Digby writes:

It's good for us when positions that have been considered left wing ideas are characterized as centrist. It signals that the public . . . have decided that on some issues, anyway, what was once considered left wing heresy is now mainstream.

That is called defining what the middle is. Obama and progressives need to keep pushing the middle in our direction. On Iraq, warrantless wiretapping and a whole range of issues. Obama still has not learned the lesson.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Karl Rove did not appear today before the Congressional Committee that subpoenaed him to testify regarding its investigation into the politicization of the White House, including the Don Siegelman matter.

His lawyer, Robert Luskin, explains why here (pdf). While Rove didn't claim any personal privilege, Luskin notes the White House directed Rove not to appear. His letter includes a written letter from the White House dated yesterday and two memorandums from the Justice Department explaining why Rove, as a former close adviser to the President, cannot be compelled to answer questions about matters that arose during his tenure and relate to his official duties. Luskin says Rove is immune from compelled Congressional testimony.

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Via digby, Clark sidelined:

“On a scale of 1 to 10, Clark’s words were a 10 in terms of unhelpfulness,” said one Democrat who has helped manage past presidential campaigns.

Bob Shrum? Bob Beckel? Donna Brazile? What a bunch of losers. Cowering and flinching is what Dems are known for. Looks like that ain't changing.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Part of the outrage that many of us feel about the FISA Capitulation is that the Democrats, led by our presumptive nominee, are signalling not only a diminution of our Constitutional right to privacy, but also an acceptance of the Bush Administrations abuses as acceptable behavior for the United States. Today, Nick Kristof proposes a Truth Commission:

These abuses happened partly because, for several years after 9/11, many of our national institutions didn’t do their jobs. The Democratic Party rolled over rather than serving as loyal opposition. We in the press were often lap dogs rather than watchdogs, and we let the public down.

. . . Both Barack Obama and John McCain should commit to impaneling a Truth Commission early in the next administration. This commission would issue a report to help us absorb the lessons of our failings, the better to avoid them during the next crisis.

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Because they listen to people like Nancy Soderberg (for a more thorough evisceration of Ms. Soderberg's nonsense, see Glenn Greenwald):

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumptive presidential candidate, said it was a close call but he had decided to endorse the bill. As he explained, the bill won't allow the president to "suggest that somehow there's some law that stands above the laws passed by Congress in engaging in warrantless wiretaps." The rest of the party should follow Obama's lead.

Besides being false, the current FISA law ALREADY "won't allow the President to 'suggest there's some law that stands above the laws passed by Congress in engaging warrantless wiretaps,'" it is political stupidity. It creates stories like this:

Via mcjoan, Senator Frank Church:

Personal privacy is protected because it is essential to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our Constitution checks the power of Government for purposes of protecting the rights of individuals, in order that all our citizens may live in a free and decent society. . . . When government infringes those right instead of nurturing and protecting them, the injury spreads far beyond the particular citizens targeted to untold numbers of other Americans who may be intimidated...

The natural tendency of government is toward abuse of power. Men entrusted with power, even those aware of its dangers, tend, particularly when pressured, to slight liberty. Our constitutional system guards against this tendency. It establishes many different checks upon power. It is those wise restraints which keep men free. In the field of intelligence those restraints have too often been ignored....

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The AP reports:

Former Sen. Jesse Helms, who built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during 30 conservative years in Congress, died on the Fourth of July. He was 86.

We do not speak ill of the dead at TalkLeft, at least on the day of the death. Keep that in mind if you feel a need to comment.

RIP, Jesse Helms.

Via Atrios, Nancy Pelosi's 2007 promise to have us out of Iraq in 2008:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted Thursday that there would be “a drastic reduction in troops” in Iraq by the middle of 2008, saying Democratic opposition to the war had “changed the debate on Iraq in our country.” In an interview airing Friday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Pelosi, D-Calif., told host Chris Matthews that while Democrats may have failed for now to force President Bush to agree to a timetable to withdraw U.S. troops, their agitation for disengagement from Iraq had backed the president into a corner.

Let me be clear - the Democratic Party has not succeeded, the Republican Party has failed. The current Congress is a travesty. And "grassroots, progressive activists" have gone along and continue to go along for the ride. I for one will NOT shut up. Go try that nonsense on someone else.

Speaking for me only

It has now become apparent to just about everyone that Barack Obama is a conventional politician who will run a conventional general election campaign. Unlike some, I am not surprised. Pols are pols and do what they do.

What I am more interested in is how we, as Democrats, progressives and pseudo activists, should react to this. I have stated clearly that I will be no mere cheerleader and I think I have been true to my word. By the same token, I will, without question, support and vote for Barack Obama as the best choice I have for President in this election.

Some see this as an inconsistency. I think it is not and I will try to illuminate my view on the flip.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, often mentioned as a running mate for John McCain, was against a legislative pay raise in Louisiana before he wasn't against it enough to stop it.

During his election campaign, he vowed to prohibit legislative pay raises.

The legislature more than doubled legislative salaries, a particularly undeserved raise in light of the state's slow recovery from Katrina and the economic devastation that haunts many of its residents.

Even while denouncing the money lawmakers are giving themselves, the governor has tried to depict the matter as an internal legislative affair that does not require his meddling.

Jindal has two more weeks to pull the trigger on a veto, but he apparently doesn't want to derail support for his "reform" agenda, which includes "allowing science teachers to use 'supplemental' material that critics say is merely a stalking-horse for teaching creationism." For this they're getting a raise?

Four years ago, the question was:

Why Is Paul Minor Being Prosecuted?

The latest installment of Raw Story's "ongoing probe of political prosecutions by Bush appointed US Attorneys" focuses on Minor's role as a large contributor to the Democratic Party, made possible by the fees he earned in the settlement of states' litigation against the tobacco industry to recover smoking-related health care costs.

Republicans, meanwhile, who had previously enjoyed generous donations from the tobacco industry, were left with little for their campaign coffers.

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