The leading Democratic presidential candidates and Republican senators John McCain and Sam Brownback attended yesterday's meeting of the International Association of Fire Fighters. The forum was mostly uneventful as candidates lavished praise on firefighters and criticized their treatment by the government: from health care and labor issues to a lack emergency equipment. Of course the biggest story was Rudy Giuliani's absence after the union attacked his decision to reduce the number of firefighters doing recovery operations shortly after 9/11. The union endorsed John Kerry in '04 and Republicans "stand little chance of winning the union's endorsement" because of their opposition to labor initiatives.

Giuliani had his own meeting though: a 1,000-person fundraiser in Manhattan where he cast himself as a can-do candidate and said he's "impatient and singled-minded" about his goals. Meanwhile, a Quinnipac poll surveyed New Yorkers, 46 percent of whom said Mayor Bloomberg would make a better president than Giuliani.

Out in California, the state GOP is struggling with a proposal to open its presidential primary to independent voters, who would probably favor Giuliani or McCain. Michael Shear at the Washington Post writes that McCain is trying to recapture the maverick spirit of his '00 campaign now that he trails Giuliani.

On the Democratic side, the Des Moines Register has a long follow-up to a report earlier this week that quoted Sen. Barack Obama as saying "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people" in a discussion of the Middle East, a remark that's now drawing fire from some Jewish Democrats. Obama is also under scrutiny for whether he believes homosexuality is "immoral" after dodging three consecutive questions about the issue yesterday.

For the second time this week Bob Shrum's revelations have struck another Democrat. Shrum writes in his new book that Clinton lobbied to be Kerry's vice presidential pick but was denied because of her high negative ratings in polls.

Find the rest of today's election news at RCP's Politics and Elections page.

Posted by Justin Miller at 07:32 AM | Email Author | Permalink

California's new Feb. 5 primary date has given the state's politicians new clout as they become important proxies for presidential campaigns. One especially close relationship is between Rudy Giuliani and Bill Simon, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2003 and is now Giuliani's policy director and salesman to the right. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer doesn't want his state to be left out of the spotlight and said he would like to move the primary date to Feb. 5 as well.

In Washington today, Giuliani will not attend a presidential forum hosted by the International Association of Fire Fighters as they and other first-responder groups criticize Giuliani's record from emergency preparedness to 9/11 search-and-rescue operations. As RCP was first to report yesterday: Sen. John McCain will not attend the Club for Growth meeting this month because of a prior committment in Iraq.

Speaking of Iraq, Bob Shrum's new book says John Edwards was "skeptical" about voting to authorize the use of force in Iraq in 2002. According to Shrum, Edwards voted for the war after being told by advisers he didn't have the credibility to vote against it and that he had to vote for it to be taken seriously on national security during his 2004 campaign. "It wasn't a political calculation. It was a mistake," Edwards said yesterday after claiming he had "no idea" what Shrum was talking about. Tomorrow Edwards is slated to deliver a "major policy address" on poverty in New Hampshire.

Elsewhere, Ben Smith at the Politico reports that a Democratic AIPAC member has asked Sen. Barack Obama to clarify his claim that "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that he was open to the idea of loosening restrictions on direct aid to the Palestinians.

As Obama plays defense, Sen. Hillary Clinton is playing offense. This morning Clinton called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign during a "Good Morning America" interview. Yesterday Clinton reprised the "vast right-wing conspiracy" line that she originally used to describe efforts against her husband during the Lewinsky scandal. Clinton said it was "proven" in a New Hampshire court that the conspiracy exists after two Republicans pleaded guilty to charges concerning a 2002 case of Election Day phone jamming.

The rest of today's election news can be found at RCP's Politics and Elections page.

Posted by Justin Miller at 06:29 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee of The New York Times tell us what we already knew about the GOP field, just with newer information: the party is restless. A new NYT/CBS News poll reports that 40 percent of Republicans think Democrats will win next year, 58 percent want a candidate who's "flexible" on withdrawing from Iraq, but most don't know enough about the leading candidates to make a choice.

In other news on the GOP, Sen. Chuck Hagel's deferred decision about a presidential run may be based on his hope that voters will become tired by the current field and embrace a fresher, more anti-war candidate come fall. But as former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey put it: "On the other hand, it's very difficult to run for president unless you're running for president."

Conservative Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) was made Rudy Giuliani's regional Southern chair and said the mayor isn't running to "advance any liberal social agenda." Yesterday, Giuliani told reporters he was cool to the idea of President Bush immediately pardoning Scooter Libby. "I know more about pardons than anybody needs to know about them," Giuliani said of his time running the pardon office in the Justice Department.

Mitt Romney will be on Giuliani's turf next week in New York where he'll try to raise money from big-name donors who Giuliani hasn't totally locked up. Out west Romney received the backing of a former Nevada governor at the same time the state's GOP faces an internal pushback to the early primary date it set last week.

