"Brothers Should Pull Up Their Pants!"

Here at CounterProgramming, we want to reach out to President-Elect Obama in a spirit of bipartisan cooperation and work together to blah blah blah. Thus, I am pleased to report that only days after his election -- an election I strongly opposed -- I have already found an area of strong agreement with our incoming Chief Executive.

In an interview a couple weeks ago with MTV, Obama made excellent use of his bully pulpit on one of today's most pressing issues. Asked by a viewer what he thought of laws against "sagging pants," Obama made it clear that he thought such laws were "a waste of time, but then -- after his usual hemming and hawing -- finally exclaimed "Brothers should pull up their pants!"

For the record, I agree completely.

Fast-forward to 1:25 for the money quote.

A Black President

Truly incredible. To think that just during my lifetime, we have moved from a bitter battle over legal segregation to a convincing presidential victory for a black man, with support from three states of the old Confederacy.

President Bush had some eloquent remarks outside the White House on the occasion:

It will be a stirring sight to watch President Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their beautiful girls step through the doors of the White House. I know millions of Americans will be overcome with pride at this inspiring moment that so many have awaited so long. I know Senator Obama's beloved mother and grandparents would have been thrilled to watch the child they raised ascend the steps of the Capitol -- and take his oath to uphold the Constitution of the greatest nation on the face of the earth.

I thought his reference to the first black First Family walking through those doors to be particularly moving, echoing the ugly site during the civil rights era of white men -- government officials -- physically blocking entrance to the schoolhouse doors. (Read his full remarks here.)

No, I did not vote for Barack Obama. But I judge a man by the content of his character, not his skin color. While I found Obama's character and politics to be wanting, I am pleased and proud that the vast majority of Americans did not cast their vote based on his skin color.

Looks like the mythical Youth Vote finally materialized. As National Review Online's Andy McCarthy notes:

Preliminary indications are that the youth vote (ages 18-29) was way up: an increase of somewhere over 2.2 million (maybe way over) from 2004 (a year in which it was very high), and as much as 13% over 2000. The Left's dominance of the academy is now having a material impact on electoral politics. As we think about the future of conservatism, we ignore that at our peril.

There is a reason that most brand-building advertising is aimed at that same youth market. Once a Bud man, always a Bud man. I fear that it will be difficult to move these young and first-time voters away from the Democratic party. I know that when I was in high school, witnessing the juxtaposition of Carter and Reagan, I was going to be a conservative Republican for life. I couldn't wait till I was old enough to vote for Reagan in '84.

By the way, the site that McCarthy links to, Circle: the Center for Education and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, is affiliated with Tufts University and appears to be a gold mine of information on, uh, civic learning and engagement.

I Voted for Senator John S. McCain

Poll workers told me turnout at my Northern Virginia precint (Falls Church) was heavy this morning, probably record-breaking. I voted at 4:00 PM, and there were no lines.

Scanning my paper ballot, I laughed out loud when I saw the presidential lineup, which in addition to GOP and Dem included Independent (Nader), Green (McKinney), and Independent Green (Baldwin).

Shades of the Judean People's Front ("No, it's the People's Front of Judea!").

"A McCain-Palin Tradition"

Hank Jr. comes out swingin'.

You Should Listen To This Guy

Now this is what I call Straight Talk.

Bill & Barney Go At It

Two of my least favorite people discuss Fannie/Freddie:

Barack Obama and Bill Ayers

Below I note how a debate question to Obama or Biden about Bill Ayers is long overdue. Do we even have to wonder for a millisecond what would happen if a Republican had even a distant relationship with Timothy McVeigh? Trick question: that Republican wouldn't even be on the stage. He would long ago have been hounded out of his first race for dog catcher -- and justifiably so.

It is truly sad and pathetic that one of America's major parties -- America's oldest political party, home of Jefferson, Jackson, FDR, Truman, and Kennedy -- has nominated for president a man with a long-standing, professional relationship with a homegrown unrepentant terrorist. The only differences between Ayers and McVeigh are McVeigh's higher body count and his death sentence (Ayers got off on a technicality).

I have found this entire campaign a bit surreal, as we all debate Obama's tax plan, his experience, his plan for Iraq, his soaring rhetoric, etc. The truth is the man has no business being in this race.

