Representative David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, has vowed to block earmarked projects that bear the name of their congressional sponsors. Perhaps he can call it the "Obey Ban."

I’ve heard from many people regarding Palin in the last 24 hours. About 80 percent think my somewhat pro-Palin take is crazy. But I was heartened that a couple of those inclined (more or less) to agree with me are among the most astute of my friends.

One (we’ll call her “A”) was terse. She emails:

“If you think of the balls of steel it took for her to carry on as the McCain campaign's galvanic force--THE ONLY ONE--while the msm and the Obama campaign were doing their best to bring her down, and much of the patronizing campaign staff was doing the same, you have to think she's got the moxie to pull this off, too.”

The second (“B”) expanded in her email on A's point:

“Shorthand riff...

“A” is right on BOS quotient, but Palin will have to use them to execute well. It's not good enough to have them, you have to be able to use them deftly. For instance, her narrative is “I am tough”, but if she doesn’t articulate the politics of personal destruction just right, she will appear weak. She doesn’t want it to slip into 'she’s leaving because they are picking on her.' Unfortunately, in the era of Soros, the cost of pubic service is fly swatting frivolous ethics complaints; still, it doesn’t compare to being prosecuted after the fact for opinions rendered while in office, a la the “torture” lawyers. Her formulation on that was great yesterday...costing Alaskans $2M to investigate her holding up a fish. She just needs to drop the cost to her family (she will soon be raking in millions and no politician is a sympathetic character when it comes to money), and keep the focus on how dangerous and destructive and wasteful that kind of politics is, and in her unique way, include some humor. The fish story was automatically illustrative. How much did that cost, how many man hours, etc.

She needs to own two substantive areas: for example, energy and federalism. And she should contrast flat out with Obama. She is Big Daddy; he is soft mama. She should be as specific as possible with real data on the issues she takes on. With cap-and-trade looming, the energy issue especially promising.

She needs to get her impressive record down to an accessible litany and keep it in a message framework (reform, responsive, accountable, limited government). She needs to contrast with Obama reckless, feckless, opaque (middle of the night, unread legislation), command and control.

She doesn’t need to talk about her family; res ipsa loquitur. UNLESS she is asked, then she should respond that most mothers are mega multi-taskers, either by blessing or necessity. Her family is a source of strength, not a distraction.

On all her detractors, inside and outside, she should not respond in kind or detail. She should stick to, she has always marched to the beat of her own drummer; she has never been impressed with the answer to any question being, “well, we always did it that way”. Should demonstrate some executive skill sets: she should show she knows how to solicit and use good advice, and that includes understanding how to build on the best of the past but to be able look beyond convention. We are in a new age, etc.

She should be clear on what she is doing going forward; don’t let the conversation dwell backwards. She will be supporting candidates and causes that stand for what? Be definite, give specific example(s)...one of the leading new young Turks and/or market-friendly energy policy or whatever. Conversely, don’t let it jump fast forward to 2012. Stay on principles and policies she thinks the country is slipping away from and that everyone can/should support (loved her line about you don’t have to have a title in front of your name to influence policy).

Talk about what she heard, saw from the tea parties, from real Americans. Whenever possible she should contrast ordinary Americans to the detached, credentialed elitists of the Obama world.

Don’t try to be an expert on foreign policy. But have grasp of large principles. And apply to current events-- Iran, NK. Obama didn’t know anything (still apparently doesn’t) about foreign policy.”

There you have it, from “A” and “B”. Over to you, Gov. Palin.

I don't have any deep insight into why Governor Palin decided to step down, but I think there is at least one possibility that we can rule out: Max Blumenthal. The blogger takes credit for her decision in a column for the Daily Beast:

On July 1, CBS reported that a story authored by me and journalist David Neiwert for Salon.com in October 2008 about Palin's ties to a secessionist political party caused her deep personal distress, and provoked a rancorous series of exchanges with her campaign manager, Steve Schmidt. Coupled with a withering profile of Palin published in the August 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, the new round of exposés may have been too much for Palin to stomach.

