The latest non-news news about Iraq comes from a nearly 700-page Army study that notes that the Army--including General Tommy Franks--did not prepare adequately for the post-invasion phase in Iraq. The bottom-line quote: "The military means employed [in Iraq] were sufficient to destroy the Saddam regime; they were not sufficient to replace it with the type of nation-state the United States wished to see in its place." But this failure does not belong only to Franks and the Army. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not prepare effectively for what would come after the invasion; he was too concerned with demonstrating his new whiz-bang ideas about a smaller and lighter military and getting out quickly. And George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice were also negligent. In our book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, Michael Isikoff and I reported that in one meeting with Franks, Bush asked what would happen after the invasion and Franks replied that in each Iraqi town and village a U.S. military officer would be appointed as "lord-mayor" and each would have the responsibility of maintaining civic order and administering basic services. Bush and the White House did not follow up with Franks to determine if such a scheme made sense and would be workable. All in all, Bush and his top aides displayed reckless disregard for what would come after the invasion. That negligence alone should have gotten Bush diselected in 2004, but it did not. In addition to the Army study, I'd like to see an internal White House report--I'd settle for a congressional investigation--on how Bush and his crew planned (that is, did not plan) for the post-invasion period.

Which brings me to 10 Downing Street. I only recently came across the below excerpt from Jonathan Steele's Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq, which describes a prewar session that British Prime Minister Tony Blair held with outside-government experts who offered their views on what might occur in Iraq following an invasion:

On November 19 2002, four months before the invasion of Iraq, Tony Blair made a rare attempt to seek out expert views beyond the circle of his official advisers. Six distinguished academics were invited to Downing Street: three specialists on Iraq, and three on international security. George Joffe, an Arabist from Cambridge University, and Charles Tripp and Toby Dodge, who had both written books on Iraq's history, made opening statements of about five minutes each. They decided not to alienate the prime minister by discussing whether an invasion was sensible or necessary, but only what its consequences might be.

"We all pretty much said the same thing," Joffe recalls. "Iraq is a very complicated country, there are tremendous intercommunal resentments, and don't imagine you'll be welcomed." He remembers how Blair reacted. "He looked at me and said, 'But the man's uniquely evil, isn't he?' I was a bit nonplussed. It didn't seem to be very relevant." Recovering, Joffe went on to argue that Saddam was constrained by various factors, to which Blair merely repeated his first point: "He can make choices, can't he?" As Joffe puts it, "He meant he can choose to be good or evil, I suppose."

Joffe got the impression of "someone with a very shallow mind, who's not interested in issues other than the personalities of the top people, no interest in social forces, political trends, etc".

Dodge also struggled to convince Blair of the obstacles that would face anyone who occupied Iraq. "Much of the rhetoric from Washington appeared to depict Saddam's regime as something separate from Iraqi society," he remembers. "All you had to do was remove him and the 60 bad men around him. What we wanted to get across was that over 35 years the regime had embedded itself into Iraqi society, broken it down and totally transformed it. We would be going into a vacuum, where there were no allies to be found, except possibly for the Kurds."

The experts didn't seem to make much of an impression. Blair "wasn't focused," Tripp recalls. "I felt he wanted us to reinforce his gut instinct that Saddam was a monster. It was a weird mixture of total cynicism and moral fervour."

I suppose we can give Blair credit for attending such a meeting, even if he wasn't able to absorb the information presented to him by people who knew Iraq far better than he did. Bush, as far as we know, never held a similar session. Nevertheless, both Blair and Bush rushed into Iraq without seeking to understand the nation, its society, its history, its culture, and its people and without bothering to draft a serious post-invasion to-do list. This ain't news. But it's a fact that ought to be noted incessantly.

Is it wrong for a journalist to be paid a modest fee by a state-supported media entity to provide on-air analysis or commentary? Is it unethical?

A recent article by Dafna Linzer and Paul Kiel that was posted by ProPublica, the new nonprofit investigative reporting outfit, suggested that it is. And the article cited me as one of several media people in possible breach of journalistic ethics.

At issue is Alhurra, the U.S. government-funded Arabic news organization and its practice of paying modest fees to reporters (and political operatives and commentators) who appear on the network. ProPublica, Kiel told me, had compiled a list of 150 or so Washington journalists, former government officials, and lobbyists who had received honorariums for being guests on the channel. And I am on the list. Also among Alhurra's paid commentators have been journalists from Politico, Roll Call, Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Des Moines Register, Texas Monthly, Haaretz of Israel, and the Financial Times of London.

Three times this year, Alhurra asked me to appear. The first occasion was on the night of Super Tuesday. I was in Chicago at Barack Obama's campaign rally, and Alhurra producer Julie Zann asked if I could join one of the network's correspondents on the riser in the back of the room and explain to Alhurra's Middle East audience the significance of the election results. Sure, I said. And, she added, I would get a fee, which turned out to be $300. Weeks later, Alhurra invited me to do commentary for four or five hours on the evening of the Pennsylvania primary. I sat in a small television studio by myself during this time, staring into a camera, and waiting to be told I was on air. For that work, I was paid $1000. And a few weeks ago, I appeared on an Alhurra talk show about Washington to explain the sort of journalism I practice and the recent scoops I had obtained. The payment was, I believe, $250 or so. (The pay stub has not yet been filed in my disorganized office.)

None of this was unusual. Of course, both commercial media and slightly-public-funded media (such as NPR) pay for some appearances and commentary. And, as I explained to Kiel, when he interviewed me for the ProPublica article, it is customary for foreign media outlets that are state-supported--such as the BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Company--to compensate guests for interviews and commentary. I have received such payments in the past (regrettably, only a handful of times). Alhurra was playing by these rules.

Linzer and Kiel did not mention the BBC/CBC practice in the article.

Moreover, Voice of America, something of a sister organization for Alhurra, also compensates journalists who are guests on some of its programs. (VOA and Alhurra are both overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent federal agency responsible for all U.S. government-sponsored international broadcasting.) For example, VOA features a weekly showed called "Issues in the News," during which three Washington journalists gab about the top stories of the week. On the most recent edition of the program, Martin Schram, a Scripps Howard columnist moderated a conversation with Don Frederick, the political editor of The Los Angeles Times, and Tom DeFrank, the veteran Washington bureau chief for The New York Daily News.

Frederick told me he received a whopping $100 for the appearance. And Tish King, head of public affairs for VOA and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, says that was a standard fee. "If people are exerting themselves," she remarks, "we want to pay them at least something. We don't even arrange for cars for people to get here." And she defends the practice of compensating guests: VOA and Alhurra "need experts; that's what enriches the programming." (I wonder why the ProPublica piece did not make the connection between Alhurra's practice of paying guest commentators and that of VOA, even though I mentioned this to Kiel.)

ProPublica, working with 60 Minutes, and The Washington Post have each recently produced pieces that depict Alhurra as a mismanaged and wasteful organization. (See here and here.) I'm not writing to defend the network. And if it is indeed a waste of taxpayers' money, perhaps a journalist (in his or her role as a citizen) ought not to work with the operation. I had three interactions with Alhurra that told me little about the overall operation. But the matter of journalists accepting payment for providing commentary to Alhurra is not the easy gotcha the ProPublica piece implied.