Let me state it as clearly as I can: I don't question Obama's patriotism. I'm convinced he is no patriot.

No patriot would have anything to do with someone who confessed to bombing the Capitol, the Pentagon, and police stations, and as recently as 2001 said "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Obama's deeply deceptive response to the one Ayers question he faced during a primary debate -- from George Stephanopoulos, of all people -- was "He's a guy in my neighborhood."

Obama has no business running for any public office, much less president. The fact that he was was not forced to drop out of this race, for this fact alone, and is actually favored to win, bodes ill for America.

And for the record: John McCain -- a man who loves his country, who has suffered for his country, a man who has tremendous credibility on patriotism and pride in America -- has a moral obligation to alert America as to the true nature of the man we are about to elect as our president. And not just in some YouTube ad, which will likely be dismissed as a desperate, "negative" dirty trick, the equivalent of the stupid "Obama is a Muslim" emails. Nor should McCain rely on surrogates or partisans in the conservative media to continue to make this charge.

The gravity of this matter requires McCain himself to talk about Obama-Ayers, preferably at a presidential debate, in front of 50 million Americans.

--------------------

For quick background on Ayers, including his "not enough" quote, originally given to the New York Times, see "Who Is Bill Ayers?" in the Chicago Sun-Times.

For Obama's relationship with Ayers, see Stanley Kurtz in National Review Online.

Palin-Biden Debate Reaction

1) I thought both candidates were at their best. Like the first McCain-Obama debate, there were no real gaffes (defined as an oops! immediately obvious to those watching, not the "fact checking" stuff the next day). Palin obviously exceeded expectations, but Biden also avoided his tendency to talk his way down the long and winding road, or say anything outright silly. Most likely, Biden will be considered the winner.

2) Regardless of which way the election goes, Palin more than salvaged her future as a national Republican star tonight. She has her confidence back, and is obviously gaining facts and figures regarding national issues at an exponential rate. Combine those developments with her considerable personal and political skills, and the sky is the limit for Sarah. (Minor Palin point: I've noticed she has a habit of referring to people by their last name -- "McCain, McLellan" -- that she should use a title with. Just a bad habit, one she's no doubt working on.)

3) It's measure of how well Palin did that the conventional wisdom almost immediately turned away from her competency to the question of how much Palin might have helped McCain. We probably won't know for a few days, but I doubt she landed the kind of blows on Obama that might take his numbers down substantially (VP debates don't usually produce that result). Advantage Obama.

4) And I'm afraid that given the economic situation, I'm still pessimistic about McCain's chances. The liberal Democrat will always be able to demagogue hard times better than the Republican -- even one that never misses an opportunity to blamed "greed" for so many problems created by Washington.

I wouldn't be so pessimistic if McCain-Palin could be bothered to loudly and consistently pin appropriate blame on Democratic abuse at Fannie/Freddie, highlight how McCain and other GOPers tried to sound the alarm while Dems resisted, and stop blaming everything on "Wall St. greed." But it is crystal clear after these first two debates that McCain has decided against that approach. I'm guessing he thinks that the election will be decided by those who hate the dreaded "partisan bickering and finger pointing." Hence his emphasis in the first debate on cutting spending and fighting earmarks, two things the "post-partisan" Perot type voters have always responded to. I think this is a losing strategy. I hope and pray McCain is right and I am wrong. Mac has been counted out about a dozen times throughout this campaign; perhaps he will rise yet again.

5) I thought Gwen Ifill did a good job, relatively speaking. Yes, I thought she had no business sitting in that chair tonight. It is pathetic that she didn't even bother to tell the Debate Commission that she was writing a book with Obama's name in the title, a book that will likely rise and fall with Obama's fortunes. (It's also frustrating that apparently the McCain campaign didn't know about the book, either.) But I thought her questions were mostly fair, serious, and worthy.

Here's what I mean by "relatively speaking:" I think it was somebody over at National Review's Corner that pointed out that any bias likely would be found not in the questions she asked, but in the kinds of questions not asked. Exhibit A: "Senator Biden, can you explain your running mate's relationship with Bill Ayers?"

