SECOND EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 16,  2008

Posted at 7:44 p.m. ET

THE NUMBERS GAME

The Politico asks:  Are the Dems talking about McCain's age in code?

As we used to ask, is the Pope Catholic?  Read on:

In a campaign year marked by flare-ups surrounding comments that have offended one group or another, John McCain and Barack Obama have moved on to the next sensitive battleground: the question of McCain’s advanced age.

As some Republicans see it, Democrats are deliberately talking in code about the presumptive 71-year-old GOP nominee as part of an attempt to highlight his age.

“It is code; there is no question it is,” Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist who helped lead President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign, said when age surfaced as an issue. “They are trying to raise doubts.”

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough repeatedly argued on his show last week that the Obama campaign was portraying McCain as a “doddering, old, confused fool. He needs to go to Miami Beach and play checkers.”

To Democrats, however, Republicans are imagining slights and smears where there are none as part of an attempt to silence any discussion of McCain’s vigor.

Oh come on.  Even the story is slanted, unusual for Carrie Budoff Brown, who wrote it.  Note the reference in the first paragraph to McCain's "advanced age."  Advanced?  When has 71 become "advanced"?  Okay, 85 is "advanced."  Maybe 80 is pushing it.  I know a lot of people in their 70s looking for new work opportunities.  It goes on:

Certainly there have been times when Democrats have tackled the issue head-on, as Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) has several times in recent months.

“The older you get, the more difficult it is to have the energy to confront these things,” Murtha, who turns 76 on Tuesday, said in an interview with ThinkProgress, a liberal blog. “I know myself. I have to pace myself. I’m the same age he is. He said I was senile a couple of years ago. Well, that’s beside the point, whether I’m senile. But I just believe that his age is going to be very difficult for him to become a good commander in chief, because the decisions are so difficult.”

If I were John Murtha, considering his outbursts about Iraq and his track record on same, I'd just retire in embarrassment, and not talk about age.

McCain himself did little to wave reporters off the narrative.

“I’m obviously disappointed in a comment like that,” McCain said when asked about Kerry’s statement that the Republican “confuses” facts about Iran, Al Qaeda, and Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

Another example where McCain doesn't get into the fight.  He's fit, he's run a long, tedious campaign already.  If he shows a little spark, he can put the age issue to sleep the way Reagan and Eisenhower both did - and both won.

June 16, 2008.      Permalink          

FIRST EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 16,  2008

Posted at 6:56 p.m. ET

INTEGRITY

It is always encouraging to read a journalist with the intellectual integrity to go against the mob.  James Kirchick, assistant editor of the liberal New Republic, has written a remarkable piece defending President Bush against charges of lying in connection with the Iraq War.  He will make no friends on the left, except among those whose passion for truth and concern for country rise above a desire for partisan point-making:

In 2006, John F. Kerry explained the Senate's 77-23 passage of the Iraq war resolution this way: "We were misled. We were given evidence that was not true." On the campaign trail, Hillary Rodham Clinton dodged blame for her pro-war vote by claiming that "the mistakes were made by this president, who misled this country and this Congress."

Nearly every prominent Democrat in the country has repeated some version of this charge, and the notion that the Bush administration deceived the American people has become the accepted narrative of how we went to war.

Yet in spite of all the accusations of White House "manipulation" -- that it pressured intelligence analysts into connecting Hussein and Al Qaeda and concocted evidence about weapons of mass destruction -- administration critics continually demonstrate an inability to distinguish making claims based on flawed intelligence from knowingly propagating falsehoods.

And...

In 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously approved a report acknowledging that it "did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments." The following year, the bipartisan Robb-Silberman report similarly found "no indication that the intelligence community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."

And...

Four years on from the first Senate Intelligence Committee report, war critics, old and newfangled, still don't get that a lie is an act of deliberate, not unwitting, deception. If Democrats wish to contend they were "misled" into war, they should vent their spleen at the CIA.

And...

This may sound like ancient history, but it matters. After Sept. 11, President Bush did not want to risk allowing Hussein, who had twice invaded neighboring nations, murdered more than 1 million Iraqis and stood in violation of 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions, to remain in possession of what he believed were stocks of chemical and biological warheads and a nuclear weapons program. By glossing over this history, the Democrats' lies-led-to-war narrative provides false comfort in a world of significant dangers.

Who will read this piece, which is printed, to its credit, in the Los Angeles Times?  Who will quote it?  Among the ugly social trends I've seen in my lifetime is a casualness about dishonesty.  In our universities, dishonesty by favored individuals or groups is simply shrugged off as "an alternative narrative."  The dishonesty of Bush's critics regarding the Iraq war is profound.  James Kirchick has tried to point that out.  But who in the once-great Democratic Party will listen, and risk his career?

June 16, 2008.      Permalink          

AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 16,  2008

Posted at 2:56 p.m. ET

TRACKERS

The two tracking polls we regularly cite have now been posted for today.  Rasmussen and Gallup both have Obama up four points, aligning the two polls.  That is a very small lead, given the Republican predicament this year.  But McCain has to put Obama constantly on the defensive, and prevent him from introducing a successful offense.  I haven't seen much sign of that, but McCain roared back from the dead last summer.  A repeat performance may well be possible.   