Not to be forgotten, Democrats are trying to outfox each other. Al Sharpton asked why Sen. Barack Obama, who is against the Iraq war, supported Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary, even though Lieberman is the "biggest supporter of the war," according to Sharpton.

Should Obama or another Democratic make things close at the Democratic convention next year, Sen. Hillary Clinton will turn to "superdelegates" to make her the nominee. These "superdelegates" are mostly Congress members, governors and national committee members who act like free agents at the conventions, unlike delegates selected in the primaries and caucuses.

The Hill reports that Clinton has created a network of Democratic lobbyists and insiders three times the size of Obama's base of Beltway support. Obama has declined contributions from lobbyists for his presidential campaign and even money lobbyists may raise on behalf of others

Find the rest of today's news at our Politics and Elections page.

Posted by Justin Miller at 07:00 AM | Email Author | Permalink

USA Today surveys the presidential field and finds candidates who reflect "broad trends in American life that also have affected the nation's schools, workplaces and neighborhoods" and has detailed polling data showing how comfortable different voting segments are with a particular type of candidate.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has used her unique position as the only female candidate to appeal to women, but Democratic female support isn't locked up -- a split personified by dueling abortion rights endorsements between Clinton and John Edwards. Both candidates and their fellow Democrats are hiring consultants from Nevada and building organizations there.

In Iowa, Sen. Barack Obama said Palestinians are suffering and if "we could get some movement among Palestinian leadership" he'd like to see some loosening of restrictions on direct aid to Palestinians. Obama's wife will play a major role in her husband's campaign, both as advisor and booster. Mrs. Obama recently hired a chief of staff and changed her work status to part time.

Today, Sen. Chuck Hagel will make a major announcement at the University of Nebraska, though it's still unclear if he'll announce for president after staying in his Omaha townhouse this weekend. In other GOP news, Sen. John McCain said "out of control" spending was the reason Republicans lost Congress last year. Rudy Giuliani continues his foray into the presidential arena by canceling all of his future paid speeches. So far neither McCain or Giuliani has been scheduled to attend the South Carolina GOP's version of Super Tuesday: three GOP county conventions on April 21. Sen. Sam Brownback sat down with Tom for an extensive interview, which you can find here.

Get the rest of today's news at our Politics and Elections page.

Posted by Justin Miller at 04:15 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Today's newspapers have some good news for Sen. Hillary Clinton and bad news for rival Sen. Barack Obama for a change, while its being reported two Republican frontrunners have come under attack from their own.

Clinton pledged a GI bill of rights to ensure better health care for soldiers and more assistance for their families in a speech at the Center for American Progress yesterday. She also echoed FDR in calling for all Americans to be involved in the war, but "did not respond directly" to an audience question if her comments meant "we should win this war." Dana Milbank was there to satirize her, clichés and all.

A new poll from Alabama reports Clinton's lead over Obama expanded eight points since last month and their joint appearance in Selma last weekend. Meanwhile, questions still linger about Obama's stock dealings with companies backed by some of his top donors. Obama's money issues don't stop there: Lynn Sweet writes that his campaign has been secretive about recent fundraising events.

The most surprising attacks today come for Rudy Giuliani from the nation's largest firefighters union, which criticizehis decision to limit Ground Zero searches after 9/11. After the union's letter to officials was revealed, Giuliani backed out of a forum they're sponsoring next week. At the same time his opponents say it's Giuliani's turn to be subject opposition research and attacks. Mitt Romney is also being targeted by some of his own: two Massachusetts-based GOP consultants are planning national TV and radio ads against Romney.

The GOP field may expand next week when Sen. Chuck Hagel is expected to announce a presidential run at the same forum Giuliani backed out of. Discovering Hagel's intentions has been tough for reporters who say he keeps his plans and counsel closely guarded. Journalists haven't had the same problem with Fred Thompson, who's reaching out to GOP power brokers to explore an '08 run. Meanwhile, potential GOP vice-president candidate, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is expected to sign a bill that would outlaw most abortion procedures in his state.

You can find the rest of today's news at our Politics and Elections page.

Posted by Justin Miller at 08:00 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Primaries lead today's news again after the California legislature passed a bill to move the state's primary up to Feb. 5, 2008, and now awaits "what should be a swift signature" by Gov. Schwarzenegger. Next door in Nevada, the state GOP approved a Feb. 7 caucus date -- three weeks after Democrats will caucus there and two days after about a dozen states including CA vote.