Murphy's Laws

Mike Murphy has a funny piece in Time on debate prep. (H/t Weekly Standard's Matthew Continetti)

My favorite bit:

Finally, the savvy viewer should remember that any moment that looks too perfect to be true probably isn't. I once worked on a campaign in which we made a big show of opening our secret debate-prep session to reporters. The highlight was the part when the candidate dramatically rejected the lame, scripted debate answers we staffers had offered up, vowing instead to just tell it like it was. We were very proud of our candidate; that was precisely the bit we had carefully rehearsed.

Bonus links (compiled by Time, not me):

Galllery of campaign gaffes here
10 Memorable Debate Moments
Top 10 campaign ads in U.S. political history here

Who Says All Politics Are Local?

I just realized I now know more about the politics in Wassila, AK than I do about my town of Falls Church, VA.

Dem Fundraiser: "It's Happening Again"

A major Democratic fundraiser described it a good bit more starkly after
digesting the polls of recent days: “I’m so depressed. It’s happening again.
It’s a nightmare.”

Politico piece. Check out this graf:

“The [Obama] campaign is beginning to look like other campaigns,” said a former top strategist for past Democratic presidential campaigns, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Obama is struggling with working-class whites just like John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Michael Dukakis did, and Walter Mondale. He’s struggling with voters in the border-state South. And he’s struggling with an enormous wind at his back, a hatred for George Bush and a mainstream media that is little short of a chorus for his campaign.”

Worst Ad I've Seen In a Long Time...

I was hoping the McCain campaign wouldn't go this route.

Can You Say "Backlash?"

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews are out as election anchors, to be replaced by David Gregory, according to the New York Times.

I love this bit:

NBC Universal executives are also known to be concerned about the perception that MSNBC’s partisan tilt in prime time is bleeding into the rest of the programming day. On a recent Friday afternoon, a graphic labeled “Breaking News” asked: “How many houses does Palin add to the Republican ticket?” [Phil Griffin, president of MSNBC] called the graphic “an embarrassment.”

via Drudge

Palin Debate Video

PrestoPundit has video of Palin debating her two general election opponents in the 2006 Alaskan gubernatorial election.

Note that you can use your left/right arrow keys to get to the good parts. She handles questions on rape/incest abortions and embryonic stem cell research with aplomb.

Via NRO Corner.

McCain-Palin: American Gothic

Didn't take long for something like this to show up! (original here).

One Thing I Wish Giuliani Had Said...

He really cut Obama down to size last night, making good use of Barack's many "Present" votes in the IL legislature. I thought for sure Rudy was setting up this line:

"So the choice is clear: "Present," or President."

Understatement of the Night

Chris Matthews on Sarah Palin's speech:

“At no time during her entire presentation, did I think of Hillary Clinton,” Matthews said. “They have nothing in common.”

Um, yeah, safe to say I wasn't thinking at all of Hillary Clinton during Sarah's speech. Not one bit.

That Reagan Video

The Reagan tribute video tonight at the GOP convention was... not as good as it could have been, or should have been, given its subject. I think the problem was the writing.

The "B movie actor" line was graceless. And the line summing up his accomplishments was clumsy and missed a great opportunity. The before/after construction was something like "when he took office, unemployment was up, inflation was up, and the Soviet Union was on the march. But by such and such a time, unemployment was down, inflation was down..." but then they forgot to add the clincher, "and by the end of the decade we witnessed something unthinkable to everyone but Ronald Reagan himself, and unthinkable without his leadership -- the fall of the Berlin Wall."

Susan Estrich on Sarah Palin

Don't know how significant this might be, but after Palin was unveiled (but before the pregnancy story), I saw Susan Estrich on FOX and thought this revelation was interesting (close paraphrase):

"I've heard from a lot women, and my email is split. There are of course lots of women saying Hillary supporters can't vote for a McCain-Palin ticket, she's anti-choice, we're not stupid enough to fall for this. But the other half is saying, listen, this is an impressive woman who worked her way up from the PTA, a working women balancing career and family, isn't this what we've been wanting to see this whole time?"

Most American Sentence Ever

From a George Will piece on political populism:

A story, perhaps apocryphal but certainly plausible, is that a child once began a school essay with this sentence: "Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin he built himself."

Mirror Image at the New Republic

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait's "quick response" to Sarah Palin's speech in Dayton:

It sort of seemed like one of those regular person testimonials where somebody gets up and talks about their family and their blue-collar job -- except then she says that she's on the ticket. Maybe it will help McCain connect with blue-collar voters. Maybe she'll come off as someone you can't possibly imagine as president. I don't know. It's really different.