June 16, 2008.      Permalink          

SECOND EARLY AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 16,  2008

Posted at 1:49 p.m. ET

GRIM VERDICT

A group of presidential historians gives John McCain almost no chance to win this November:

One week into the general election, the polls show a dead heat. But many presidential scholars doubt that John McCain stands much of a chance, if any.

Historians belonging to both parties offered a litany of historical comparisons that give little hope to the Republican. Several saw Barack Obama’s prospects as the most promising for a Democrat since Roosevelt trounced Hoover in 1932.

“This should be an overwhelming Democratic victory,” said Allan Lichtman, an American University presidential historian who ran in a Maryland Democratic senatorial primary in 2006. Lichtman, whose forecasting model has correctly predicted the last six presidential popular vote winners, predicts that this year, “Republicans face what have always been insurmountable historical odds.” His system gives McCain a score on par with Jimmy Carter’s in 1980.

“McCain shouldn’t win it,” said presidential historian Joan Hoff, a professor at Montana State University and former president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency. She compared McCain’s prospects to those of Hubert Humphrey, whose 1968 loss to Richard Nixon resulted in large part from the unpopularity of sitting Democratic president Lyndon Johnson.

Ah, but wait.  Before you start looking for land in Australia, examine that last paragraph.  Hubert Humphrey?  Are we talking Hubert Humphrey?  He was vice president to the unpopular Johnson, and considered an ultra-liberal.  He also - and this was not noted in the story - came within a hair of winning.  The conventional political wisdom of the time was that, had the campaign continued for a few more days, Humphrey might have pulled it out.

No doubt McCain has a steep uphill climb.  I would still say, as I've said all along, that Obama has a 75-percent chance of winning.  But McCain, because of his history, is still attractive to many Americans, and Obama has had blunders along the way.  Be optimistic and fight.

June 16, 2008.      Permalink                

EARLY AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 16,  2008

Posted at 1:30 p.m. ET

HUMAN RESOURCES

Ben Smith of The Politico reports:

As I first reported a couple of weeks ago, former Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle is going to work for Obama.

She'll be "chief of staff to the vice presidential candidate – whoever he (or she) will be, campaign officials said," Nagourney reports.

Though this will stir speculation that she's paving the way for Hillary, but it actually makes me think the opposite. Clinton fired her in February ,and many of her backers view Solis Doyle as a bit of a traitor for having signaled that she'd move to Obama before the primary was over.

But she adds a prominent female, Hispanic face to Obama's senior staff, and has a major role, if an ambiguous one: It's not exactly inside the Obama inner circle, and a running mate may also want to bring in his or her own people.

Aides to Hillary Clinton are reportedly rushing to her mansion to hose her down with ice water and prevent her from meeting with a well-known Washington hit man.

By the way, we report on our SNIPPETS page today's first tracking poll.  We're waiting for the second, to be out soon. 

June 16, 2008.       Permalink              

MONDAY:  JUNE 16,  2008

Posted at 7:20 a.m. ET

TRIBUTE OR TASTELESS?

A word, if I may, about the tributes to Tim Russert. 

I have no doubt that Russert was a fine man, and I know that he was a good journalist.  His sudden death was a shock, and the fact that his father is still alive compounds the tragedy.

But the tributes are becoming maudlin and a bit tasteless.  Russert was a journalist.  He wasn't a president or a pope or a commanding general.  He cured no disease.  He was a reporter, and a reporter's job is to report what others do, and get out of the way of the story.  He must never become the story.  Yet Russert has become just that.  He is being treated, in death, as a far greater figure than those who have changed nations or cultures. 

But he was a reporter.

Walter Cronkite, back in the 1960s, complained that some broadcast journalists were becoming more famous than those they covered, and that it was distorting journalism.  He told of getting off campaign buses in election years and being mobbed by fans.  I'm afraid we're seeing the culmination of that trend in the over-the-top memorials to Tim Russert.  There will, I see, be a tribute, televised live, from the Kennedy Center.  I get the sense that journalism is paying tribute to itself, to its sense of place and importance, and that Russert is a timely conduit to that end.  There is a vulgarity about all this.  It's as if journalism is saying to a skeptical public, "Look at us, look at us.  We've lost one of our own and he was so important to you.  We are all important to you.  We are major figures."

I can't help but compare the reaction to Russert's passing to that of another journalist's sudden death.  On April 18, 1945, Ernie Pyle, the most famous reporter of World War II, was killed on the island of Ie Shima, off the coast of Okinawa.  Here is how his death was reported by the AP:

"COMMAND POST, IE SHIMA, April 18 (AP) — Ernie Pyle, war correspondent beloved by his co-workers, GIs and generals alike, was killed by a Japanese machine-gun bullet through his left temple this morning ..."

Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal said this:

"With deep regret the Navy announces the death on Ie of Ernie Pyle whose reporting of this war endeared him to the men of the armed forces throughout the world and to their families at home.