The arrogance of that paragraph, even for a blogger, is striking. There is no evidence of "deep personal distress" from Blumenthal's shoddy reporting and CNN's subsequent decision to amplify it. At the time I spoke to a producer at CNN who seemed to be experiencing genuine "deep personal distress" at his network's decision to run the segment. And I know Governor Palin's office was bothered by the Vanity Fair piece, but no more so than the countless hit pieces just like it that have come out in the last 10 months.

Blumenthal, however, just can't help but credit his own Pravda-style reporting with affecting the course of human history. Just a month ago he was personally taking credit for the Israeli government's decision to demolish an illegal outpost in the West Bank -- coupled with other factors, of course. He wrote at the time, "Netanyahu had issued a list of 26 illegal outposts he planned to demolish -- an unsuccessful tactic to mollify the Obama administration -- but Hilltop 26 was not among them. Dana attributed the sudden demolition to intense coverage of the controversy, particularly my video for the Daily Beast and an editorial he authored for the Israeli daily Ha’aretz."

I would like to take this opportunity to take credit for President Obama's decision to continue the Bush administration policy of indefinite detention, to take a harder line on Iran, and to add additional troops to the war in Afghanistan. I've written some really awesome stuff on those issues, causing the president "deep personal distress." Even Continetti says so.

Unfortunately, this doesn't really come as much of a shock:

Mr. Emanuel said he knew the Obama-mania was waning in his household when he told his son recently that they would again be savoring father-son bonding time at the White House on a Saturday.

The 12-year-old did not jump for joy. He set conditions.

“I’ll go,” his son said, “but I don’t want to sit through another Iranian meeting.”

It'd be interesting to hear what Rahm's son said after his last Iran meeting. Did he favor the do nothing and stay silent policy that the White House ultimately decided on? Also note that even a 12-year-old is smart enough to see the value in setting preconditions for a trip to the White House. I'm betting little Rahm was a Hillary supporter.

I spoke to a few friends in Alaskan Republican politics yesterday. None of them had a clue that Palin was going to resign her office, and none has any idea what her motivation might be in doing so. It was widely assumed in Alaska that Palin wouldn't run for a second term. But this?

One friend pointed out that the biggest loser is Hollis French, the chairman of the State Senate Judiciary Committee and a longtime Palin adversary. French announced he was running for governor this week, on an explicitly anti-Palin platform. There was the possibility, however small, that French could have defeated Palin by running against her personality and not her policies. Now he won't have that chance. He'll face (one assumes) incumbent Sean Parnell, who shares Palin's ideas but not her baggage.

Palin's surprise announcement was another reminder of how impulsive a politician she is. She zig-zags from office to office, from Republican Revolutionary to bipartisan champion of clean government, with nary a second thought. She resigned from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission suddenly to make a point about self-dealing. She entered the race to unseat Frank Murkowski in October 2005, months before the primary. She accepted John McCain's offer to be his vice presidential nominee without hesitation.

Indeed, Palin's surprise move yesterday was another reminder of how she and McCain are so similar (remember McCain's decision to suspend his campaign?). They are both spontaneous and unpredictable. They are both known for their attitudes rather than their policies. They are both political gamblers, and they both have been extremely lucky. But sometimes luck runs out.

And sometimes it doesn't. "She is a lot of things," another Alaska Republican wrote me in an email. "But NOT stupid ..."

If Palin wants to run in 2012, why not do exactly what she announced today? It's an enormous gamble - but it could be a shrewd one.

After all, she's freeing herself from the duties of the governorship. Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues - and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska. I suppose she'll take a hit for leaving the governorship early - but how much of one? She's probably accomplished most of what she was going to get done as governor, and is leaving a sympatico lieutenant governor in charge.

And haven't conservatives been lamenting the lack of a national leader? Well, now she'll try to be that. She may not succeed. Everything rests on her talents, and on her performance. She'll be under intense and hostile scrutiny, and she'll have to perform well.

All in all, it's going to be a high-wire act. The odds are against her pulling it off. But I wouldn't bet against it.

We live in strange times.

How strange? Well, the politician whom Republicans like the most is resigning her office, while the embarrassing Mark Sanford is clutching to his.

You can find the governor's complete statement here.