I agree that we don't know how she will ultimately play (I'm very optimistic). But regarding his impression of Sarah Palin -- we really do live in different worlds. Right-wingers see Obama and think he's like some kind of motivational speaker (world-class, no doubt), or some Master of Feelings combination of Oprah and Deepak Choprah (hey, they rhyme) until he says "... and that's why I'm running for president."

In fact, "motivational speaker" seems to capture Obama's whole shtick; after all, motivational speakers don't actually accomplish things (other than generating their gig), they urge you to accomplish things. (Obama does have one big accomplishment: he beat the Clintons in a long and tough primary, despite having no accomplishments.)

Or we can use the game of basketball to illustrate the difference between Obama and Palin, since word has it they both got game. As the star point guard for her high school basketball team, Palin hit the free throw in the last seconds in the state championship to win the game. Obama's most famous shot was that beautiful three-pointer he hit at the military base while over in Europe. Except, it wasn't really worth three points, because it wasn't in an actual game. Just an awesome photo op.

(I wish I had, like, famous readers from the Left who could quote me out context and claim that I'm saying a good game of hoops qualifies you to be commander in chief. 'Cause that would be awesome.)

Obama Again Hesitates to Criticize Palin

It's interesting how Obama himself won't criticize Palin's experience. His surrogates are certainly taking their best shot at her, but Barry is of course in a bind on this one.

From Ben Smith's blog at Politico:

Asked at a press conference Saturday night to respond to McCain's argument that Palin has more executive experience than the Democratic ticket, Obama and Biden laughed. "I think you guys can take a look at Gov. Palin's record, Joe Biden's record and make your judgment in terms of who you think has what it takes to be an outstanding vice president," Obama said after a rally in Dublin, Ohio. "I feel confident about my choice."This was about as far as Obama would go, for a second day in a row, to cast a critical eye on Palin.

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McCain Sharpening His Attack

Barack Obama routinely reminds us how low an opinion he has of the US as an actor on the world stage. He apologizes for our conduct, feels "embarrassed" around Europeans, etc.

He hesitates to see the US as the "good guys" because "the danger of using good versus evil in the context of war is it may lead us to be not as critical as we should be about our own actions.”

Yes, send these guys into battle, where they lose life and limb, but for God's sake don't tell them that what they are sacrificing for is "good."

Why would we elect a President so ashamed of America? How did we get to the point in this country where one of our major parties nominates somebody who gets his panties in a bunch wrestling with the question of whether the US is the good guys or the bad guys?

And tell me again why we question his patriotism?

I am gratified to see John McCain sharpen his attack on Obama to make exactly this point. From an Aug. 26 AP story:

Republican John McCain on Tuesday questioned rival Barack Obama's belief in American leadership in world affairs with two days to go before the Democratic senator accepts his party's nomination for U.S. president.

McCain, 71, suggested Obama, 47, had failed to express confidence in America as "the greatest force for good on this earth" when he gave a speech in Berlin last month before more than 100,000 people.

"He was the picture of confidence. But in some ways confidence itself and confidence in one's country are not the same," McCain he told a group of American war veterans.

McCain, himself a war veteran imprisoned for more than five years in Vietnam, accused Obama of appearing to link the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to Russian military action in Georgia in recent weeks.Obama last week condemned Moscow's actions in Georgia and said Russia could not "charge into other countries" but he also said: "Of course it helps if we are leading by example on that point." His remarks were widely seen as a criticism of the war in Iraq, which Obama opposed. McCain used the comments to raise broader questions about Obama, suggesting he lacked the clarity and vision to lead America and the world. "If he really thinks that by liberating Iraq from a dangerous tyrant, America somehow set a bad example that invited Russia to invade a small, peaceful and democratic nation, then he should state it outright because that is a debate I welcome," McCain declared.

"Confusion about such questions only invites more trouble, violence and aggression," said McCain, who as a senator has specialized in defense and foreign affairs issues and has put national security at the center of his campaign.He and Obama are running neck-and-neck in opinion polls.

Ayers Makes 1st Appearance in .... Obama Ad?

This new Obama ad is terrible. Why would he raise Bill Ayers?

