First Sign of Obama Mud

"House Democrats are seriously exploring the creation of an independent ethics arm to enforce new rules on travel, lobbying, gifts and other issues that Democrats intend to put in place on taking power next month," says the NYT. Now that would be a departure.

Can the Diana eavesdropping be blamed on . . . Bill Clinton? National Review's Byron York examines the evidence:

"If the Clinton administration did engage in surveillance of Diana/Forstmann, it is not clear if it was done with or without a warrant. 'To get a FISA warrant, they would have had to believe that either [American investor Ted] Forstmann or Diana was an agent of a foreign power,' says one former Justice Department official. That, the official adds, would be an unlikely scenario. 'To get a criminal warrant, they would have had to had a proceeding going on in which they got a judge to give them a warrant' -- another unlikely scenario . . . The National Security Agency released a statement saying, 'NSA did not target Princess Diana's communications.' A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency told the Washington Post that any suggestion the CIA wiretapped Diana was 'rubbish.' Neither statement seems to be a definitive denial.

"If the Clinton administration did engage in surveillance of Princess Diana and Theodore Forstmann, without a warrant, it would appear to run contrary to statements made by former administration officials during the Bush warrantless-wiretap controversy. After the existence of the Bush program was made public last December, some high-ranking veterans of the Clinton administration said they had not engaged in similar efforts to by-pass FISA. 'Both before and after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was amended in 1995, the Clinton-Gore administration complied fully and completely with the terms of the law,' former Vice President Al Gore said."

Greg Sargent:

"Could this sham be any more transparent? Yesterday President Bush made a very big show of meeting 'privately' with some handpicked experts who gave him some advice on what to do about Iraq. You'll no doubt be very surprised to hear this, but in the meeting Bush learned that the experts summoned to the White House just happen to share his opinion that the Iraq Study Group's call for withdrawal of the troops is a bad idea. How do we know this? Someone was very careful to leak the proceedings of the meeting to the Washington Post:

" 'President Bush heard a blunt and dismal assessment of his handling of Iraq from a group of military experts yesterday, but the advisers shared the White House's skeptical view of the recommendations made last week by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, sources said.' "

Wizbang's Lorie Byrd spies a way for right-wingers to get good press:

"As we saw this week with Kofi Annan, you can say anything about President Bush, no matter how incredibly lacking your credibility is on a subject, as long as you sufficiently bash George Bush. Also, if you are a conservative, you can not only bash Bush while escaping scrutiny yourself, but you can also expect positive media attention (even fawning) that is ordinarily next to impossible for conservatives to receive."

Tom DeLay's blog got off to a rocky start when it had to disable the comment function after a flood of not-so-nice postings. Dick Polman observes:

"As a blogger . . . he doesn't seem very comfortable with the notion that he will attract comments from people who don't like him. For instance, on his very first day, this message was posted for his perusal: 'You corrupt hypocrite, crawl back to the hole you came out of.'

"Well, DeLay's blog team reportedly got rid of that message - maybe 100 in all. It appears that the indicted ex-congressmen who once threatened federal judges ('judges need to be intimidated') just can't take the heat when it comes his way."

But could John Edwards have a secret weapon? Elizabeth Edwards has been posting her thoughts at various blogs. Here's one from Archpundit:

"But listen, wives have a tough time in this. Do I want the best for John? You bet, but not one smidgen more than Christie Vilsack or Cindy McCain do for their husbands. And these women will -- when and if the time comes -- spend a lot of themselves in the campaign that bears their husband's -- and their -- name. They will know although it is not their campaign, it is their life that will be affected. It was unfair in 1992 to suggest that Hillary not speak up in Bill Clinton's campaign; it is unfair to suggest that if one of us expresses our opinions, pro or con, on anything that we are being petty and certainly unfair to suggest that we are being vindictive.

"You can have at me. You don't have to like all you see. None of us ever expects to bat 1000%. But -- and this is not just for me but for all the spouses -- be fair."