Next Monday, Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel says he will announce whether he plans to run for president. Should he run, Hagel would stand out in GOP field as the only outright opponent of the Iraq war. Some are suggesting that John McCain's "steadfast support" for the Iraq war is one of a few reasons he's being forced to play catch-up to Rudy Giuliani, who leads McCain by more than 20 points in a new WSJ/NBC News poll. The New York Times reportsthat Giuilani faces a "less obvious hurdle" to the nomination than his liberal social positions: "whether he is too much of a New Yorker for the rest of the country." In South Carolina, it's questionable whether the once-powerful Christian Coalition can play the role it once did in Republican politics now that it's faced with a changing political landscape, debt and fractured leadership.

On the Democratic side, Gov. Bill Richardson is burdened by quotes from his lieutenant governor, Diane Denish, who says she avoids being close to Richardson. The governor, she also mentioned, "pinches my neck. He touches my hip, my thigh, sort of the side of my leg." Richardson denies the allegations, but questions remain on whether his personal conduct can withstand scrutiny. Meanwhile, John Edwards said he will not attend an August debate in NV because it is being co-sponsored by Fox News.

Find the rest of today's news at our Politics and Elections page.

Posted by Justin Miller at 08:53 AM | Email Author | Permalink

The presidential race has garnered considerable interest from the public 20 months before election day, according a new USA Today poll released today. About 20 percent of respondents said they have a "good idea" about who they'll support in '08 and 55 percent said they've at least thought about the candidates. The same poll shows that Sen. Hillary Clinton lost four points in her match-up with Sen. Barack Obama from last month and Rudy Giuliani expanded his lead over Sen. John McCain by four points. Of all the candidates, Giuliani has the highest favorability rating, with Obama second.

According to the New York Times today, in 2005 Obama bought "$50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors." Obama's campaign said his broker bought the stocks without consulting him and once Obama learned of the stocks, he sold them.

While Obama has made significant inroads with Clinton's bases of black and Jewish voters, her campaign is courting female voters with a special Web site, online ads and high-profile female backers. In the Senate, Clinton herself is pushing a bill that seeks to reduce the wage gap between men and women. Meanwhile, John Edwards is stitching up a different constituency: a hundred Iowa Democrats who formerly backed Tom Vilsack and now say they support Edwards.

There are some interesting developments in the GOP field, especially in California where Sen. John McCain is mounting a "stealth effort" to change Republican presidential nominating rules to allow independents to vote. This comes on the heels of a "barely noticed move" by CA Republicans that has made their primary "winner-take-all by congressional district" instead of the whole state -- a move seen as favoring Mitt Romney. In Florida, Romney has released a Spanish-language ad aimed at Cuban-Americans. Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Hagel's decision to attend two cattle calls this month fuels speculation of an '08 run.

For news on all of the candidates and early states, check our Politics and Elections page.

Posted by Justin Miller at 07:30 AM | Email Author | Permalink

At least 19 states with half the nation's population have "moved or are considering moving their primaries" to Feb. 5, 2008 creating a de facto national primary. Not to be outdone, New Hampshire is prepared to defend its first-in-the-nation primary from another state by moving up its date.

In the early state of Nevada, Sen. Hillary Clinton hired four more staffers making her campaign the largest in the state. Clinton made national news today by reiterating her opposition to the "Don't ask, don't tell" military service policy for gays that she originally opposed during her first Senate run. The policy was enacted by the Pentagon under President Clinton in 1993.

Clinton and opponent Sen. Barack Obama will gear up to fight for Jewish support with dueling receptions during next week's AIPAC conference in Washington. In New York, Obama received donations from rappers and Wall St. executives, and also raised money in Boston where some compared him to JFK. Down in South Carolina, Sen. Chris Dodd got some good news by winning a 100-person straw poll against Clinton and Obama.

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani is tackling questions about his family life after his son was interviewed yesterday about their strained relationship. Giuliani also stepped up his campaign by selling his investment bank to eliminate potential conflicts of interests. Giuliani declined an invitation to speak to the GOP club in NY where he launched his political career, allowing Sen. John McCain to take top billing there come May. The strategist for their mutual opponent, Mitt Romney, said people are right to ask questions about Romney's faith, because very little is known about it.

Newsweek asked Mike Huckabee what he makes of his prominent Republican challengers who've moved right on social issues. Huckabee: "Some are having a late adult moment to come to a position I've held since I've been a teenager. Voters will have to determine if they're seeing the politics of conviction or convenience."

You can find the rest of today's '08 news at our Politics and Elections page.

Posted by Justin Miller at 08:03 AM | Email Author | Permalink

The biggest news this weekend was the join appearance of Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at the "Bloody Sunday" commemoration in Selma, AL. The NY Times said the visit "became a proxy battle for black support" between Clinton and Obama whose candidacy represents a threat to Clinton's traditional base of black support. The Montgomery Advertiser covered every angle in their package, including Bill Clinton's induction to the Voting Rights Museum.