For what it's worth, on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell is reporting that Palin is done with elective office.

One takeaway from Palin's speech today is how tired she's become of the frivolous ethics complaints launched against her since she returned to Alaska in November 2008. Even Palin critics will admit that these complaints don't hold water and distract from state business. The complaints also bring with them a heavy financial burden that Palin has struggled with.

From Palin's point of view, then, leaving the governor's office would free her from these burdens. No one can file a state ethics complaint against a private citizen. Departing now also allows Palin to travel the country freely, building networks of financial and popular support. She doesn't have to worry that visits to the Lower 48 may weaken her political standing back home. And retiring from the office in late July gives Palin more time to spend with her large family, too.

Palin's statement made clear that, while she'll be leaving the governor's office, she is not leaving the national stage. Her book is scheduled for release sometime next year. She pledged to support candidates in the upcoming elections without regard to partisan affiliation. She took aim at the Obama administration's budget-busting spending policies. Palin's enemies have already taken today's news to suggest that her political career is over. It isn't. But Palin may also be thinking that her retirement from office will cause her critics to stop attacking her. She would be wrong to think so. Neither Palin nor the Palin-haters are going away.

Sarah Palin will resign her office effective July 25. Here is the statement from her press team.

One thing you learn about Sarah Palin when you study her career is that she never, ever does things by the book. I think it's safe to say today's events are a further example of this tendency.

Jonathan Martin has the story here. For semi-professional Palin watchers like myself, this doesn't come as much of a surprise. On a recent trip to Alaska for my forthcoming book on the governor, I picked up a lot of chatter to the effect that Palin wouldn't run for a second term.

Palin's term ends in December 2010 -- right around the time when the next presidential cycle begins. She'll have plenty of time to spend in the Lower 48, in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina in particular.

UPDATE: Time's Mark Helprin reports that Palin will be stepping down in a few weeks. More is sure to come.

One hopes the irony of today's protests to Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Iraq are not lost on the vice president himself. Biden is in Iraq to help further reconciliation between Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds just three years after pushing his his plan to divide Iraq into Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish states.

Biden was on a trip to Iraq to promote reconciliation between Iraq's fractious groups after six years of bloodshed. He met for breakfast on Friday with his son Beau Biden, who is serving there with the U.S. military.

Biden started his visit to Iraq on Thursday night, after U.S. forces pulled out of Iraq's towns and cities this week under the terms of a bilateral security pact that paves the way for a full U.S. withdrawal by 2012.

After Friday prayers, hundreds and possibly thousands of residents of Sadr City chanted "down, down USA" and burned U.S. flags in protest at Biden's visit. A smaller demonstration also took place in Kerbala, in the Shi'ite south.

Biden helped author a 2006 plan to split Iraq into self-ruled Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish enclaves. That plan angered many Iraqis, and was quietly shelved as violence ebbed.

"Biden has come here to divide Iraq according to his plan," said a message from Sadr read out by one Imam in a mosque.

In my travels to Iraq, I've spoken to many Iraqis -- Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds -- and asked what they thought of dividing the country per the Biden plan. While admitting that there are some problems between some groups, no Iraqi I ever spoke to believed that dividing Iraq into sectarian nations was a good idea.

The concept is so radical that even Muqtada al Sadr and his sectarian, Iranian-backed movement rallies to oppose it.

President Obama says the pie at the White House is “the best pie I have ever tasted, and that has caused big problems with Michelle and I.” (Note to lefty grammarians and literary critics: can we assume you will be parsing this president's errors with the same strict and offended attention with which you reviewed the Bush prose?) Also--and who can blame him?--he finds it “quite irritating” when his aides “constantly want to powder my nose and forehead” before interviews.

It was a slow news day.

(To the tune of “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp”)

You know it's hard out here for the Post (cash flow slowin’)
We just tryin’ to get some money from the folks (not much showin’)
cause without it our reporters will be toast (money owin’).
Cause the ’net an’ all the bloggers got the poop
and the people payin’ bupkes for our scoops.

We just tryin’ to help some lobbyists compete here in this world.
If some businessmen and congressmen an White House personnel
Find they got somethin’ in common, is it wrong for us to sell?
Is it wrong for us to get some love for givin’ it a whirl?