Newest McCain Ad

Here's McCain's latest ad, using Hillary's words against Obama, similar to the Biden piece they posted on Saturday.

I wasn't sure initially whether McCain's run-and-gun, wacky ads were going to be effective, but they seem to keep Barry on the defensive, so something must be working.

McCain has surprised me with his new message discipline and those crazy, risky "celebrity" ads -- in both cases, he is clearly deferring to good advice, rather than doing his unpredictable McCain-of-the-day jog through the China shop. If he ends up picking a guy he clearly hated in the primaries -- Romney -- rather than following his Liebermanesque impulses, we'll know that McCain is really playing to win.

McCain's Manager Has It Backwards

In remarks to some reporters, McCain's manager Rick Davis said:

"We've got to get the Republican Party excited about his candidacy," Davis said of McCain. "I think that’s one of the things that is probably more important for us to do than contrast with any of the Democrats. We have to show them that there’s a chance to succeed."

As I have previously argued, I think Davis has that exactly backwards. McCain should be drawing clear contrasts with Obama, and begin painting him as the left-winger he is. It is an article of faith among conservatives -- and it also happens to be true -- that when the GOP candidate runs an ideological campaign, touts unifying conservative ideas, and defines the Dem as a liberal, we win.

McCain will generate much more optimism and excitement among conservatives and the broader GOP coalition by clearly signaling that this will be his general election strategy. Show us right-wingers how he can win by taking on Obama/Hillary, and at least some of us will begin to get excited about his chances of beating the long odds in November.

McCain and Soros: Together At Last

Well, at least in the fevered mind of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, which made a little video broadcast on Iranian television. As summarized by Jim Geraghty at NRO's Campaign Spot:

Courtesy of MEMRI, it was put together by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, and was broadcast on Iranian television, encouraging Iranians to report spies. It features a computer-generated "John McCain" masterminding a Velvet Revolution in Iran from the White House.

... with help from George Soros and others. Gotta throw the Jewish banker in there just for the jew-hating fun of it.

Excellent Advice for McCain

Kate O’Beirne & Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review Online:

What McCain Should Say at CPAC
Democrats think they have John McCain in a trap. He is going to have to spend the time immediately following his clinching of the nomination trying to win over Republican voters to his right. That’s time he won’t spend appealing to independent voters. He could even alienate those independents while courting conservatives.

McCain should prove this theory wrong, and he should do it starting at CPAC tomorrow. There are two temptations to resist. The first is for McCain to spend the bulk of the speech burnishing his conservative credentials. He has tried doing that, and a lot of conservatives are still left cold. Besides, what they want to hear isn’t that McCain has a conservative voting record but that he will fight for conservative ideas. The second temptation is to provoke bitter-end conservative resistance and triangulate against it. That would be a dangerous strategy, one that could make fence-sitting conservatives turn against him. What McCain should do instead is to take the fight to the Democrats, explaining why he’s against Harry Reid’s defeatism, Hillary Clinton’s health-care plan, Nancy Pelosi’s obstructionism on intelligence gathering, Barack Obama’s tax increases, and even Dennis Kucinich’s Department of Peace.

Conservatives know that McCain can be a tough political combatant. They want to see him turn those skills on the Democrats. They’re tired of being on the defensive. Even McCain’s opponents in the CPAC crowd will have to applaud as he lays into the Democrats.

This is exactly what McCain needs to do, pronto. I've been listening to these talk show folks lately; almost nothing he says to conservatives will work right now. He has to start talking about liberals.

I think it's also not too early for McCain to start laying out a vision for where he wants to take the country, and where he might follow or depart from George Bush. For example, apart from hanging tough in Iraq, would he make the broader freedom agenda in the Middle East a priority? What has he learned from Bush's failures and successes? Give people a bigger picture, maybe some of his apostasies might fade a bit.

Above all, he needs to start talking about how and why he is going to win in November. He might find that helping to lift Republican spirits may go a long way toward changing the conversation.

Is Huck Really Hurting Romney?

Not according to the latest USA/Gallup poll:

McCain wins over Romney as the second choice of Huckabee voters by more than a 2 to 1 margin, 64% to 28%. Indeed, McCain beats Romney 42% to 24% with Huckabee in the race (Huckabee gets 18% of the vote, Ron Paul gets 5%, and Alan Keyes gets 2%). With a narrowed-down ballot focused just on McCain and Romney (forcing Huckabee voters to choose between the two front-runners), McCain wins 53% to 30% -- a slightly expanded margin.