The article noted that Kelly McBride, a media ethics specialist, believes that reporters damage their ability to be objective by accepting government money. (I am not a big fan of objectivity--or, that is, the he said/she said journalism practiced beneath the banner of objectivity that often muddies the truth--but I do profoundly believe in accuracy.) Linzer and Kiel cited no other media ethics specialists. But under this standard, should reporters (American or British) tell the BBC to buzz off? Would it be okay to appear on the BBC--and have one's profile boosted--and not accept money? Is it fine for an American journalist to accept money from a foreign state-supported media outfit, but not from one financed by his or her own government? And should journalists always say no to VOA?

As I mentioned to Kiel, I find this an intriguing issue. If the Voice of America (or Alhurra) is producing radio and television programs watched and heard (by whatever the number of people) in foreign countries, don't we want it to represent a full range of views? I noted that as long as I was granted complete editorial freedom to say what I thought, I saw nothing wrong in accepting a modest fee for what was in essence freelance work. ("I don't think anyone can accuse me of going soft on the U.S. government," I said to Kiel.) And I even believe there is something positive about a government-underwritten network using a journalist who has been rather critical of the current administration. Consider the message conveyed to overseas viewers--and, yes, one question is how many people actually watch Alhurra--if they see a U.S.-sponsored media organization providing a platform to the author of The Lies of George W. Bush? Would everything have been proper, from an ethics perspective, if there had been appearances but no fees? But could reporters then be accused of providing unpaid assistance to a government propaganda shop?

There usually is logic in a purist position. I suppose there's a possibility McBride might be right--though I don't see how my "objectivity" was harmed by these Alhurra appearances. (Is a journalist paid for appearing on NBC News or MSNBC tainted because the money comes from General Electric? Some citizens might suspect so, but media ethicists tend not to worry about that.) And perhaps there are some people who believe that a journalist can be bought by a government for a couple hundred bucks. But this does seem a stretch. So, no surprise, I don't view this as a black-and-white issue, and I have no misgivings about having provided paid-for commentary to Alhurra. And if Voice of America wants me to debate Bill Kristol--"George Bush: Greatest President Since Lincoln or a Reason To Adopt a Parliamentarian System?"--for broadcast across the globe, I'd be delighted to do so, with or without the $100.

Here's a dispatch I posted at MotherJones.com about a press conference held on Wednesday afternoon....

David Plouffe looks ready to roll. At a Washington, D.C., press conference, Barack Obama's campaign manager surveyed the general election political landscape for several dozen reporters, and he spoke confidently, like a man who will have the money to do all that he believes is necessary and optional. Which he is, because he can expect to have $200 to $300 million to deploy--now that Obama has decided to sidestep the public financing system (which awards $85 million to party nominees) and raise much more from individual donors.

Plouffe repeatedly noted that the Obama campaign will have the resources to challenge John McCain in practically every state and to pursue multiple strategies for victory. That is, the campaign can attempt to win by holding on to every state John Kerry won in 2004 and swinging only Ohio from R to D, or it could win by bagging Iowa plus Colorado and New Mexico. Or how about losing Pennsylvania but winning Virginia and North Carolina? Plouffe claimed that Obama was already competitive in states that are not traditionally Democratic in presidential races, such as Alaska and Montana and that he can make a run at McCain in Georgia (where Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, a former GOP congressman from Georgia, might draw votes from McCain). Plouffe has the money to invest in a number of game plans--to run ads and set up staff in various states. And as the election approaches, he will be able to determine which states to stick with or abandon. He's in a candy store with plenty of allowance.

How will he use the money? Plouffe told the reporters that a top priority is to "shift the electorate." He wants to spend a lot on registering African-Americans and voters under the age of 40 to "readjust the electorate" in assorted states so the voting pools in these states are more pro-Obama. "A couple of points here, a couple of points there," he says, and red states can go blue. Especially smaller states, where a swing of 10,000 votes could be decisive. And, he emphasized, his campaign will have sufficient resources to identify the people it needs to register, contact them directly, and mount targeted get-out-the-vote efforts. The campaign, he said, is not just going to set up registration tables outside community events.

And there's more. Plouffe boasted that Obama's campaign will not have only an edge in volume (more volunteers, more organizers, more door-knocking, more phone-banking, more precinct work, more advertising); it will have an advantage in quality. There's a "persuasion army" working on behalf of Obama, he said. He pointed to polls showing that Obama supporters and Democrats are far more enthusiastic about this election than McCain supporters and Republicans. Consequently, Obama persuaders--supporters who volunteer or merely talk up Obama among friends and relatives--are likely to do a better job than McCain persuaders. This is "a hard thing to quantify," Plouffe remarked. But he added, "we think it means a lot."

It was an impressive performance: more cash, more volunteers, more ads, more opportunities to go on offense, more enthusiasm, more...everything. And when I asked Plouffe about possible racial bias among voters, he said that based on the campaign's own research, "we certainly don't believe it will be a major impact....It's not a barrier for the people who will be deciding this election." In other words, voters who won't vote for Obama because he is biracial are the same voters who wouldn't vote for any Democratic nominee. Is Plouffe right about that? Well, he seemed confident. But, then, he seemed confident about everything. He did acknowledge that all elections have unforeseen twists and turns. Yet whatever comes, he and Obama will not have the excuse, "if only we had more money, we could have tried...." Plouffe essentially said that he is going to play every angle he can imagine. And that's not spin.

On Monday, I was at the annual Personal Democracy Forum, and the news of the day--in between wide-ranging talk of social networking, new politics, and blogging and journalism--was a brief exchange between Tracy Russo, who was deputy director of online communications for John Edwards' 2008 campaign, and Mark Soohoo, an adviser to the John McCain campaign for online matters.

It was a slam waiting to happen.

In early February, John McCain, in an interview with Yahoo news, acknowledged that he does not know how to use a computer without his wife's assistance (thus, he couldn't say whether he prefers a Mac or a PC). Bloggers and techies have been poking fun at McCain ever since.

So at the PDF confab, Russo, while sitting on a panel with Soohoo, remarked that she did not see how anyone unfamiliar with computers could become president in 2008. Soohoo responded the best he could:

You don't necessarily have to use a computer to understand, you know, how it shapes the country....John McCain is aware of the Internet.

Aware of the Internet? It's a remark ready-made for derision. But let's (at least this time) avoid the cheap shot, for there is a serious point here: where is McCain's intellectual curiosity? Over the past decade, more and more Americans of all ages have become wired. Using email and the Internet has become a fundamental activity of modern life. How could McCain, who has long wanted to lead this nation, say to himself, I don't need to know how this stuff works? And in an era when so much depends on the Internet--including much of the economy and aspects of national security--how could a senior legislator and commander-in-chief wannabe eschew firsthand experience of how this series of tubes and wires functions?

What motivated--or demotivated--McCain to be a computer illiterate? Is he a fuddy-duddy resistant to change? Is he--let's be frank--too old to absorb new notions? Is he a Luddite? None of these are qualities you'd want in a president. Are there other explanations?