Donald Lambro of the Washington Times writes that Clinton's spat with Obama over David Geffen's remarks haseroded her supportamong Democrats and especially independents. In a related story, Stephen Braun and Dan Morain of the Los Angeles Times report the Clinton-Geffen dustup was merely latest episode in a rocky relationship between the mogul and the former First Couple.

Meanwhile, Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun reports on John Edwards's efforts to go after Barack Obama's popularity among young voters. Edwards' has been on a tour of college campuses pushing for wage increases among university employees, most recently in Berkely where he "sounded the civil rights theme" heard in Selma. In an interview at Beliefnet.com, Edwards talked about what his faith means to him privately and politically.

On the GOP side, the debate about Rudy Giluiani's electability continues to be "the question in Republican presidential politics at the moment," Republican consultant Whit Ayres told Dan Balz of the Washington Post.

Elswhere, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Mitt Romney raised a hefty $3 million in Utah during the last quarter.

In other notes on 2008, Lee Bandy of The State reports that despite - or perhaps because of - the massive amount of attention already being lavished on South Carolina at this early stage, voters are tuning out the campaign for now. In the Las Vegas Sun, Michael Mishak takes a look the reasons this is being called a "race on steroids" - still with 20 months to go until the first ballot is cast.

Finally, in other '08 election news, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports on the DCCC's effort to recruit challengers to Nevada Rep. John Porter (R-03). Meanwhile, ex-GOP candidates are "calling for major changes at the NRCC," which they depict as a "rogue attack-ad shop" that went too far in accusations against Democrats during the midterms that often hurt their own candidacies.

You can find all of this and the rest at our Politics and Elections page.

Posted by Justin Miller at 08:16 AM | Email Author | Permalink

National Journal released its '06 vote ratings, showing each party just how orthodox their presidential candidates are. Sen. Barack Obama is the most liberal Democrat running, followed by Sens. Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. For Republicans, Sen. Chuck Hagel voted more conservatively than Sens. Sam Brownback and John McCain.

In South Carolina, McCain and Brownback finished third and forth in yesterday's Republican straw poll, behind winner Rudy Giuliani and second-place finisher Rep. Duncan Hunter. Mitt Romney finished fifth. Romney and Giuilani will speak at today's CPAC conference in Washington, where conservatives attack the GOP as "big-government, free-spending coddlers of illegal immigrants." Romney tried to associate Giuliani with those positions during a New Hampshire interview by calling him "pro-gay marriage and antigun."

At today's AIPAC meeting in Chicago, Obama seeks to "convince skeptical Jewish voters that he is as reliable a supporter of Israel as any of the better-known" Democratic candidates. On Sunday, Obama and Clinton will attend the a commemoration of "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, AL. The event is receiving even more attention now that Bill Clinton will join his wife and bring his "star power and popularity among African Americans" to the weekend that had been "shaping up as a showcase" for Obama's candidacy. This competition between Obama and Clinton entered into the SC Legislative Black Caucus' decision over who will keynote their spring gala.

Though the biggest news about Obama and African-Americans today is not political, but ancestoral. A "first draft" genealogical report says Obama's forebears of his white mother owned slaves in 1850s Kansas.

Notably absent from the news lately has been John Edwards, which Democratic insiders speculate is being coy to hide the strength of his fundraising. Edwards showed a little leg today with the announcement that he raised $1 million online since December -- the same amount Clinton raised in a week. Obama and McCain are trading proposals to stay in the public financing system if both men win their parties' nominations.

Staying out of the Democratic fray is Tom Vilsack, who said he hasn't decided whether to endorse one of the Democrats running for president or whether he'll challenge Sen. Chuck Grassley in 2010.

Check our Politics and Elections page for these articles and more every morning.

Posted by Justin Miller at 09:22 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Yesterday, Opinion Journal ran Steven Malanga's essay, "Giuliani the Conservative," originally published in the Winter 2007 issue of City Journal. In it, Malanga writes: "Mr. Giuliani decided to launch a welfare revolution, moving recipients from the dole to a job." So effective was Giuliani's "revolution" that by 1999 "the number of welfare recipients finding work had risen to more than 100,000 annually, and the welfare rolls had dropped by more than 600,000."

One would think that as a matter of course Giuliani strongly supported Bill Clinton's 1996 Welfare Reform Bill, which, as NRO's Ramesh Ponnuru says, "was only the most successful piece of conservative domestic reform since, well, maybe ever." Quite right.

But hang on. Ponnuru found a 1996 Giuliani speech in which he says, well, take a look:

Thank you. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the Welfare Act that was recently passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton. . . . There are aspects to the Welfare Reform Bill that, as just a matter of policy, I disagree with and I think could pose very serious problems, and although I do think the bill does some good, in the end I believe it does more harm than good.

