Mission Impossible?

"In the collective public imagination, any mother who would dress up her daughter like a tiny drag queen and have her perform sultry moves before a panel of judges was already, in some sense, a murderer."

The RNC is now officially after Kos, and Philly Inquirer blogger Dick Polman has some thoughts:

"I was catching up on my backlogged emails (mostly marketing junk, political propaganda, and random diatribes) when I chanced upon a standard submission from the Republican National Committee. It began this way: 'WHO IS MARKOS MOULITSAS ZUNIGA? A Partisan "Nutroot" Who Turned His Hate-Filled Blog Daily Kos Into A Leadership Post In The Democrat Party.' (By the way, this business about the 'Democrat' party, a label clearly intended as a pejorative, is getting a little old. Wouldn't it sound equally dumb for the Democrats to refer to their opponents as the 'Repub' party?)

"Anyway, the email proceeded, at considerable length, to attack the blog proprietor for various alleged financial, political, and ideological sins. The GOP even attacked him for going on vacation in El Salvador, although I was unaware that El Salvador had been deemed by the governing party to be an unacceptable locale for the expenditure of leisure funds.

"What's most instructive here is not the bill of particulars amassed against a blogger whom most Americans still probably haven't heard of; rather, it's the fact that GOP headquarters opted to launch the attack at all. And the reason is clear: at a time when the party is down in the polls, and in danger of losing at least one chamber on Capitol Hill this November, the GOP is casting around for an enemy, any enemy, who might rile up the conservative base voters and get them out to the polls en masse."

If you missed or didn't have time to read Laura Blumenfeld's piece on Israel wrestling with the ethics of targeted killings of terrorist leaders, set aside some time now. The best reporting I've ever seen on a very difficult subject.

You know the old line about being so sure you're going to get a big job that you're measuring the office curtains? Well, House Dems appear to be doing just that, says the NYT :

"In fund-raising appeals, on the Internet and in stump speeches, Republicans raise the specter of a Judiciary Committee headed by Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, a banking committee steered by Barney Frank of Massachusetts, a tax-writing committee led by Charles B. Rangel of New York, and an energy panel under the leadership of John D. Dingell of Michigan.

"Democrats and others call it a tired scare tactic with more than a whiff of bigotry because Republicans often point to gay and black Democrats who would lead committees. But faced with the attacks and pent-up ambitions of rank-and-file lawmakers, Democratic leaders are hinting they might abandon party tradition and award sought-after slots not solely on the basis of seniority, but instead follow the Republican lead of also weighing such factors as legislative record, diversity and work for the good of the party."

One possible target: Alcee Hastings, who would take over the intelligence committee but has the small problem of once having been impeached as a federal judge.

American Prospect's Greg Sargent says the WP needs a math lesson:

"The Washington Post has a long piece which struggles as hard as possible to portray Dems and the American public as evenly split over Iraq. To accomplish this objective, the piece mischaracterizes poll numbers, speculates about the motives of Dems based on exactly zero evidence, and tries to portray the fact that Dems won't advocate cutting funding for troops as a sign of political weakness.

First, the poll numbers. Here's what the excerpt he cited says (boldface added by Sargent):

" The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, a nonpartisan polling organization, found this month that the public is evenly split over pulling out U.S. troops, with 48 percent in favor of keeping troops in Iraq and 46 percent in favor of withdrawal. Yet even among those who favor bringing U.S. troops home, only a third support doing so immediately. Asked another way, 52 percent of those polled said they would favor setting a timetable for getting out, while 41 percent would oppose that. "

And here is Sargent's analysis: "The above in bold is flat-out wrong. The poll is right here . That '46 percent in favor of withdrawal' cited by the Post is actually the number the poll cites as being is in favor of bringing home the troops 'as soon as possible' or 'now.' In other words, in no way does that 46 percent represent all of those who want withdrawal in general, as the paper suggests. The second set of Pew numbers cited by the paper itself -- that respondents favor setting a timetable by a 52-41 margin -- is clearly a better way of measuring public sentiment on the broader withdrawal question, and it belies the suggestion that the poll found that the public is 'evenly split over pulling out.'"

We close with Ray Nagin trying once again to extract all five toes from his mouth:

"With the anniversary of his own city's tragedy coming tomorrow, loudmouthed New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is apologizing for calling Ground Zero a 'hole in the ground.'"

Amazing the way he keeps whipping up sympathy for his city, isn't it?