This is no laughing matter. At a debate, a town hall meeting, or a press conference, McCain ought to be pressed on this point. Not as gotcha politics; this is fundamental politics. Voters ought to know what makes a candidate tick--or not. Soohoo's reply to Russo was, of course, insufficient. Being "aware" is not enough. McCain needs to say more on this front. Maybe in an email.

A bit slow on the uptake, I just noticed that Nicolle Wallace (formerly Nicolle Devenish) is a senior adviser to the John McCain campaign. She used to be communications director for the George W. Bush White House and was a top spinner for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004. And her involvement in the McCain campaign is an indicator of an institutional problem for McCain.

Before I explain, let me flash back to a telling encounter between Wallace and CNN's Wolf Blitzer that occurred on November 22, 2005:

BLITZER: Welcome back. The attacks and counterattacks over Iraq reached a new level in recent days with Congressman John Murtha's call for a speedy pullout from Iraq and an emotional House debate on that idea. Joining us now from the White House, the president's communications director Nicole Wallace....Was it a mistake for the White House to compare what John Murtha was saying to Michael Moore, the liberal filmmaker?

WALLACE: You know, I think that words have such power in this debate. But if you look at the policy that Michael Moore advocated for the duration of last year's presidential campaign, it is the exact policy that the congressman proposed....And certainly the policies that Congressman Murtha advocated are not debatable. He was very clear. He advocated an immediate withdrawal from the battle space in Iraq.

BLITZER: He didn't advocate an immediate withdrawal. He said over the next six months, and then to keep the troops in neighboring states like Kuwait, Qatar, over the horizon, to go back in if necessary.

WALLACE: Well, look, you've had him on your air for a lot of the last five days and I think he's probably articulated his position much more clearly than I can do. We disagree with the...

BLITZER: That's what he articulated the first day when he made his long statement.

WALLACE: Well, I'm not sure what you want to debate me on, Wolf.

BLITZER: I'm not debating. I'm just saying he didn't call for an immediate withdrawal.

WALLACE: Well, what he is advocating differs from current White House policy. And, frankly, I only saw two other Democrats, Democratic colleagues of Congressman Murtha's side with his position. But this is a healthy debate to have.

BLITZER: I want to be precise on this, Nicole, because words matter.

WALLACE: Absolutely.

BLITZER: The resolution that was in the Congress used the words "immediate withdrawal." And there were three Democrats who voted for that. Congressman Murtha talks about a six-month phased withdrawal and then keeping troops in the region, which is significantly different.

Did she mean that "absolutely"? Probably not. In this one exchange, Wallace first tried to misrepresent Murtha's position as "immediate" withdrawal. Blitzer called her on it. She next claimed--falsely--that only three Democrats supported Murtha. And then Blitzer called her on that. So two fibs (or lies, if you prefer) within moments. A total disregard for the truth.

What does this have to do with McCain? I'm not sure he understands that the basis for the maverick reputation he once developed was his self-professed commitment--realized or not--to so-called straight talk. During his 2000 campaign, he did come across as not-the-usual politician. He often--though not always--said what he believed. And he told hard truths about the corruptions of Washington.

That was then. In the eight years since, he has taken more dives and has flip-flopped enough (especially on the Bush tax cuts) to place him in the category of ordinary pol. Republican strategists are worrying that McCain may have a tough time selling himself as a change-seeking, independent-minded maverick. Well, if he and his campaign play traditional, spin-centric politics--see here for examples--the ol' McCain will remain lost. The more he depends on Nicolle Wallace and like-minded political operatives, the harder his mission will be.

What's John McCain thinking?

On Friday, he published an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press that hailed NAFTA and slammed Barack Obama for raising questions about the free trade pact. And on the same day, he was scheduled to speak at the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa, where he would deliver the same message.

From the op-ed:

The North American Free Trade Agreement has provided our economy with a framework in which we can become more competitive....What is needed is the cooperative work of partners to reduce the burden of complying with NAFTA's rules of origin and to reduce border delays so they do not become impediments to trade or the equivalent of a tariff. Perhaps most of all, those who would lead our countries must work to ensure that the benefits of NAFTA are understood throughout our countries, and not jeopardized through "cowboy diplomacy."

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama does not understand this. He has called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake," characterizations that are out of touch with the reality of NAFTA in Michigan. What truly would be devastating is to jeopardize the trade expansion of NAFTA through a misguided, isolationist impulse that would inevitably and understandably alienate a key partner like Canada.

McCain seems to want to create a black-and-white debate: NAFTA-is-good/criticism-of-NAFTA-is-bad. From that simplistic perspective, Obama's call for revisiting and revising NAFTA has to be bad.

But the Obama camp must be thinking, "thank you, John McCain." NAFTA is not a political winner. Not if polls are any indication. Last December, a Pew poll showed that among Democratic primary voters, 45 percent said free trade agreements are a "bad thing." Only 36 percent said such agreements are a "good thing."

Sure, you say, that's just those protectionist, hide-their-heads-in-the-sand, turn-back-the-clock, enslaved-to-Big-Labor, anti-globalization naysayers of the Democratic Party. But look at how Republican voters broke on this issue: 45 to 39, "bad thing" versus "good thing." That is, GOPers had the same view of free trade agreements as Democrats: most don't like 'em. This marked a downward shift for NAFTA. A 2005 poll found that 44 percent of the public considered NAFTA a "good thing," while 34 percent did not. More recently, an April Pew poll found dislike of NAFTA among all registered votes, with 48 percent calling the agreement a "bad thing," and only 35 percent describing it as a "good thing."

It sure makes sense that as the economy droops, there will be more popular skepticism regarding NAFTA and other free trade agreements. (In that April poll, 61 percent said that free trade agreements lead to job losses; only 9 percent said these pacts create jobs.) Why, then, is McCain beating the NAFTA drum? Maybe this is an act of theological loyalty to the Church of Free Trade. But that April poll also asked registered voters who would be more likely to make wise decisions about trade. In that category, McCain had a 48-to-38 percent edge over Obama. Is he now trying exploit that gap? Perhaps. But as he celebrates NAFTA, McCain may actually help Obama close that divide. NAFTA is just slightly more popular than George W. Bush. If McCain wants to run with it, the Obama camp won't be unhappy.

Barack Obama bit the bullet and on Thursday opted out of the public financing system. In a piece for Mother Jones, I ask the question, Is he a promise breaker or a reform shaker? How you answer that might depend on whom you want to win in November. Here's how the article starts:

In the decades after Watergate, the basic thrust of campaign finance reform was this: limit the flow of big-money private contributions to candidates. No more bags of money for the pols. Now, only donations of up to $2300 from individuals are acceptable. And in the presidential race, there is public financing: the nominees--if they agree to forgo fundraising--receive full underwriting of their general election campaigns. This year that subsidy is about $85 million.

This system has been an imperfect reform. There have been loopholes. Well-heeled private interests have poured money into independent efforts to support a preferred candidate or, more often, blast that candidate's opponent. And parties could raise money, while corporations could donate unrestricted amounts to presidential conventions. So the opportunity for one side to outspend the other (using unlimited donations from wealthy individuals, corporations or unions) has remained. The influence of big money has not been eradicated. Still, presidential candidates, once nominated, could focus on campaigning, rather than cash-hunting.

Now comes Barack Obama.