You read that right: More harm than good. To be fair to Giuliani, who was very much a welfare warrior, he said he supported the core tenets of the law. One of his problems with it, however, was "a provision that attempts to reverse an executive order that New York City has had in existence since 1988 which basically says that New York City will create a zone of protection for illegal and undocumented immigrants who are seeking the protection of the police or seeking medical services because they are sick or attempting to or actually putting their children in public schools so they can be educated."

Read the whole speech. Then take a look at what Mickey Kaus wrote during Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate run: "According to news reports at the time, Giuliani's administration actively lobbied President Clinton to get him to veto the 1996 bill." As a matter of fact, Kaus notes, Hillary's claim that "I supported welfare reforms. He [Giuliani] didn't" was true, if only when talking about the federal reforms.

If Hillary could get to the right on Giuliani on welfare back then - the one area conservatives thought Giuliani was a safe bet - then how hard would it be for the candidates in the Republican field?

Which is not to say Giuliani can't defend himself. Malanga's larger point - that Giuliani did a masterful job reforming New York's dismal welfare system - stands regardless. Still, so early in the race the Giuliani camp doesn't want to be defending his fiscal strengths with conservatives; he's going to have a hard enough time on the social ones.

Posted by Blake Dvorak at 03:24 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Richard M. Daley rolled to a sixth term as Mayor of Chicago yesterday. If Daley finishes out his term he'll make history as the longest serving Mayor in the city's history, breaking the record currently held by his father, Richard J. Daley.

(Photo: Tom Cruze/Chicago Sun-Times)

Posted by Tom Bevan at 04:22 PM | Email Author | Permalink

If you thought the Clinton-Obama duel was hot, take a look at the McCain-Romney shootout in South Carolina.

The Politico's Jonathan Martin reveals how and where the battle lines are being drawn in the state GOP. The warring camps are led by their own generals: Richard Quinn, who is reprising his '00 role with Sen. John McCain and ex-George W. Bush consultant Warren Tompkins who now backs Mitt Romney. "Campaign allegiances aside, there is an unknown factor that complicates the 2000 redux storyline: Rudy Giuliani," Martin writes. But Giuliani has no organization and a McCain supporter said, "If Giuliani hadn't shoved it into higher gear, Romney may be out of single digits right now."

Tomorrow, Spartanburg, SC will hold its straw poll and even this small event is exhibiting the big fighting. The county's GOP chair is accused of "stacking the deck" for Romney and holding meetings in locations that aren't handicap-friendly. Still, all the candidates have worked feverishly to do well in the poll and create buzz even though the real primary is 11 months away. When it finally comes, McCain may utilize his new counsel who just resigned as SC's elections chief to join the campaign.

Meanwhile Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign is dealing with problems of its own creation after "inadvertently" omitting from her Senate ethics forms a family charity that's allowed Clinton and her husband to write off millions. Clinton's team is also trying to undo "days of harsh coverage" from two San Francisco-area Chinese-language newspapers that were not admitted to a fundraiser last week.

This weekend Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama will head to Selma, AL to commemorate 1965's Bloody Sunday civil rights march. Before Obama's trip, NPR asked him pointed questions about his experiences as a black presidential candidate, including if he talks the same way to black and white audiences, if he feels he has to prove himself to black leaders and if he has to dominate the black vote to win.

Soon enough all of these candidates will be talking about the immigration plans McCain and Sen. Ted Kennedy are taking up again in Washington today.

What else is flying through the political universe? Check our Politics and Elections page.

Posted by Justin Miller at 08:57 AM | Email Author | Permalink

From Pat Buchanan's column yesterday:

NATO is packing it in as a world power. NATO is little more than a U.S. guarantee to pull Europe's chestnuts out of the fire if Europeans encounter a fight they cannot handle, like an insurgency in Bosnia or Kosovo. NATO has one breadwinner, and 25 dependents.

At the end of the Cold War, internationalists like Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana declared, "NATO must go out of area, or go out of business." What Lugar meant was, with the Soviet threat lifted from Europe, NATO must shoulder more of the global burden.

But the Balkan crises of the 1990s showed that Europeans are not even up to policing their own playground. The Americans had to come in, gently push them aside and do the job. The message Europe is today sending to America, with the withdrawals from Iraq and the refusal of Italy, Germany and France to fight in Afghanistan:

"We are not going out of area again. If you Americans want to play empire, go right ahead. We will not again send our sons overseas to fight in regions of the world from which we withdrew half a century ago. You're on your own."

Where does this leave NATO? This leaves NATO as little more than a U.S. guarantee to go to war for the nations of Europe, while Europeans can be freeloading critics of U.S. policy around the world.

NATO is an expensive proposition. We maintain dozens of bases and scores of thousands of troops from Norway to the Balkans, from Spain to the Baltic republics, from the Black Sea to the Irish Sea.