Chorus

Why the blogosphere so negative 'bout our enterprise?
Why they forcin’ us to compromise
Don’t they realize
We got to actualize
Our financial prize?

Chorus

Gwyneth Paltrow, noted wan actress turned snotty self-involved guru, was touting her Citizen of the World credentials to the AP yesterday, and praising Spain at the expense of her home country:

Paltrow said Spain "became a second home."

"It is so different from the United States. It seemed to have a history, and the buildings are years and years and years old. Here in the United States an old building is about 17 (years old), and over there it's from 500 B.C., it's incredible," she said.

"Also, the way people live over there. They seem to enjoy life a little bit more. They aren't running around as much as in New York. They enjoy time with the family. They don't always have their Blackberries on."

It made me wonder about what other things Gwyneth might love about Spain, that make it so superior to the U.S.

Presumably good progressive Gwyneth is a fan of some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

In Spain abortion was decriminalised in 1985 but it is offered only under restricted circumstances and rarely in a public hospital. Terminations are only allowed until the 12th week of pregnancy in cases of rape or until the 22nd week in cases of severe fetal malformation.

In early 2008, some 25 women and doctors were arrested in raids on abortion clinics in Madrid accused of falsifying doctors' certificates.

To think, she left one country with a Neanderthal need to restrict women's rights due to its dominance by religious wackos and ended up in a country with some serious sanctity-of-life issues. Wow, she must be appalled, unless Paltrow's a secret-pro-lifer.

Another thing she probably loves about Spain is the prevalence of blackface at sporting events. Nothing says enlightenment like "monkey-chanting" at black players on the football field, right?

Or, maybe it's Spain's relaxed approach to racial stereotypes of all kinds. Remember when the Olympic basketball teams got caught making slant-eyes to celebrate their trip to China? Cute!

I have a friend who left the United States for Spain to escape the alleged backslide of her home country into hillbilly hell during the Bush years. I wonder what she thinks of these stories, too. Probably nothing. Just like Gwyneth, her preference for enlightened Europe over America is likely unencumbered by consideration of such contradictions. After all, it's not like her Blackberry's on all the time. This is Spain!

Gwynnie is no stranger to America-bashing, as it has been the source of most of her press for the last five years. In 2006, she was accused of having called the British more "intelligent and civilized" than Americans, but she later denied it. Gwyneth, who raises her children Apple and Moses part-time in Britain, also worried in 2004 about raising children in America because it is gun-riddled, "weird," and "over-patriotic."

Forbes reports on Wal-Mart joining forces with SEIU and the Center for American Progress:

As for the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, it has an added incentive to welcome Wal-Mart into polite company. While the left has shunned the corporate behemoth for years, according to its Web site Wal-Mart gives the think tank between $500,000 and $999,999. Perhaps CAP will get more than just brownie points from the Obama administration for brokering this deal.

As Meghan McArdle explained yesterday, it's not likely that Wal-Mart is acting out of some enlightened sense of self-interest, but rather "because [this bill] raises the barriers to entry in the retail market." In other words, Wal-Mart will use its influence in the health care reform process to go after its smaller competitors and by "transferring costs to the tax payer whenever possible." But the Center for American Progress, check in hand from Wal-Mart, is now running a special on propaganda:

On the whole, this is a win-win for reformers. The nation’s largest employer has embraced a mechanism that enhances the existing system of employer-based coverage, levels the playing field between employers and preserves the employer contribution — an important source of funding for health care reform. In turn, it has requested that we guarantee cost reductions and steer clear of a policy that undermines low-wage workers. Let’s hope the Senate Finance Committee is listening.

Expect a hard-hitting question from one of CAP's crack reporters at Obama's next press conference.

HT: Michael Moynihan

Jeremy Scahill tweets:

i heard joe biden tried to pay the Post $25k to have access to the obama administration

Mike Allen has the report on the Washington Post's new lobbying business.

Remember how the media conspired to hide the capture of New York Times reported David Rohde by the Taliban? We were told the media did the right thing to deliberately not report on his capture in order to ensure the reporter's safety and not allow the Taliban to use the media to manipulate the narrative.

