Update: Church says Haggard confessed to some, but not all, of the allegations against him. My speculation: He confessed to buying meth from Jones.

Denver's 9 News tonight reports a voice expert has analyzed paid escort Mike Jones' voicemail evidence against Ted Haggard and concluded the voice is Haggard's.

Jones turned over two voicemails to the station which had them analyzed by Richard Sanders, who it says is an expert voice analyst.

The first voice message, left on August 4 at 2:18 p.m., says:

"Hi Mike, this is Art. Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply. And I could pick it up really anytime I could get it tomorrow or we could wait till next week sometime and so I also wanted to get your address. I could send you some money for inventory but that's probably not working, so if you have it then go ahead and get what you can and I may buzz up there later today, but I doubt your schedule would allow that unless you have some in the house. Okay, I'll check in with you later. Thanks a lot, bye."

I was going to post on yet another GOP outrage (Which one? You pick one. So many to choose from) confirming yet again why we must "Throw the Rubberstamp Republican Bums Out." But we can resume that series later. I have something more important to talk about . . . Barack Obama. (I'm joking.)

Sterling Newberry's harsh critique of Obama allows me to do something I have not done for quite some time - defend Barack Obama. Since I am not likely to get to do that much in the face of the seemingly endless Media worship of The Hope and Audacity Man, like George Washington Plunkett - 'I seen my opportunity and I am taking it.'

John Cole writes a powerful piece:

I just thought I would go on record stating that the last few weeks and months have really sucked for me. I spent my whole life in the GOP- starting in 1984 with county meetings, going to Teenage Republican camp (my friends called it Hitler Youth Camp, proving that Nazi/Republican quips are no new development), and spending the better part the fall of 1984 going door to door for John Raese in his race against Rockefeller (Raese, as you know, lost). Now, 22 years later, I find myself not only refusing to support Raese against Robert Byrd (the man who for years has embarassed me with his pork), but I have come to the conclusion that the Republicans are so corrupt, so dishonest, so beholden to special interests and fanatical lobbying groups that Byrd not only looks to be the better option, but the entire Democratic party looks better.

I, as do many, hurl words of invective at many I disagree with, too often. But those words are not meant to question the good faith of those who disagree with me in good faith and fairly. Republicans have a different world view and ideology than I, but this does not mean their expressions are not made in good faith. Too often, the Right, and to a lesser extent, the Left, questions motives, patriotism and honor. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it is merited. But not always.

Today, Andrew Sullivan acknowledges this and his excesses in the past:

I have indeed come to see that many, many liberals are indeed my brothers and my sisters. And increasing numbers of conservatives as well, thank God. For some on the far left, Bush could never have done any right, ever. I'm not going to exculpate the hate-filled parts of the far-left. But many, many others on the left were right about these people in power; and I was wrong. I threw some smug invective their way and, in retrospect, I am ashamed of it. Sure, I recognized my error before the last election, but that doesn't excuse it. Sure, some of it was just misunderstanding each other, in a climate of great fear, and some of it was just my arrogance that I was right. But that doesn't excuse it all either. My book is an attempt to rescue something from the wreckage - an atonement of sorts - and to move forward.

I welcome Andrew's acknowledgment and regret. But I have one bone to pick.

I have tried to ignore Amy Sullivan's return to her rather inane fixation on Democrats and religious voters, but Kevin Drum wrote an annoying post so here I am again. Kevin wrote:

So let's get real: It's true that Democratic politicians are uniformly respectful toward religion, but it's equally true that the Democratic Party responds to liberal concerns, and that means it's more sympathetic than the Republican Party is to a whole raft of positions that even some moderate believers view as anti-religious. Maybe Democrats should do something about this, maybe they shouldn't. We all have our own take on that. But it's not as if the problem is just a figment of Amy Sullivan's imagination.

Do what Kevin? Because there is only one thing that will satisfy "values" voters enough to put them in play for Democrats -- he knows it, Amy Sullivan knows it, you know it. Abandon a woman's right to choose. And not only will Democrats not do that, it would boggle the mind if they even contemplated it. It would be political suicide. The Democratic Party would cease to exist. If the repeal of a woman's right to choose is your number one issue - then you should be a Republican really. And nothing is going to change that. So now, what is the correct political response to the Republican Party's marriage to the Religious Right? I'll tell you again on the flip.

Via Wonkette, what's Cheney destroying now?

Spotted on 10/19, by an eagle-eyed Wonkette reader: The Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services truck making its way up to the Cheney compound at the Naval Observatory.