What do we get for this? Why do we tax ourselves to defend rich nations who refuse to defend themselves? Is the security of Europe more important to us than to Europe?

In the early years of World Wars I and II, Europeans implored us to come save them from the Germans. We did. In the early Cold War, Europeans welcomed returning GIs who stood guard in the Fulda Gap.

Now, with the threat gone, the gratitude is gone. Now, with their welfare states eating up their wealth, their peoples aging, their cities filling up with militant migrants, they want America to continue defending them, as they sit in moral judgment on how we go about it.

Don't be surprised if 90% of U.S. troops in Europe today are gone ten years from now.

Posted by John McIntyre at 06:46 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Is all right here.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 12:31 PM | Email Author | Permalink

NYU historian Jonathan Zimmerman penned an interesting column criticizing Colts' head coach Tony Dungy. Unfortunately, he seems to have put words into Dungy's mouth to make his point.

Zimmerman is troubled by the broad social phenomenon of "born-again Christians" claiming that theirs is the only correct way to follow God. And he accuses Tony Dungy of making that claim in the wake of his Super Bowl XLI win. Zimmerman writes:

In a post-game interview on Sunday, Dungy was asked about the "social significance" of the game - that Dungy and the Chicago Bears' Lovie Smith were the first black coaches to face off in a Super Bowl. Dungy acknowledged the importance of race, but said that the coaches' shared faith was even more noteworthy.

"Lovie Smith and I [are] not only the first two African Americans," Dungy told CBS's Jim Nantz, "but Christian coaches showing that you can win doing it the Lord's way."

Huh? Weren't any prior Super Bowl coaches Christian?

By my count, every single one was. Indeed, the championship trophy that Dungy hoisted on Sunday is named after Vince Lombardi, a devout Catholic who spent two years training for the priesthood.

What distinguishes Dungy and Smith is their born-again Christianity, not their "Christianity" per se. And the problem starts when we lose sight of this distinction.

Actually, the trouble comes with his interpretation of Dungy's sentence. In reality, the sentence is ambiguous, i.e. it is consistent with several interpretations. However, not only does Zimmerman not acknowledge this ambiguity, he also selects the interpretation that paints Dungy in the most intolerant possible light (and that enables him to use the coach to make a broad point about born-again Christians).

Dungy's sentence could indeed mean: Lovie Smith and I are (a) the first two African American coaches to coach in the Super Bowl, and (b) more importantly, the first two Christian coaches to coach in the Super Bowl.

But it could also mean: Lovie Smith and I are (a) the first two African American coaches to coach in the Super Bowl, and (b) more importantly, two Christian coaches who coached in the Super Bowl.

The difference between them boils down to the extent of the word "first." Does it apply to both clauses, or does it apply to just the clause regarding African American coaches? The first interpretation indeed implies that Tony Dungy is claiming that all previous Super Bowl coaches were not Christian, but the second does not.

Again, I think the sentence is ambiguous in its construction. Taking the sentence itself as our only data point, both interpretations are consistent with the wording. But here Zimmerman has made his first mistake. He takes it to be pointing necessarily to the first interpretation, rather than to either the first or the second.

The second mistake is his failure to take in the context of the comment, namely Tony Dungy himself. The man has been in the league for many years. He is not a bomb-thrower. He seems to be loved by pretty much everybody who has ever met him: does he seem like the type of man to make this kind of statement? My answer is a firm no. I think that Dungy - who was interviewed by Jim Nance after the game (read: he had other things on his mind than the social/political/moral significance of his victory, and might therefore not be speaking with maximum precision) - meant something like the latter interpretation, but his meaning was lost in the ambiguity of the actual phrasing.

In other words, I don't think the mild-mannered Dungy was using Nance's question to offer a quickie Jeremiad about the destination of the souls of other ring-bearing coaches. Rather, I think he was doing what he was doing all week -- using questions about the race factor to follow the commandment of Matthew 28:19, to proclaim to the world that, first and foremost, he is a follower of Jesus Christ. I would note that Zimmerman ostensibly has no problem with this. Dungy "has every right to believe what he wants and to recruit others for that belief. That's a no-brainer."

I'll take this a step further to say that Zimmerman's chosen interpretation has no leg to stand on - if we take it in the context of what Dungy had recently said about previous championship coaches. Tony Dungy is - in many respect - a student of the legendary (and vastly underrated) Chuck Noll, head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1969 to 1991 (and Tony Dungy's coach in the '77 and '78 seasons, the latter of which saw the Steelers win their third Super Bowl). This was an oft-covered topic in the lead-up to the Super Bowl. Rob Musselman of the Toledo Blade has a nice write-up on the influence of Noll on Dungy, and how quick the latter is to credit the former. His "Tampa 2" defense is in many respects a modification/amplification of the '75 "Steel Curtain," but also Dungy picked up moral and strategic cues from Noll on how to manage a team. Noll was not a bomb-thrower. Noll was a coach who kept his family close to heart. Noll was an even-keel guy. And so on. Dungy learned a lot from Noll about how to lead a football team calmly and decently - both on and off the field. He believes he owes the man a lot, and during the pre-game festivities of the last few weeks, he never seemed to hestitate to lavish praise upon the coach with the most Super Bowl wins. (I can't blame him. As a Terrible Towel waving, "Steeler Polka" singing, black-and-gold bleeding, "yoi and double yoi!" Steelers fan, I can't praise Noll and the '70s Steelers enough!)