"Mr. Pyle will live in the hearts of all servicemen who revered him as a comrade and spokesman. More than anyone else, he helped America to understand the heroism and sacrifices of her fighting men. For that achievement, the nation owes him its unending gratitude."

That's a fine, tasteful tribute, short and dignified.  There wasn't a whiff of showmanship about it. 

Things have changed. 

June 16, 2008.      Permalink          

IRAQ AND THE DEMOCRATS

Charles Krauthammer, to no one's surprise, comes down hard on the Democratic Party's approach to Iraq, an approach that Krauthammer clearly thinks is catastrophic.  He is correct:

WASHINGTON — In his St. Paul victory speech, Barack Obama pledged again to pull out of Iraq. Rather than "continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians. ... It's time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their future."

We know Obama hasn't been to Iraq in more than two years, but does he not read the papers? Does he not know anything about developments on the ground?

Krauthammer lists the recent accomplishments of the Iraqi government.  Then:

The disconnect between what Democrats are saying about Iraq and what is actually happening there has reached grotesque proportions. Democrats won an exhilarating electoral victory in 2006 pledging withdrawal at a time when conditions in Iraq were dire and we were indeed losing the war. Two years later, when everything is changed, they continue to reflexively repeat their "narrative of defeat and retreat" (as Joe Lieberman so memorably called it) as if nothing has changed.

It is a position so utterly untenable that John McCain must seize the opportunity and, contrary to conventional wisdom, make the Iraq war the central winning plank of his campaign. Yes, Americans are war-weary. Yes, most think we should not have engaged in the first place. Yes, Obama will keep pulling out his 2002 speech opposing the war.

McCain's case is simple. Obama's central mantra is that this election is about the future not the past. It is about 2009, not 2002. Obama promises that upon his inauguration, he will order the Joint Chiefs to bring him a plan for withdrawal from Iraq within 16 months. McCain says that upon his inauguration, he'll ask the Joint Chiefs for a plan for continued and ultimate success.

The choice could not be more clearly drawn. The Democrats' one objective in Iraq is withdrawal. McCain's one objective is victory.

And we are having success after success on the ground.

Obama and the Democrats would forfeit every one of these successes to a declared policy of fixed and unconditional withdrawal. If McCain cannot take to the American people the case for the folly of that policy, he will not be president. Nor should he be.

Give the speech, senator. Give it now.

Sound advice.  Anybody awake in McCain's tent?

June 16, 2008.      Permalink          

THE BASIC ISSUE

Natan Sharansky has an important essay in The Wall Street Journal, and it relates to Krauthammer's insistence on the importance of victory in Iraq.  Sharansky reminds us that there are values involved in the struggle we're now in, and that there are things that democracies must defend:

The trans-Atlantic rift is not the function of one president, but the product of deep ideological forces that for generations have worked to shape the divergent views of Americans and Europeans. Foremost among these are different attitudes toward identity in general, and the relationship between identity and democracy in particular.

To Europeans, identity and democracy are locked in a zero-sum struggle. Strong identities, especially religious or national identities, are seen as a threat to democratic life. This is what Dominique Moisi, a special adviser at the French Institute of International Relations, meant when he said in 2006 that "the combination of religion and nationalism in America is frightening. We feel betrayed by God and by nationalism, which is why we are building the European Union as a barrier to religious warfare."

Judging by what's happening around the world, it's not much of a barrier.  More:

The idea that strong identities are an inherent threat to democracy and peace became further entrenched in Europe in the wake of World War II. Exponents of what I call postidentity theories – postnationalism, postmodernism and multiculturalism – argued that only by shedding the particular identities that divide us could we build a peaceful world...

While these ideas have penetrated academia and elite thinking in the U.S., they remain at odds with the views of most Americans, who see no inherent contradiction between maintaining strong identities and the demands of democratic life. On the contrary, the right to express one's identity is seen as fundamental. Exercising such a right is regarded as acting in the best American tradition.

Absolutely correct. 

Regardless of who wins in November, the attitudes of Americans toward the role of identity in democratic life are unlikely to change much. Relative to Europe, Americans will surely remain deeply patriotic and much more committed to their faiths.

Europeans, meanwhile, may move closer to the Americans in their views. The recent shift to the right in Europe – from the victory of conservative leaders like Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi to the surprise defeat of the leftist mayor of London, Ken Livingstone – might partially reflect a belated awareness there that a unique heritage is under assault by a growing Muslim fundamentalism.

Finally...

Europeans are now saying goodbye to Mr. Bush, and hoping for the election of an American president who they believe shares their sophisticated postnational, postmodern and multicultural attitudes. But don't be surprised if, in the years ahead, European leaders, in order to protect freedom and democracy at home, start sounding more and more like the straight-shooting cowboy from abroad they now love to hate.

Please remember that Gerard Baker of The Times of London wrote much the same thing a few days ago.  A bit of Bush revisionism - all to the better - is already underway.  We can only hope it affects our presidential election.  It will, if the mainstream media covers the story.

Be back later with political news.

June 16, 2008.       Permalink