Today, it has been reported that an American soldier has gone missing in eastern Afghanistan. Unsurprisingly, just about every media outlet has run a major story on the capture, and if they haven't, they will do so shortly. You can bet that when the soldier's name is revealed, we'll be bombarded with interviews of his family and any images or videos released by the Taliban.

The obvious question is why is it prudent to hide Rohde's kidnapping yet splash the headlines with the capture of a U.S. soldier? The answer is that the media views itself as being above the fray in America's wars. In their eyes, they're a neutral party, not part of the story, so they can remove themselves from the story when they wish. And the funny thing is they re-insert themselves back in the story when it makes them look good, like this feel-good piece on David Rohde's triumphant return to the New York Times newsroom.

Looking for lunch-hour reading? I'd recommend Justice Samuel Alito's concurring opinion in Ricci v. DeStefano. Alito's devastating narrative argues that the real reason the city of New Haven threw out the results of its fire-fighter exam was "the desire to placate a politically important racial constituency." The chief culprit is the Reverend Boise Kimber, a political fixer straight out of Bonfire of the Vanities.

Conventional wisdom holds that the Court's negation of Judge Sotomayor's Appeals Court holding in Ricci won't affect her confirmation. Probably! But the parts of her confirmation hearings dealing with Ricci certainly will make the most news, and may harm her favorability ratings. In a recent column for Time, Christopher Caldwell noted that:

Affirmative action has been a revolution in American rights and in our ideas of citizenship. To judge from almost all polls and referendums over the past few decades, it is reliably unpopular. Judges prop it up. Since the election of the first black President, it has been a shoe waiting to drop. The rationale it rests on — that minorities are cut off from fair access to positions of influence in society — has been undermined, to put it mildly. Elevating a hard-line defender of affirmative action is thus a provocation in a way that it would not have been in years past.

And the debate over affirmative action that the Ricci decision provokes will not redound to the Democrats' advantage.

The Washington Post reports on Obama's "town hall":

"The president called randomly on three audience members. All turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee. White House officials said that was a coincidence."

"This, in her mind, is how the system is supposed to work."

In case you wanted to hear too much information, straight from Mark Sanford's mouth.

If Mr Schmidt is trying to warn Republicans, good luck with that: Mr Kristol has the stage.

Hawking "better" health care.

Glenn Reynolds asks Gov. Rick Perry why Texas' economy and budget don't suck, like California's.

MoDo criticizes Jenny Sanford's approach to dealing with her husband's scandal, prefers Hillary, who "salvaged her long investment in Bill Clinton and turned a profit when she became a senator."

Obama's town hall: "If you're into health care, this transcript is for you."

I find it not at all "shocking," as Thomas asserts, that the White House would hold a town hall event tailored to suit its needs, so she's going down the road to Loopytown on that one, but some of this exchange definitely goes in the Helen's "even a broken clock" file. At least both she and Chip Reid show some proper skepticism and awareness of the White House's orchestration of such events, unlike the NYT.

What's more convincing than her dismay at the idea that an administration would orchestrate a town hall, which she seems to imply is more devious than anything Bush pulled (!)— "The point is the control. We have never had that in the White House. We have had some control, but not (unintelligible)..."— is her dig at the Obama White House for failing to live up to its own promises.

"I'm amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency, and you have control," she said before delving back into the Nico Pitney/HuffPo controversy. "It's a pattern of controlling the press. Your formal engagements are pre-packaged."

"How so?" retorted Gibbs.

"By calling reporters the night before to tell them they're going to be called on. It's shocking," she said.

Gibbs' responses were peppered, as always, with dismissive laughter— a tone I usually admire when taken with Thomas— but she and Chip Reid of CBS were actually on the right track this time around. Watch the hilarity, below:

Hillary Clinton was caught off guard when her boss claimed at his June 23 press conference that he was “appalled and outraged” after days of watching the Iranian regime brutally cracking down on protesters, because she didn’t know he was going to use language she’d been urging him to use from the outset. Tepid as it was, it was at least a slight improvement over the appeasing drivel he’d been offering, but until that moment he’d ignored her advice.