Below, I wrote my personal reaction to the Ellen Tauscher election eve stinkbomb in our Big Tent Democratic Party. But I really like what Chris Bowers had to say about it and our Big Tent, even though Chris and I have substantial ideological differences - particularly on tax and trade policy. While Chris and I differ on many issues, we agree completely on how our Big Tent Party must function. Let's look at what Chris wrote on the flip side.

Via digby, a former speechwriter for President Bush writes:

I have also grown to hate certain people of genuine accomplishment like Ted Turner, who, by his own contention, cannot make up his mind which side of the terror war he is on; I hate the executives at CNN, Turner's intellectual progeny, who recently carried water for our enemies by broadcasting their propaganda film portraying their attempts to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

I now hate Howard Dean, the elected leader of the Democrats, who, by repeatedly stating his conviction that we won't win in Iraq, bets his party's future on our nation's defeat.

I hate the Democrats who, in support of this strategy, spout lie after lie: that the president knew in advance there were no WMD in Iraq; that he lied to Congress to gain its support for military action; that he pushed for the democratization of Iraq only after the failure to find WMD; that he was a unilateralist and that the coalition was a fraud; that he shunned diplomacy in favor of war.

Stunning delusion fueling the paranoid tribalism classically described by Richard Hofstadter.

In my earlier post on Andrew Sullivan, I argued that regarding the philosophy of federal government, there are no conservatives. I argued that FDR routed the conservative movement during the New Deal and that the idea of a philosphy of conservatism as generally understood simply does not play a role in our mainstream political discussion.

I think this reply to Sullivan from Ramesh Ponnuru makes my point. There is no overarching discussion or debate on the role of government, but rather whether supporting a particular position on an issue is "conservative" or not, without reference to what a conservative philosophy might favor.

Ezra Klein gets at one of the main problems of Obamarama:

There's a real danger here for the left who, so long out of power, are ready to jump on whichever train looks likeliest to pull into the White House on time. That may (or may not) be a good strategy for returning to power. But throwing your lot in with the smoothest talker and hoping for the best once he achieves power is a terrible method for building a movement, or popularizing ideas. The left needs to set up incentives so presidential contenders to pledge fealty to their priorities -- their support should be contingent on ideological agreement, and should never precede it. As other have remarked, when David Brooks and Joe Klein both throw their weight behind a putatively "liberal' cause or candidate, smart leftists will look for the catch.

Obama is not building a new Democratic identity. Indeed, he seems to be selling himself as an other-Dem, not like the rest of them. This disdain for party politics and Democratic Party branding is the essence of my complaint regarding Obama.

Because I believe it is truly sincere, I try not to laugh too much at Andrew Sullivan's period of hairshirt attire as he now tries to figure out how in the holy heck he ever supported the Bush Administration. But in the wake of David Brooks' review of Sully's book, Sully's "eloquence" and earnestness does make me smile with amusement. Here is an example:

To paraphrase Oakeshott, I am a conservative in politics so I - and anyone else - can be a radical in every other activity, if we so choose. And I know no place on earth that allows that more fully than America. Which is why I love it so; and why I am so passionate in defending the system some people seem not to understand or have forgotten. Yes: I am passionate about doubt. And I am passionate about the protections in this Constitution so casually junked by this reckless, arrogant president. And I am passionate about saving the idea of America from those who have not fully understood - and now therefore threaten - its paradoxical strength.

If we accept this as Sullivan's guiding philosophy, how can he explain ever supporting the modern Republican Party? For who, even putting aside Iraq and the War on terror, and habeas corpus and torture, has least understood the idea of civil liberty, which Sullivan deems his central tenet, than the modern day Republican Party? Think Scalia, Thomas, Alito and likely Roberts. What does Sullivan expect from them?

Bob Herbert says:

The giddiness surrounding the Obama phenomenon seems to be an old-fashioned mixture of fun, excitement and a great deal of hope. His smile is electric, and when he laughs people tend to laugh with him. He’s the kind of politician who makes people feel good. But the giddiness is crying out for a reality check. There’s a reason why so many Republicans are saying nice things about Mr. Obama, and urging him to run. . . . If I were advising him, I would tell him not to move too fast. With a few more years in the Senate, possibly with a powerful committee chairmanship if the Democrats take control, he could build a formidable record and develop the kind of toughness and savvy that are essential in the ugly and brutal combat of a presidential campaign.