He has run for president as an agent of change who slams the money-talks ways of Washington. As an Illinois state senator and as a U.S. senator, he has passed reform measures. Yet on Thursday, in an email to his supporters, he announced that he would not participate in the public financing system in the general election, despite an earlier promise to stay within this system. He will be the first major presidential nominee to reject public financing for the general election since Watergate. Instead of relying on that check from the U.S. Treasury, he will continue his record-setting fundraising operation. John McCain's campaign immediately and predictably proclaimed that this decision "undermines his call for a new type of politics" and will "weaken and undermine the public financing system."

Obama said:

It's not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections. But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we've already seen that he's not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.

Obama is clearly doing what's best for his political prospects. No doubt, Obama, who has raised about $265 million so far (while McCain has raised $97 miliion), can pocket hundreds of millions of dollars in the general election. So by eschewing the public financing system, he will have far more dollars to deploy--and be able to double, triple or quadruple what the McCain campaign raises and spends (presuming McCain keeps within the system).

But the story here is deeper than the simple narrative, Obama-sells-out-reform. His campaign, relying on Internet fundraising, has broken records in the number of small donors it has attracted. It has been far more populist than other major campaigns when it comes to fundraising. As Obama put it, "Instead of forcing us to rely on millions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs, you've fueled this campaign with donations of $5, $10, $20, whatever you can afford. And because you did, we've built a grassroots movement of over 1.5 million Americans." Sure, Obama did receive a significant amount from maxed-out contributors and bundlers, but he has mobilized small contributors unlike no one else. Given that the goal of the reform system was to prevent big-money backers from getting their hooks into a candidate, are its restrictions less relevant for a candidate who does so well with small donors?

When the system was first designed, few could imagine an Internet-dominated world in which it would be possible for a candidate who motivates millions of voters to haul in so much from non-fat-cats. Are these rules then obsolete? And considering that Democrats have often been at a disadvantage when it comes to big-bucks fundraising (though not lately), should a Democratic nominee walk away from an advantage in people-power fundraising? After all, if literally millions of citizens yearn to make a small contribution to a campaign that aims to undo the work of the Bush administration, why stop them? Isn't that small-d democracy at its best? And Obama's decision will put him in a stronger position to pressure independent groups from raising and spending unlimited amounts to support him or attack McCain. If he does draw in $300 million or so in campaign donations, Obama will not need these outsiders. McCain, however, will. Even though McCain has said he does not fancy independent spending in campaigns, he will be less able to lean on these players (say, this year's Swift Boaters) to cease and desist. Assuming that McCain will rely on the public subsidy of $85 million, the GOP will somehow have to cover the $200 million-plus gap between the McCain campaign and the Obama campaign....

Read the rest here.

Newspapers often don't like to call public figures liars or dissemblers. But read this passage from the Washington Post article on the recent attempt of the McCain camp to portray Obama as weak on terrorism because he praised how Islamic terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 were prosecuted:

Tuesday, the McCain team drew a direct line between the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, saying that submitting the bombers to the criminal justice system was, in the words of former Navy secretary and 9/11 Commission member John Lehman, "a material cause" of the 2001 attacks. Lehman participated in the McCain conference call.

Lehman said grand jury evidence in the 1993 bombing was "put under seal" and not made available to the CIA, thus denying the agency timely access to information that "would have enabled many of the dots to be connected well before 9/11 and . . . give a good chance to have prevented" the later attack. In particular, he cited information concerning a connection between Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged ringleader of the 2001 attacks who is imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, and the bombing.

But both the report of the 9/11 Commission, which investigated intelligence failures leading to the 2001 strikes, and the prosecutor of the 1993 case disagreed with Lehman's version of history. The commission's final report, which Lehman endorsed as a member of the panel, gives no indication that any failure to share information on the bombing with the intelligence community had "significance for the story of 9/11."

Instead, the report cites political and intelligence failures to understand the scope of the terrorist threat after the 1993 attack, as well as a failure to fully analyze the implications of the available information. It also blames the FBI and the CIA for failing to effectively communicate with each other, problems that were later addressed in the USA Patriot Act and the reorganization of the intelligence community.

Grand jury secrecy "could have operated in these cases as a barrier to information flowing from law enforcement to intelligence," former U.S. attorney Mary Jo White, who successfully prosecuted six major terrorism cases including the 1993 bombing, said Tuesday. But, she added, "as a matter of fact it did not."

White and several people involved in the 9/11 Commission disputed Lehman's assertion that "the CIA was not allowed to see that evidence." Lehman also described then-CIA Director George J. Tenet as "flabbergasted at what he found in that material" once it was made available to him. But Tenet made no such claim in his 2007 book.

Bottom line: the McCain campaign attacked Obama falsely. It made up facts. It distorted history.

But this was not the focus on the Post's article which was headlined, "Candidates Clash on Terrorism: In Sharp Exchange, Each Side Calls Other's Position a Risk." The story led with the cat fight: McCain attacks Obama; Obama attacks McCain. The yadda-yadda-yadda of political coverage. Yet the reporters--Anne Kornblut and Karen DeYoung--did the heavy lifting and demonstrated that the McCain squad was stretching the truth to make its case, and they placed this information at the end of the article.

But how about breaking out of the he said/he said box? Here's an alternative lead: "On Tuesday, the McCain campaign accused Barack Obama of having a weak position on terrorism, though it partly based its charge on assertions that were not accurate." That is, don't even give a candidate the room to make a charge that is supported by false information.

Throughout the media, there has been an increase in the factchecking of candidates' claims. The Post does this in a regular feature and awards Pinocchios to fib-telling pols. (Remember Hilary Clinton and the sniper fire in Bosnia?) But such vetting hasn't stopped politicians from playing with the truth. Perhaps it's time for the MSM to escalate and call out the truth-manglers in a direct manner within the news coverage. I don't know if that will slow down the flow of political lies. But it sure ain't likely to increase them.

It looks as if the staffers on the Overreaction Desk at McCain HQ are working overtime. First, they tried to make a controversy out of a Barack Obama throwaway line. Talking about his readiness to combat smears and negative attacks, Obama last Friday said, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." That prompted this reax from the McCain camp: "Barack Obama's call for 'new politics" is officially over....[He] said that if there's a political knife fight, he'd bring a gun." Obama was merely quoting the Sean Connery character in The Untouchables: "You wanna know how to get Capone. They pull a knife, you pull a gun." Citing Connery is not going to be a loss for a presidential candidate. Now, how would the McCainers respond, if Obama said, "Go ahead, make my day"?

On the more substantive side, McCain's team also pounced on Obama for a statement he made regarding apprehended terrorist suspects:

Let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks -- for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated. And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.' So that, I think, is an example of something that was unnecessary. We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws."

What's wrong with that quote, if anything? Well, the McCain-bangers say that it shows that Obama wants to use only law enforcement techniques in going after evildoing terrorists--and that would place every single American family at risk, for the only way to deal with radical Islamic terrorists is to hunt them down in military fashion without being bogged down by the due process niceties of police work. But is that what Obama actually said or implied? A fair reading seems to be that he was referring to what happens to terrorist suspects after they are captured. In fact, as the McCain people well know, last year, Obama said he would be willing to strike al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan unilaterally. How's that for being a global Dirty Harry?