It must have hurt her pride something awful to be dissed at both ends that way. Why else would she now be sending out her anonymous minions to tell it to the Washington Times? It’s “the first known example of awkwardness between the two former rivals for the Democratic nomination for president since they made up following Mr. Obama's election.”

Sadly, nobody asked Robert Gibbs about it during today's presser. I'd give a lot to hear him address it with his patronizing nastiness, and to watch the president's henchmen force Hillary to do her penance by walking the whole thing back.

A group of American foreign policy experts and rights advocates asked President Barack Obama to focus on democracy and human rights when meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev next week.

In a letter, they asked Obama to act on his statements in Cairo about the universality of human rights such as freedom of speech, rule of law, and transparency, by meeting with opposition leaders and human rights activists who have seen the brunt of Russia's "downward spiral away from democratic and economic reforms" of the 1990s.

July 1, 2009

The Honorable Barack Obama

President of the United States

The White House

Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President:

You have stated your intention to forge a positive relationship between the United States and Russia. We write on the eve of your summit meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev to express our belief that such a relationship requires a commitment by both countries to democracy and human rights and to urge you to reiterate that these values, which you have called universal, are inextricably linked to humane behavior at home and responsible behavior abroad. Furthermore, we ask you to meet with human rights, civil society, labor and opposition political party leaders while you are in Moscow.

Since Vladimir Putin became President in 2000, Russia has been on a downward spiral away from the democratic and economic reforms made in the 1990’s after the collapse of communism. Human rights activists, opposition political party leaders, lawyers and journalists are targets of brutal, even deadly attacks. Freedoms of speech and the media are increasingly limited by the state and the Kremlin has asserted growing authority over the economy, especially the energy sector.

We urge you to challenge Russian leaders about the lack of political and economic freedom in Russia. In your Cairo speech you stated that the freedom of speech, the ability to choose one's own government and way of life, the rule of law and transparency “are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.” Moreover you noted the connection between democracy and security, asserting that “governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure." This principle gained even more salience as Russia's invasion of Georgia last year revealed the lengths to which it will go to assert a sphere of influence in the region.

Matt Continetti buries the lede: The big news in the Palin Runner's World interview is that she ran a sub-4 hour marathon a couple of years ago--3:59:36. That's after the age of 40 with four kids behind her. That's pretty awesome. (Compare that to Al Gore's 4:58 in in 1997 or Michael Dukakis's 3:31 -- in 1951!)

So awesome, in fact, that we can look past Palin's loving embrace of Title IX on the last page of the interview.

The New York Times is covering President Obama's health care town hall-style meeting today in Northern Virginia rather credulously. This is the orchestrated political event that will feature a hand-picked audience and pre-screened questions about Obama's health care plan for the nation.

In one story, the Times bills it as Obama's effort to "steer health debate out of the capital."

A blog post echoes that storyline, simply referring to Obama's "selling his plan to the public."

Those two write-ups, and an update on the town meeting, as it starts, all explain that the president will take questions from the audience (and, Facebook and Twitter!) without ever mentioning that the content of both the audience and the questions was governed by the White House.

It struck me that I remembered New York Times approaching coverage of President Bush's Social Security town halls somewhat differently, back in 2005 when Bush was similarly seeking to take the "debate out of the capital" and "sell his plan to the public."

Indeed, a quick search reveals that in February 2005, according to the Times, Bush was taking "Social Security to 2 'town halls.' That story notes the "orchestrated" nature of the political event:

To make his case, Mr. Bush held two town-hall-style meetings with younger and older workers, events that recalled some of the most carefully orchestrated, and successful, moments of his re-election campaign last year. There were teachers, preachers, recent retirees and a widow, all embracing elements of his message.

In another story, the Times described one part of Bush's "road tour" thusly:

At the "town hall" meeting in Kentucky, Mr. Bush sought to emphasize the benefits of his Social Security plan for rural populations, part of a strategy to win over specific groups of voters to using personal accounts as part of an overhauled program of retirement benefits for younger workers.