So, here's a question for Professor Zimmerman: do you think Tony Dungy really meant to imply, in that quotation, that Chuck Noll - in many respects his model for a good and decent head coach - is going to h-e-double-toothpicks? Statistically speaking, if we are talking about a "Super Bowl champion coach," most likely we are talking about Noll, who won more than anybody else. So - is that what Dungy thinks of him?

I don't think so.

I am guessing that you don't either, professor -- at least not now that you know a bit more of the story.

My inference is that Zimmerman never came across the affectionate comments Dungy had been making about Noll all week (or at least did not identify them as being a falsifying instance of his hypothesis), which in turn means that he rushed out an op-ed blasting Dungy's character without actually doing sufficient research into said character.

Professor Zimmerman: you owe Coach Dungy an apology. It seems to me that your incorrect interpretation, while surely not willful, is predicated in large part upon not doing the research that Dungy clearly deserved and that you - as a scholarly historian - know how to conduct. If you are going to characterize a man's moral/political/social beliefs, don't you think you owe him the courtesy of checking out his personal story just a little bit?

I find all of this very frustrating. Zimmerman has put words into Dungy's mouth to personalize a broad-based social-political-cultural complaint he has against a segment of the population: the "born-agains." Tony Dungy has been a Steeler, a 49er, a Chief, a Viking, a Bucaneer, and a Colt. He has never been a Straw Man.

Don't treat him as such, Professor.

Posted by Jay Cost at 06:06 PM | Email Author | Permalink

David Broder has struck a nerve with the left over this comment in his column today on the Dems' recent winter meeting:

One of the losers in the weekend oratorical marathon was retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who repeatedly invoked the West Point motto of "Duty, Honor, Country," forgetting that few in this particular audience have much experience with, or sympathy for, the military.

One of the commenters at the Washington Post calls Broder "a shill and a disgrace and a stain on humanity." Oliver Willis blasts Broder for being a "filthy liar" and calls on the Washington Post to "correct the slander he's published in their pages."

Of course, so far as I can tell from looking at his blog, Willis hasn't demonstrated any outrage over the real slander published in the Washington Post recently: William Arkin's unhinged diatribe against U.S. troops. Neither, for that matter, has any other major left wing blog that I'm aware of.

This neatly captures Broder's sentinment in an anecdotal nutshell: when someone on the left slimes the military, we get deafening silence from them. When anyone (mostly from the right, but in this case from the left), questions the left's sincerity when they say they "support the troops," we get a collective tearing of the flesh and screeches of "slander," "libel," and ad hominem attacks like "filthy liar." I'm perfectly willing to accept that left wingers like Willis do in fact support and have sympathy for the troops. It'd just be nice if they showed it once in a while by defending our troops against some the vicious attacks launched by their fellows on the left.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 10:14 AM | Email Author | Permalink

David Gray of the New America Foundation penned the following letter in response to my column this morning about Democratic Presidential hopefuls deciding what to do with the White House Office of Faith Based & Community Initiatives:

Funding charitable initiatives at home and abroad has great merit. Speaking strictly politically, it is interesting to see how the two different parties do, and can, outflank each other on such funding.

President Bush has gotten great credit in many circles by outflanking Democrats on the issue of funding AIDS and debt initiatives in Africa. Most people assume that Democrats would take the lead in spending on these initiatives, but the President has received much praise relative to the Democrats from unlikely sources, such as U2's singer Bono, for his spending in these areas.

On the domestic front, Democrats have an opportunity to outflank Republicans on the issue of faith based initiatives.

Tom Bevan wrote an excellent article (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/02/will_democrats_keep_the_faith.html) in RealClearPolitics on February 5 about the potential future of the White House Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives (Office) under a potential Democratic President. Mr. Bevan posits that Democratic candidates will have to grapple during the '08 campaign with what they would do with the Office if elected, and he concludes that Democrats will likely keep the office and use it as an outreach tool. Much of the Democratic base is hostile to the creation of the Office and at least some of the presidential candidates thus far opposed its creation. With most moderate potential Democratic candidates (such as Bayh and Warner) are not in the race, frontrunners like Hillary Clinton will be pulled to the left. Does that make it likely a Democratic candidate would abolish the Office?