So the McCain gang was trying a bit too hard to stretch Obama;s remark about the treatment of detainees into proof that Obama is a weak-kneed defeatist who cares more about the rights of the 9/11 perps than preventing them from hitting the U.S. again.

But on a McCain campaign conference call on Tuesday--during which campaign aides and advisers--tried to brand Obama as soft on terrorism, the McCain squad did latch on to a developing meme on the right. Referencing Obama's support of the recent Supreme Court decision that said that Gitmo detainees have a right to habeas corpus, the McCain surrogates--responding to a question from Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard--said they'd like someone to ask Obama if he believes that Osama bin Laden ought to be allowed to submit a writ of habeas corpus to a U.S. federal court if he is captured by U.S. forces. You can expect voices on the right to echo this talking point--until the question is indeed put to Obama. In the meantime, wouldn't it be nice if we really did have to worry about what to do with a captured bin Laden?

UPDATE: That didn't take long. About two hours after the McCain conference call, the Obama campaign held its own call to respond. During the first question, Bill Sammon of the Washington Examiner asked if Obama believes that bin Laden, if apprehended, should have the same rights as detainees in Gitmo. Senator John Kerry, speaking for Obama, said that the Supreme Court has decided what rights all Gitmo detainees must be awarded--and that McCain would have to abide by this, should he become president. The McCain team, Kerry said indignantly, is engaged in Karl Rove-style politics by claiming that Obama and the Democrats are legalistic and weak when it comes to terrorism, noting that the Democrats voted to support military action in Afghanistan. "This is typical of the Republican playbook," he said.

The Los Angeles Times offers a front-page corrective on Monday, with a report noting that women voters are moving from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama. Part of the end-of-the-primaries narrative was the spurned-women subplot: PO'ed female supporters of Clinton will vote for John McCain over the guy who prevented their gal from breaking the glass ceiling. Here's the money paragraph:

Now that the Democratic marathon is over, [female] Clinton supporters...are siding heavily with Obama over McCain, polls show. And Obama has taken a wide lead among female voters, belying months of political chatter and polls of primary voters suggesting that disappointment over Clinton's defeat might block the Illinois senator from enjoying his party's historic edge among women.

This is inevitable. Though enterprising reporters can no doubt find particular women voters who still are soooooooo upset about Clinton's loss that they will say they'd rather vote for McCain--or even Dick Cheney--instead of Obama, there's little reason to believe that women who supported Clinton will flock in statistically significant numbers to a long-in-the-tooth Republican who wants to criminalize abortion, continue the Iraq war, and trash-talk comprehensive healthcare reform.

So it's good news for Obama that McCain is using time and money to make a play for Clinton supporters. In a patronizing move, the McCain campaign dispatched Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, to host women-oriented events for McCain in Ohio and Pennsylvania. As I pointed out elsewhere, Fiorina is an odd choice as an economic policy surrogate. Her stint at HP was no success. A merger went sour, thousands of workers were laid off, the stock price remained low, and, in the end, she was forced out by the board. I wrote:

In this time of economic insecurity, there's not much about Fiorina's time at HP that can be reassuring to voters (female or otherwise) experiencing financial jitters. After six years at Hewlett-Packard, she ended up symbolizing not one but at least three corporate excesses: outsourcing, M&A-mania, and golden parachutes. Workers and shareholders did not prosper during her reign, but Fiorina made millions, got a book deal, and now is a top PowerPointer for a presidential candidate. She's a real American success story--for corporate Republicans.

Does McCain think that a surrogate with ovaries is all he needs to win over still-angry Clinton supporters? Well, his campaign has also released a list of "prominent" Democrats and independents supporting McCain. Prominent? There was one name on the list of 30 that you might recognize: former Representative Tim Penny, a onetime Democrat from Minnesota who in 2002 ran for governor (and lost) as the Independence Party candidate. The others on the list were not so prominent: a city clerk in Mississippi, an alderman in Mississippi, a member of the budget committee of Palmyra (a small town in Maine). No big names. Joe Lieberman still is the mega-fish in this small pool.

This 2008 race will not be decided by Fiorina's stumping or the endorsement of city budget committee members. The general election is going to be a rather stark contest between two candidates who each will have plenty of opportunity to make the differences between them clear. Women who voted in the Democratic party will by and large vote for Obama over McCain. McCain really has little to say to them about what they care about. When it comes to women voters, moderate Republicans and independents--especially the white ones--are the ones to watch.

Recent news out of Iraq is bad for John McCain--not the news about military developments there (May was apparently the month with the lowest number of U.S. casualties since the invasion), but the political news. On Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared that the talks on a new U.S.-Iraq security pact were deadlocked:

We have reached an impasse because when we opened these negotiations we did not realize that the US demands would so deeply affect Iraqi sovereignty and this is something we can never accept.

The U.S. and Iraqi effort to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement--which is supposed to be hammered out by the end of July--has become increasingly dicey. The Iraqi government, as provincial elections approach, do not want to say yes to the Bush administration demand that U.S. soldiers be afforded the right to jail Iraqis and conduct military operations on their own. Nor do members of Maliki's government and the parliament fancy affording legal immunity to U.S. soldiers and contractors. After all, whose country is it, anyway?

If the talks completely collapse (which is hard to imagine) and no new agreement is reached to replace the expiring U.N. mandate covering the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, the United States might have to withdraw. Whether the negotiations end in total failure or they produce an unsatisfactory-to-both-sides compromise, McCain could find himself in great political trouble.

Winning the Iraq war is the paramount issue of his presidential bid. But what if there is no war to win because the Iraqis either tell the United States to go home or won't allow it to conduct significant operations within Iraq? What if the Iraqis signal that maintaining a high level of U.S. troops in Iraq is not that important to them? How could McCain then continue to attack Barack Obama as a defeatist cut-and-runner who would imperil the United States by yanking troops out of Iraq? The war rug would be pulled out from under McCain.

I explain this more here. But the main point is that McCain's pro-war stance--as much as it is out of sync with popular opinion--could be further undermined if the government that he claims needs major U.S. military assistance says it would prefer, given the strings attached, to do without. McCain's presidential campaign is being held hostage by Iraqi negotiators.

A friend of Jim Johnson, the Washington player who resigned Wednesday as an unpaid veep-vetter for Barack Obama, tells me that Johnson woke up that morning, looked at the newspapers, saw that he had become a front-page problem for Obama--after The Wall Street Journal a few days earlier had reported that Johnson had received too-sweet home loans from Countrywide Financial--and made the snap decision to quit. By the end of the day, Johnson, who had canceled appointments he had lined up for the day, had left Washington and was in Sun Valley.

It was a quick end to the controversy. Obama fans can be encouraged by the fact that decisive action was taken fast. But Obama initially defended Johnson. So perhaps Obama himself was hoping to ride this one out, even though the episode had the potential to undermine his message of change.

The selection of Jim Johnson was itself troubling--whether or not Johnson did anything wrong regarding his dealings with Countrywide. He's a longtime Democratic Party insider, a "big-business Democrat," as Craig Crawford put its, who headed Fannie Mae in the 1990s and forged a close relationship with Countrywide. He's no agent of change in Washington.