When does a "town hall" become a town hall, without need of scare-quote qualification, one might wonder? (When Clinton and Gore held Social Security town halls in the late 90s, they were just plain town halls. Although, one story notes rather deep into the article that the AARP picked questions.)

Both White Houses are entitled to hold such events, which are inherently and sensibly orchestrated to benefit each executive. The press is right to note that fact while reporting them. Odd that the Times chose to do that only for the Bush administration, huh?

I guess their journalistic skepticism is now more properly termed, "skepticism."

This seems reasonable:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates for the first time is outlining potential Obama Administration plans to selectively enforce the "don't ask don't tell" ban on gays in the military so that some gays could serve.

Gates says he is now looking at ways to make the ban "more humane" including letting people serve who may have been outed due to vengeance or a jilted lover.

One of the many reasons we keep (or at least try to keep) women out of combat is the potential effect on morale in the event that a female soldier is killed or captured. But women perform many other critical jobs in the Armed Forces with few problems (other than pregnancy and sexual assault, which are pervasive and deeply troubling and, one could argue, demonstrate the wisdom of keeping women out of the military entirely).

A similar solution might be found for gays who pose a threat to unit cohesion on the front lines but could no doubt serve openly in any number of other functions. DADT is certainly an imperfect policy that would benefit from serious reform. It's madness for the service to discharge gay translators and the like. But the military leadership still seems to believe that the core of the policy must be preserved in order to maintain the effectiveness of combat units -- politicians from both parties are unlikely to question that assessment. If and when the military requests that the policy be repealed in its entirety for the sake of making the military more effective at its mission, I doubt anyone will object. But that day hasn't come yet.

Cheney's role, real and imagined, in managing U.S. policy in Iraq earned him the title of most powerful vice president in U.S. history. Now his successor, Joe Biden, has been officially handed handed the Iraq portfolio and with it responsibility for a theater of operations that is host to two to three times as many U.S. troops as Afghanistan. Yet no one imagines him to be a particularly powerful vice president. If anything, Biden taking the "lead role" in Iraq only seems to confirm that this administration is about as concerned with events in that country as it is with preventing fraud in the stimulus spending -- one of Biden's other responsibilities.

Shortly after the Supreme Court's decision against SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor's legal reasoning in the Ricci case, Ramussen Reports finds in their most recent poll that support for her nomination is slipping:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, conducted on the two nights following the Supreme Court decision, finds that 37% now believe Sotomayor should be confirmed while 39% disagree.

Two weeks ago, the numbers were much brighter for the nominee. At that time, 42% favored confirmation, and 34% were opposed.

Rasmussen notes that it's impossible to know whether the Ricci decision is causal, but interesting.

Michael Barone, writing in the Examiner today, points out that support of racial discrimination against white firefighters in service of preventing discrimination against minorities also requires supporting some really unsavory back-room political machinations:

The record shows that DeStefano and his appointees went to work, holding secret meetings and concealing their motives, to get the Civil Service Board to decertify the test results. Kimber appeared at a board meeting and made "a loud, minutes-long outburst" and had to be ruled out of order three times...

Such is governance these days in a liberal university town. It may remind some of us old enough to remember of the machinations and contrivances of Southern white officials and agitators employed to prevent blacks from registering and voting.

This is the sort of thing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg described in the text as just the workings of politics. Writing in Slate, Yale Law faculty member Emily Bazelon goes further. She laments that the promotion test rewarded memorization and that it favored " 'fire buffs' -- guys who read fire suppression manuals on their down time." She is outraged that a fire department might want to promote firefighters who know more about suppressing fires, rescuing victims and protecting their colleagues rather than simply promote a predetermined number of members of specific racial groups whose self-appointed political spokesmen back the politicians in office.

Bazelon and Judge Sotomayor, who voted to uphold the city's decertification of the promotion test, are typical of liberal elites who are ready to ratify squalid political deals -- and blatant racial discrimination -- in return for the political support and the votes that can be rallied by the likes of Kimber. You supply the numbers on Election Day, and we'll supply the verbiage to put a pretty label on your shenanigans.

Read the whole thing.

Sarah Palin mentions a (perhaps apocryphal) quote from Plato in her fascinating interview with Runner's World.