I am surprised. Must be a residual anti-Mormon vote out there, particularly in the South. Or maybe people just don't like Mitt Romney.

Romney beat Huck in Grand Rapids and surrounding counties in western Michigan, where I lived for a few years. That area is heavily dominated by conservative Christians, but of a somewhat different stripe than those in the South. West Michigan is CRC territory -- the Christian Reformed Church -- which has roots in Dutch Calvinism.

As a Catholic, I don't pretend to understand all the differences between Michigan CRC'ers and Southern evangelicals, but perhaps their relative attitudes toward Mormons is one such difference.

Via the Weekly Standard's campaign blog.

The Architect Weighs In

From the WSJ we have Karl Rove's "New Rules For Politics," which includes some old rules he believes are proving true as well.

Perhaps most interesting is Rove's analysis of the new media landscape:

-Television ads don't matter as much as they used to. Going on the air with the earliest and most ads doesn't count for nearly as much as it once did. Campaigning this time has been so intense, long and geared toward retail politics that people -- especially in the early states -- form opinions that are difficult to alter by early and voluminous advertising. Mr. Romney, who spent $2.4 million on TV ads in Iowa beginning last February, found that out.

Voters are discounting advertising. They may be blocking out ads, relying more on personal exposure, information from social networks, alternative information sources like talk radio and the Internet, and local media coverage. By Feb. 5, when it costs $16 million to burn one television spot in every state that's voting, it's simply too expensive to be on air everywhere at once.

The 20th century's closing decades saw the rise of the TV ad man as the most potent operator in presidential campaigns. The 21st century's opening decade is seeing the rise of the communications director and press spokesman as the more important figures on a campaign staff. It is the age of the Internet, cable TV, YouTube, multiple news cycles in one day, and the need for really instantaneous response. Ads and ad makers are still vital -- but not nearly as much as they were just a few years ago.

It's certainly the case that more people are hearing more things about politicians through more ways than ever. By "things" of course I mean documented facts, rumours, complete fabrications, what have you. Rove is describing a changed battlefield wherein yesterday's big Death Star weapon may be too slow and cumbersome to fend off a swarm of attacking sticks and stones coming from every direction, 24/7. Perhaps big TV ad buys will be most effective in injecting attacks into the media bloodstream (otherwise known as -- close your ears, children -- "negative ads"), rather than playing defense or for soft-focus, "meet the candidate" introductory spots.

The End of 9/11 Politics?

Politico has an interesting -- and depressing -- piece suggesting that "Rudy Giuliani's distant third-place finish in Florida may put an end to his bid for president, and it seems also to mark the beginning of the end of a period in Republican politics that began on Sept. 11, 2001."

Giuliani's national celebrity was based on his steady, comforting appearance in Americans' living rooms amid the terrorist attacks, and his campaign for president never found a message beyond that moment. The emotional connection he forged that day, it seems, has proved politically worthless. After months of wonder that the former mayor seemed to have no ceiling to his support, he turned out to have no floor, trading fourth-place finishes with Ron Paul, a little-known Texas congressman. "There's a paradox for Rudy," said former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, who was a member of the 9/11 Commission. "One of the things he did very well on 9/11 was say, 'We've got to get back to normal.' And that's what's happened. We've gotten back to normal."

[...]

After growing accustomed to tapping into fears of terrorism and faith in Republican strength, Giuliani's failure will force a major shift in Republican campaigns, some GOP strategists said. "Between the trauma of 9/11 and the civil war we had over the present policy in the Gulf — people have reached a point where they're just exhausted by it. I think that's a terrible, terrible thing," said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based GOP adman who produced perhaps the iconic post-9/11 television ad: Saxby Chambliss' searing attack on the willingness of Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, a Vietnam War hero, to keep America safe — a spot illustrated with the visages of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. "Americans want to watch 'America's Top Model' — and they really, really don't want to be reminded that bad people want to kill them," said Wilson, who worked for Giuliani's 2000 Senate campaign and advised him informally this year. "Talking about 9/11 now is like 'Remember the Maine.'"

And Now They've Come For Your Printer

According to Information Week, "spammers have a new way to vex computer users: printer hijacking."