The Democratic Party is full of "wise" men and women who jump between government jobs, campaigns, and well-paid private gigs. They can be campaign strategists one year, and corporate consultants or lobbyists the next--or sometimes, as in the case of Mark Penn, both at once. They are part of Washington's permanent establishment. And some will be making a beeline to the Obama campaign, now that he's the party's presumptive nominee.

To keep his message of change clear and honest, Obama is going to have to say no to these folks, even though they might come with experience and the best of intentions. He's already told Democratic lobbyists they cannot contribute to his campaign. And he will have to extend the rope-line further. Here's a suggestion: he should designate within his campaign an aide to be a "change ombudsman." This person will vet the vetters and everyone else working at a high level for the campaign to make certain none are agents of the status quo.

I'm only being semi-facetious. The Obama campaign will be growing now that he's the all-but-nominated nominee and absorbing Hillaryites and others. Someone on the Obama staff ought to be watching so that no other "big-business Democrats" are placed in positions where their mere presence could undercut Obama's overall message.

Obama's going to have a tough time working and calculating his relationship with the party establishment. (Remember all the corporate-sponsored sky boxes at past Democratic party conventions?) Some party insiders have gotten used to doing well in addition to doing good. Jim Johnson, for instance, was an advocate of extremely generous compensation packages for CEOs, made his own bundle at Fannie Mae, and benefited from accounting manipulations there (though he was never accused of wrongdoing).

Johnson is a warning for the Obama campaign. Beware the consummate Washington players who stock campaigns, transition teams, and administrations. Many are not in it for the change.

The John McCain campaign would rather you think of McCain as a POW than a longtime Republican senator. In a radio ad McCain is running in South Florida, the narrator says, "As someone who has survived the harsh conditions of the Vietnamese prisons, John McCain knows that freedom in Cuba won't be achieved with concessions to dictatorships." That's a pretty dumb formulation. First, the decades-old anti-Cuba embargo that McCain (and Barack Obama) supports has done nothing to achieve freedom in Cuba. One can even argue it has helped the repressive, thuggish regime of the Castro brothers continue its dictatorial ways. (Embargo fans appear to take the position that failure is an option.) Second, McCain's stint as a POW is not relevant to this policy debate. If McCain's time in the Hanoi Hilton has convinced him that you shouldn't talk with tyrants, then why does he not call for ending all dialogue and trade with China? When it comes to freedom, the capitalist communists of Beijing are just as nasty as (if not more so) the socialist communists of Havana. But expect more of this: "As someone who has survived the harsh conditions of Vietnamese prisons, John McCain knows that American corporations ought to be taxed at lower rates."

Throughout his political career, McCain has not explicitly exploited his POW status as much as other politicians might have. He didn't really have to, given that his tale was so well known. But these days being a Bush-supporting Republican senator isn't much of a political calling card. So for McCain, it will be back to the future--again and again and again.

ISRAEL AND IRAN: CAN THEY PLAY NICE? Triti Parsi has a good piece summarizing the current state of play on Iran and noting what could go right in Iranian-Israeli relations (if there is the will):

Iran and Israel are stuck in a dysfunctional relationship that neither party can escape on its own. Here's how to break up their fight.

Last week, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)--the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group--held its annual policy conference in Washington, and it went as you might expect. Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain roused the faithful with a call to tighten the noose on Iran and mocked those who favor a more diplomatic approach. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explained that negotiating with Iranian leaders would be pointless "while they continue to inch closer to a nuclear weapon under the cover of talk." Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for "all possible means" to be used to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. A few days later, Israel's Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz warned that an attack on Iran is "unavoidable" as long as Tehran "continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons."

As if to underscore these arguments, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad obligingly played the role of villain, predicting ominously from Tehran that Israel will "soon disappear off the geographical scene." Against this backdrop, it's safe to say that few at AIPAC were convinced by newly minted Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's call for direct U.S. talks with Iran (though the Illinois senator did win many new friends at the conference this year). In fact, AIPAC and Israeli leaders fear that any bargain between Washington and Tehran would come at their expense and have heightened their rhetoric accordingly.

It doesn't have to be this way. Although Iran and Israel will not be signing any mutual defense pacts anytime soon, the two countries aren't destined to be implacable foes. If anything, Israel could be a prime beneficiary of a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran.

It might sound inconceivable that Iran, whose leaders since 1979 have used the most venomous rhetoric against the "little Satan," would ever moderate its stance toward Israel. Yet a careful review of the past three decades shows that Iran's hostile rhetoric is more a product of opportunism than fanaticism. Iran and Israel have even been willing to work together quietly at times, despite their conflicting ideologies.

The reason is simple: When forced to choose, Tehran invariably chooses its geostrategic interests over its ideological impulses. In no other area is the decisiveness of the strategic dimension of Iran's foreign policy clearer than when it comes to Israel. When these two pillars of Iranian foreign policy have clashed, as they did in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, Iran's geostrategic concerns have consistently prevailed. Tehran quietly sought Israel's aid, and the Jewish state made many efforts to place Iran and the United States back on speaking terms....

Parsi makes a good argument that war is not inevitable. Not between Iran and Israel. And, perhaps then, not between the United States and Iran. Read the rest here.

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Condoleezza Rice has an article in which she tries to define an "American Realism" approach to foreign policy. It is full of foreign-policy speak. Here's an example:

How to describe this disposition of ours? It is realism, of a sort. But it is more than that -- what I have called our uniquely American realism. This makes us an incredibly impatient nation. We live in the future, not the past. We do not linger over our own history. This has led our nation to make mistakes in the past, and we will surely make more in the future. Still, it is our impatience to improve less-than-ideal situations and to accelerate the pace of change that leads to our most enduring achievements, at home and abroad.

At the same time, ironically, our uniquely American realism also makes us deeply patient.

Yes, we can be patient, and impatient. Wise, and dumb. Selfless, and self-interested. Inward-looking, and outward-peering. Warm, and cold. Caffeinated, and non-caffeinated.

In the course of this long article, Rice tries to glide past the Iraq mess, noting,

The cost of this war, in lives and treasure, for Americans and Iraqis, has been greater than we ever imagine.

Puh-lease. When she was national security adviser during the run-up to the war, the White House she served did all it could to suppress realism when it came to assessing the costs of a potential war with Iraq. Secretary Rice, remember Lawrence Lindsey? In late 2002, as the Bush gang were beating the war drums, Lindsey, director of Bush's National Economic Council, estimated the cost of the war could reach $200 billion. How did the Bush White House respond? It got rid of Lindsey. And it did the same to Army General Eric Shinseki when he said it would be necessary to keep hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq after the invasion to secure and stabilize the country. Rice has plenty of chutzpah to claim now that the aftermath was unpredictable. As national security adviser, it was her responsibility--more than that of anyone else--to bring together Bush's national security team and make sure there were decent predictions and plans for what would come after the initial invasion. She did not do so.

Her attempt to define a coherent foreign policy strategy for the United States is--or should be--overshadowed by her own record of failure.