No. I believe Mr. Bevan is correct that a Democratic President will keep the Office. Perhaps the strongest argument that Democrats will keep the Office is "leave well enough alone." If a Democrat President was ambivalent towards the Initiative, they could keep the Office but render it powerless, effectively telling their base that they are ignoring it. However, actively abolishing the Office would anger evangelical voters at a time Democrats are making some inroads in that constituency, and effectively prove the point of conservatives who say Democrats are anti-religion.

I think Mr. Bevan is correct that the Office provides an opportunity for Democrats, but not only because it could help them open a dialogue with evangelicals. One prominent criticism of the Faith-based Initiative is that it was never funded properly. Former White House staffer David Kuo argues in his recent critique Tempting Faith that the Initiative could be successful if only the White House had put more emphasis on funding it. Congress controls the purse-strings, and if Democrats retain control of Congress after the next election perhaps a Democratic Washington would invest in the Initiative. This situation provides an opening for a Democratic President to outflank Republicans and make real connections with many faith based groups that traditionally do not vote Democratic by not only embracing the White House Faith Based Initiative, but by doing one thing that even Republicans have criticized the current White House for failing to do - fund it.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 04:50 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Al Franken is telling members of the Minnesota delegation he's running for Senate against Norm Coleman next year. He might be a very formidable candidate, or he might end up joining Howard Dean, et al in the political flame out Hall of Fame. At this point I'd say it's a coin flip.

For one thing, Franken is a loose cannon. He's made a living by shooting his off his mouth (at times in very humorous ways), but he doesn't strike me as possessing enough self-discipline to rein things in. Over the course of a long campaign, I can see his seemingly genetic predisposition to irreverence catching up with him at some point.

The other problem is that in between bouts of humor, Franken can come across as angry and condescending - two traits don't wear well with voters over time. He also seems to have a pretty thin skin and could lose his cool, like he did at the 2004 Republican National Convention when he got into a tussle with a producer from the Laura Ingraham show on "radio row:"

Minnesota is not so blue that Franken can afford to be turning off moderates and independents with any antics, goofy or otherwise.

The Governor's race last November is a good cautionary tale for Franken: in a big Dem year, DFLer Mike Hatch led incumbent Republican Tim Pawlenty by a slim margin all the way to the end of the race until Hatch mishandled a last minute brouhaha concerning his running mate's inability to answer a question about E85 (a blend of ethanol). Angered by repeated questions, Hatch lashed out at reporters, calling one a Republican "whore." He ended up losing the race by 22,483 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast.

So will Franken be able to keep his cool? Like I said, the betting line is probably even money.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 09:48 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Peggy Noonan begins her salute to Chuck Hagel's courage today by writing: "We all complain, and with justice, about the falseness of much that is said in Washington, and the cowardice that leaves a great deal unsaid."

I wonder if Noonan's feeling will change after she reads this interview with Hagel in GQ Magazine in which he calls the president and members of his administration liars:

GQ: And producing a National Intelligence Estimate that turned out to be doctored. Hagel: Oh yeah. All this stuff was doctored. Absolutely. But that's what we were presented with. And I'm not dismissing our responsibility to look into the thing, because there were senators who said, "I don't believe them." But I was told by the president--we all were--that he would exhaust every diplomatic effort.

GQ: You were told that personally?
Hagel: I remember specifically bringing it up with the president. I said, "This has to be like your father did it in 1991. We had every Middle East nation except one with us in 1991. The United Nations was with us."

GQ: Did he give you that assurance, that he would do the same thing as his father?
Hagel: Yep. He said, "That's what we're going to do." But the more I look back on this, the more I think that the administration knew there was some real hard question whether he really had any WMD. In January of 2003, if you recall, the inspectors at the IAEA, who knew more about what Saddam had than anybody, said, "Give us two more months before you go to war, because we don't think there's anything in there." They were the only ones in Iraq. We hadn't been in there. We didn't know what the hell was in there. And the president wouldn't do it! So to answer your question--Do I regret that vote? Yes, I do regret that vote.

GQ: And you feel like you were misled?
Hagel: I asked tough questions of Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld before the war: How are you going to govern? Who's going to govern? Where is the money coming from? What are you going to do with their army? How will you secure their borders? And I was assured every time I asked, "Senator, don't worry, we've got task forces on that, they've been working, they're coordinated," and so on.

GQ: Do you think they knew that was false?
Hagel: Oh, I eventually was sure they knew. Even before we actually invaded, I had a pretty clear sense of it--that this administration was hell-bent on going to war in Iraq.

GQ: Even if it meant deceiving Congress?
Hagel: That's right.

This is, quite frankly, almost indistinct from the antiwar left's "Bush Lied, Troops Died" cry we've heard for so long. Maybe this is really what Hagel believes. Fair enough.

B