Building on the concept of cross-site scripting, whereby an attacker can
inject malicious code in Web pages viewed by others, security researcher Aaron
Weaver has demonstrated how an attacker can inject spam messages into a Web site visitor's printer.

Weaver's research is available in a paper published online. It describes
how the attack could be initiated by creating a hidden iframe -- a block of code
inserted into a Web page and often served from a different domain than the Web
page -- and a Web form that submits the spam message to the printer. An attacker
could also send the spam message as a fax, if the printer has fax capabilities.

"The end result is that by visiting a Web site on the Internet you could
end up sending printer spam to your printer without even knowing that anything
happened," Weaver explains in his paper. "Since most printers don't have any
security set, it is possible to print anything, control the printer, change the
print settings, and even send faxes."

Oh, good grief.

Your Primary Source

Time has a terrific map of all the primaries across the country, with dates, delegates, etc.

Meet the New Inevitability

Putting Hillary's NH victory in perspective, Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post writes:

Crowds swelled at Obama events throughout New Hampshire and a sense of
inevitability seeped into the media coverage of the Democratic race.

That would be the sense of inevitability that inevitably replaced the sense of inevitability that surrounded the Clinton campaign all last year.

Bill's Moment

"You should make a conscious decision for words over deeds, for a feeling over the fact of change," Clinton said early this afternoon. "It's your country, you can do whatever you want, you own it ... You can make a judgment and it's your country, but don't go into this thing thinking there are no judgments and there's no decision to make."

So said Bill Clinton to New Hampshire crowds after Obama's win in Iowa, according to this Salon piece on Bill's "passive-agressive" pitch.

You gotta think this is Bill Clinton's moment, at least in his mind. (I know, it's always Bill's moment in his mind, but I mean more than usual.) Hillary's Iowa debacle endangers both of their futures. Now he finds himself making what might be the final big play of their partnership in New Hampshire. It was there in 1992 that the self-proclaimed "Comeback Kid" escaped the first trap he set for himself to blow up on the national level -- Gennifer Flowers. With Hillary Wynette playing her role on "60 Minutes," Bill managed to come in second behind Paul Tsongas, and all the elements of the Clinton psychodrama America was to witness for years to come were in place.

A big part of this drama has been Bill's vaunted ability to connect with people, one on one and in crowds, which established something strong enough to overcome whatever people felt about his personal shortcomings. It oddly echoed what most people assumed held their marriage together: some kind of agreement that their partnership was more important than their marriage vows.

But Bill is not on the ballot this time, and his aura may not be enough to save Hillary's candidacy. And now the undisputed master of the politics of feelings is reduced to begging people to use their heads and ignore that fuzzy feeling they get from Obama.

I feel his pain.

Iowa

I was wondering if the candidates could attend the Iowa carcasses, and the AP has the answer:

Iowans rendered their judgments in meetings at 1,781 precincts from Adel to Zwingle, in schools, firehouses and community centers where the candidates themselves could not follow.

Some hard numbers, as of late Thursday night:

• Projections estimated that 220,588 Democrats showed up on a cold midwinter's night, shattering the previous mark of 124,000. Turnout was also up on the Republican side, where projections showed about 114,000 people taking part. The last previous contested Republican caucuses in 2000 drew 87,666 participants.
  
  
• Obama also outpolled Clinton among women, and benefited from a surge in first-time caucus-goers. More than half of those who participated said they had never been to a caucus before, and Obama won the backing of roughly 40 percent of them. Edwards did best among veteran caucus-goers, garnering 30 percent of their vote. Obama and Clinton each got about a quarter of their support.
  
  
• An AP analysis of Iowa's Republican caucuses estimated that Huckabee would win 30 delegates to the national convention and Romney would win 7.
  Obama's victory was much narrower in the race for delegates. The AP analysis estimated Obama would win 16 delegates, compared to 15 for Clinton and 14 for Edwards. Clinton will win more delegates than Edwards, despite getting fewer votes, because of Iowa's complicated caucus system.
  
  
• In the overall race for the nomination, Clinton leads with 175 delegates, including superdelegates, followed by Obama with 75 and Edwards with 46.

And this interesting item:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio publicly urged his backers to line up with Obama on a second round, and two Democrats said aides to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson did likewise as the caucuses unfolded.