NOTE TO COMMENTERS: Thanks to all who use the comment section to debate and discuss the subjects I cover in this blog. But a request: let's avoid name-calling and off-topic ranting. There's been too much of each creeping into the comments section, which I prefer to keep as a free-for-all. But heed this warning: I can ban folks who are abusive and ruin the section for others. So please keep comments (relatively) civil and (relatively) relevant.

This hey-what-happened-to-the-straight-talker line of attack on John McCain is becoming just too damn easy.

From today's Wall Street Journal"

At a roundtable with business leaders in Washington state last month, Sen. McCain expressed reluctance to support government incentives such as tax credits for wind and solar energy. He compared his stance on the matter to his position on corn ethanol. "I'm a little wary -- I have to give you straight talk -- about government subsidies," he said. "When government jumps in and distorts the market, then there's unintended consequences as well as intended."

From an article I wrote in March:

About a year after their [climate change] bill was defeated, McCain and Lieberman began drafting a new version. It was close to the original, but with one significant addition: billions of dollars in tax subsidies for the nuclear energy industry.

McCain had long been an advocate of nuclear power. "He feels strongly that nuclear power will be one of the keys to reducing emissions," says Heather Wicke, who was his environmental legislative aide at the time. But environmentalists who had worked with McCain and Lieberman on the first bill were stunned. In one meeting, lobbyists for environmental groups attempted to persuade McCain not to attach nuclear subsidies to the legislation, arguing that doing so would weaken support for the bill. "He shook his finger at us and scolded us," says one participant at the meeting, who recalls McCain saying, "You're wrong and I'm right." Wicke, now the director of policy for the Piedmont Environmental Council, notes that McCain had already made up his mind and that the session was "testy."

So when McCain said he opposed supporting funding for alternative energy because he's opposed to market-distorting subsidies, that was straight talk? Then how does he explain his attempt to hand billions of dollars in subsidies to the nuclear energy industry? A straight-talk explanation would be appreciated.

Here's the McCain-Obama face-off--at least the domestic side of it--in a nutshell. This morning the latest jobs numbers came out, and the news was bad: the U.S. economy lost another 49,000 jobs and unemployment increase half a point to 5.5 percent. Immediately both campaigns put out statements. Let's compare.

From Obama:

Today's jobs report is deeply troubling. Last month, our economy lost 49,000 jobs and the unemployment rate saw the greatest rise in more than twenty years. This is a reminder that working families continue to bear the brunt of the failed Bush economic policies that John McCain wants to continue for another four years. In the first five months of 2008, our economy has lost 324,000 jobs, and workers' wages once again failed to keep pace with the skyrocketing cost of health care, and college tuition, and gas. That's why we can't afford John McCain's plan to spend billions of dollars on tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy CEOs, and that's why I'm offering change that will provide working families with a middle-class tax cut, affordable health care and college, and an energy plan that will create up to five million good-paying jobs that can't be outsourced. That's the change the American people are looking for, and that's how we'll build an economy of shared prosperity once more.

From McCain:

Today's news about unemployment is a stark reminder of the economic challenges facing American families. As the worst single monthly increase in the unemployment rate in two decades clearly shows, Americans across this country are hurting, and we must act now to support workers, families and employers alike. This means getting our economy back on track by providing immediate tax relief, enacting a HOME plan to help those facing foreclosure, lowering health care costs, investing in innovation, moving toward energy independence and opening foreign markets to our goods. These policies will help small businesses create the jobs that families need today. The American people cannot afford more inaction from Washington. The wrong change for our country would be an economic agenda based upon the policies of the past that advocate higher taxes, bigger government, government-run health care and greater isolationism. To help families at this critical time, we cannot afford to go backward as Senator Obama advocates.

Who's got the advantage? Obama, obviously. His position is clear and straightforward: the economic situation is terrible, current policies stink, Bush is to blame, I've got new ideas ready to roll. McCain has to acknowledge the current economic problems and tout his own policies (which are Bushian), but he cannot blast Bush, though he says the country "cannot afford more inaction from Washington," which is an indirect shot at Bush. He's left defining "change" as advancing Bush-like policies, and he has to slam Obama's "change" as nothing but backward movement. That's a tough political sell. McCain better hope the economic news is better in the months ahead.

MSNBC's First Read put out a good guide to the starting place for the titanic clash between Barack Obama and John McCain:

About two months ago, we unveiled our early look at the electoral map. And this being the second official day of the general election, now's as good a time as any to see where we stand in the McCain vs. Obama race.

Base Obama: CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IL, MD, MA, NY, RI, VT (153 electoral votes)
Lean Obama: ME, NJ, MN, OR, WA (47 votes)

Toss-up: CO, FL, IA, MI, NV, NM, NH, OH, PA, VA, WI (138 votes)

Lean McCain: AR, GA, IN, LA, MS, MO, MT, NE, NC, ND (84 votes)

Base McCain: AL, AK, AZ, ID, KS, KY, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WV, WY (116 votes)

While both McCain and Obama get to 200 when adding up their base and lean states, it's clear to see that Obama has an early edge with the map. Not only does he have a stronger base than McCain does (153 votes vs. 116), but he also has more potential pick-up opportunities. When you add toss-up and "Lean McCain," Obama has the potential for another 222 votes outside his favored states. By comparison, McCain's toss-up and "Lean Obama" comes to 185. Of course, potential sometimes means just that -- potential. At the end of the day, Obama will likely win few, if any, of those Lean McCain states. But his reach right now seems much longer than McCain's.

It is indeed interesting that each candidate comes out of the gate with exactly 200 electoral votes from their best states. (You need 270 to win.) And in a CBS News poll out today, Obama leads McCain, 48 to 42 percent in a national survey, which is relatively close. It's always better to be ahead than behind, but what will matter on Election Day is not either candidate's national lead, but how they perform in those "lean" and "toss-up" states. As we've seen in the Democratic primaries, an election in any given state can trend far from the national numbers. Though Obama generally maintained an edge over Hillary Clinton in national polls during the primaries, the results in some states varied greatly from the national average (with each Democrat occasionally whupping the other).

It ain't going out on a limb to say that when the overall trends for the general election are in the Dems' favor McCain can still win by playing hard and tight in a few critical states. He does not have to buck the national tide from sea to shining sea; he has to do it in spots.

Still, there's something rather poetic about a clean and even start to the general election. In the past day, Obama and McCain have discussed holding joint town hall meetings or Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. How grand that would be. I've always thought that rather than mount formal and stuffy debates, we ought to put the two nominees in a room with a television camera and ask them to talk. How they handle each other, how they ask questions, how they respond to questions, how they hold themselves--all that would be useful information for voters. If either talked too long, interrupted too much, avoided issues, relied on spin rather than substance, rudely violated the basic rules of the event, he or she would risk the wrath of voters. So I say, let 'er rip: McCain and Obama, one table, two chairs, a set of television cameras, no moderators, no YouTube or email questions--and the American public watching. That would be Must See TV.

I just posted this at MotherJones.com....

With Barack Obama's loss in South Dakota and win in Montana on Tuesday night, the primaries and caucuses are over. The senator from Illinois who ran an unconventional movement-esque campaign of and for change is the winner. He has bagged the most voter-determined delegates and a majority of the superdelegates commitments, enough to declare victory. The nation is heading toward a general election featuring a dramatic face-off between a progressive who opposed the Iraq war and a conservative who was a cheerleader for the war. A fresh face versus a Washington veteran. A onetime community organizer versus a former war hero. A 46-year-old black man versus a 71-year-old white man. Assuming the Democratic mantle, Obama declared in a speech before thousands in St. Paul, Minnesota, "This year must be different than all the rest." It will be. And hours earlier, John McCain, delivering a speech in New Orleans, used the word "change" almost three dozen times. But before the Obama-McCain clash throttles up, there is one last item of business for the Democrats: Hillary Clinton must concede.

Can Clinton harbor any hope of nullifying the verdict of the millions of voters who flocked to the primaries and caucuses in record numbers? That would be the political equivalent of nuclear warfare. To do so, Clinton, who spent the end of her campaign positioning herself as a count-every-vote champion, would have to become an anti-democratic renegade, challenging the outcome of the voting and confronting the party leadership, which has signaled its preference for allowing the pledged-delegate count to determine the final outcome.

On Tuesday, AP reported Clinton had told New York lawmakers she was open to being Obama's veep choice--a sign she won't push the button. And in her speech to supporters in New York on Tuesday night, Clinton was conciliatory toward Obama. She declared, "we stayed the course," depicting her hang-in-there strategy of the past two months as a cause, not a political tactic. She made no mention of the superdelegates, dropping her usual pitch for their support. But in a combative tone, she proclaimed, "I want the 18 million people who voted for me to be respected and to be heard." Heard? Respected? In what way? And by whom? By Obama? That was a statement ready-made for interpretation by pundits and analysts. "Where do we go from here?" she asked. She answered, "I will be making no decisions tonight." Speaking to her supporters, she said, I want to hear from you." And she noted that in the "coming days" she will be consulting with party leaders.

In the dwindling weeks of the race, she played it both ways: good Democrat and bad Democrat. The good Clinton ceased her attacks on Obama and stopped questioning whether he was qualified to be commander in chief. Yet, at the same time, the bad Clinton raised questions about the legitimacy of Obama's win. Using fuzzy and misleading math, she claimed she had won more popular votes than Obama. Campaigning in Florida, she noted that its residents had "learned the hard way what happens when...the candidate with fewer votes is declared the winner." At the Democratic Party's rules committee, Harold Ickes, a top Clinton adviser, angrily claimed that four of her delegates had been "hijacked" and threatened that Clinton would appeal the committee's compromise decision at the convention. Ickes' mad-as-hell performance, no doubt, reinforced the view held by some Clinton's supporters that Obama's triumph has come--at least, in part--as a result of unfairness and anti-Clinton bias.

Still, ever since the May 6 primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, Clinton has managed to walk a careful line, keeping her post-primary options open without doing anything that could directly undermine an Obama candidacy in the general election. That allowed her to stay in the hunt--in case something precipitous happened to alter the race. It also permitted her to rack up a few more primary wins and continue to show her strength among blue-collar (or white) voters--which she could point to when arguing to superdelegates that she would be the better candidate to take on McCain in the fall.

But she can straddle no longer. On Tuesday night, MSNBC reported that Clinton wanted a private sit-down with Obama before conceding or embracing Obama as the nominee. Many party leaders--including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid--have said they have no patience for drawing out the race beyond the last primaries. Democratic figures--especially those backing Obama--have in recent weeks deliberately not called on Clinton to abandon her campaign. They have not been eager to force her out. But such courtesy will evaporate faster than desert rain in the "coming days."

It could well be that party leaders--out of kindness, respect, and worry (over whether her supporters will eventually swing behind Obama)--afford Clinton a few days to process her defeat. After all, this historic race was damn close, as so few nomination contests are. But this is politics, not therapy. So the grace period won't be long.

Understandably, the Senator from New York who almost became the first woman to win a major party's presidential nomination has put off this decision for as long as she could. And her performance in the final weeks of the campaign has strengthened her future presidential prospects. Should Obama lose to McCain, Clinton and her supporters could use these late-contest wins to bolster an I-told-you-so argument that would come in handy for the 2012 campaign. But if she does not play nice soon, she puts her future within the party at great risk.

All things come to an end--even tight and historic presidential nomination contests. Wounds are tended to; they heal. Bad feelings subside. Deals are cut, if need be. Political parties can--and do--come together. And heading into what promises to be a damn tough campaign, Obama will need Clinton and her followers. In his victory speech, Obama hailed Clinton and exclaimed, "Let us begin to work together." As a calculating politician, Clinton can probably be expected to do the right thing. But with the Clintons--politicians of unusual fortitude and audacity--you never know. Now that all the party's polls are closed, the moment belongs to Obama. He is the champion. He has made history. He has become the strongest progressive Democratic nominee in a generation. And, for Hillary Clinton, the clock has run out.

UPDATE: Associated Press reported on Tuesday morning that Hillary Clinton was preparing to concede after the voting in South Dakota and Montana ends, but the Clinton campaign put out a statement that said, "The AP story is incorrect. Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening."

Celebrating her not-so-relevant victory in Puerto Rico on Sunday, Hillary Clinton provided people who dislike the Clintons with a reminder why they do so: she claimed she had won the popular vote:

More people across the country have voted for our campaign, more people have voted for us than for any candidate in the history of presidential primaries. We are winning the popular vote. Now, there can be no doubt, the people have spoken and you have chosen your candidate.

It was yet another example of how Team Clinton always goes beyond acceptable spin. The say-anything approach harks back to the "meaning of is" remark or the "I did not have sex" comment. Her claim to be the popular vote champion is a slippery and audacious rendering of the actual facts. If you go to RealClearPolitics.com, you will see that there are several ways to tally the popular votes. And the only way that Clinton "wins" is if you include the disputed the Michigan contest, where Barack Obama was not on the ballot. Clintonites have advocated counting all the 328,309 Clinton votes in the Michigan primary and awarding Obama none of the 238,168 uncommitted votes. Doing so is unfair and absurd.

Instead of parsing words, as Bill Clinton did, the Hillary Clinton campaign is parsing numbers. The campaign even produced a campaign ad touting her No. 1 standing in the popular vote race--which is now her last-gasp argument to the superdelegates. You're probably familiar with the blatant hypocrisy supporting her claim. Clinton had previously said that delegates would decide the election (e.g., not the popular vote) and that the Michigan race would not count. Well, oops. But it's precisely that sort of situational positioning that has caused long-term skepticism of the Clintons. In arguing to seat the disputed delegations of Michigan and Florida, she has proclaimed herself the champion of voters-come-first democracy. But at the same time, she is trying to persuade superdelegates they should not follow the outcome of the primaries and caucuses and instead vote for the second-place finisher. That she and her aides shamelessly present such a self-contradicting case (as if we're all too dumb to see through it) is a sign of desperation, arrogance or (most likely) both.

Fortunately, all this has to come to a conclusion soon. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe by the end of the week. It's clear that leading yet-undeclared superdelegates (like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid) are restless and are ready to declare their loyalty to Obama to end this nomination battle. Clinton's fun-with-numbers does not appear to be winning the day. The only calculation left for her is whether to acknowledge the real math. It will be quite a sad finale to her historic though losing campaign if she concludes it with the Clintonian claim that she really won.