Andrew Rice

Far be it for me to condone the Kenyan government’s heavy-handed treatment of anti-Obama polemicist Jerome Corsi, news of which was splashed across the top of the Drudge Report this morning, and is still prominently displayed. It appears to this reporter, who has spent some time in the region, that Corsi’s deportation—if that is indeed what happened—appears to be an all-too-familiar case of an annoyed government overreacting in stereotypical fashion. On the other hand, no one should portray Corsi as a martyr for press freedom. What he was up to in Kenya wasn’t journalism. It was a dangerous political stunt.  read more »

ST. PAUL—A huge crowd is gathered around a flat-screen TV on the Xcel center right now watching Obama's O'Reilly Factor interview.

This morning, Michael Gerson, the former Bush Administration speechwriter, participated in a panel discussion on democracy and America’s role in the world alongside foreign policy mandarins like Henry Kissinger. Afterward, I walked up to him, and without missing a beat, he said: “You want to talk about Sarah Palin?”

Today, everyone did. It will be some time before we know whether the speech the Republican vice presidential candidate gave last night was merely a very good debut, or a truly historic moment of emergence—the Republican version of Barack Obama’s keynote address to the Democratic convention in 2004. But the morning after, in the sealed container of the Twin Cities, exalted opinions were marinating.  read more »

Last night, I wrote about Senator Joe Lieberman’s appearance at a panel discussion on John McCain’s foreign policy. Lieberman’s appearance made the news, but some of the most notable comments actually came from Robert “Bud” McFarlane, the former national security adviser to Ronald Reagan and current member of the McCain campaign’s national security advisory board. (He also pleaded guilty to charges of misleading Congress in connection with the Iran-Contra affair, but that’s another story.)

In speaking about relations with Russia, McFarlane called its government a “criminal regime” and “Russian thugs,” and suggested freezing the bank accounts of Vladimir Putin and others. Whatever the merits, it’s mighty undiplomatic language—and an indication of how the old Cold Warriors, and their rhetoric, have made a comeback since the outbreak of the Georgian conflict last month.  read more »

MINNEAPOLIS—Senator Joe Lieberman sat on an auditorium stage, surrounded by Republicans, and beamed like a satisfied heretic.

It was less than 24 hours since the former Democrat’s convention speech in praise of his friend John McCain, and Lieberman was speaking as part of a panel discussion on the prospective McCain administration’s hypothetical foreign policy. The room was packed full of journalists, Republican officials and internationalist types, eager to hear from a man who has largely ostracized himself from his colleagues on Capitol Hill. Three other McCain advisors were sitting onstage, but it was Lieberman—whom Barack Obama endorsed just two years ago, when he faced a primary challenge—who volubly took the lead in criticizing the Democratic candidate, whom he described as unprepared to lead the country through a Manichaean global struggle.  read more »

BLOOMINGTON, Minn.—Bill Noll, an Alaskan delegate to the Republican convention, has been a coal entrepreneur, an appointed state officeholder and the mayor of a small town in his home state. “Smaller than Wasilla, actually,” he said with a grin. It had been four days exactly since John McCain had made Alaskan Sarah Palin the most famous former small-town mayor in America. (With the possible exception of Clint Eastwood.)

Since Palin was introduced to the world last Friday as a reformist, no-nonsense female chief executive, her image has been clouded by the revelation of family problems (a pregnant teenage daughter, a no-good state trooper brother-in-law, a husband with a history of drinking and driving), flip-flopping problems (on “the bridge to nowhere” and the subject of earmarks), embarrassing-bedfellow problems (she served on the board of a 527 called “Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.  read more »

BLOOMINGTON, Minn.--On Sunday, John McCain called for Republicans to “take off their Republican hats and put on their American hats,” stifling any partisan attacks as Hurricane Gustav bore down on the Gulf Coast. Well, that’s over.

At a breakfast speech before the Tennessee and Alaska Republican delegations this morning at the Pawnee Room at the Ramada Inn at the Mall of America, former New York Governor George Pataki—of all people—launched an attack on the Democratic ticket, at one point conflating the name of the opposing party’s candidate with Osama bin Laden’s.

“Do we have anybody from Tennessee here?” Pataki said as he opened his speech.  read more »

ST. PAUL—With much fanfare, this evening’s session of the Republican National Convention was turned into a fundraiser for hurricane relief. Laura Bush and Cindy McCain appeared onstage beneath a video screen that projected a web address, www.causegreater.com, which was set up by the McCain campaign. Visitors to the web site, as well as delegates in the hall and viewers on television, were redirected a charity called The Aidmatrix Foundation, along with several statewide organizations, some of which were likewise affiliated with Aidmatrix.

What is the Aidmatrix Foundation? On Fox News, correspondent Bret Baier referred to it as “eBay for charitable contributions.  read more »

Overheard on the bus to the Xcel Energy Center, 2:30 p.m:

A middle-aged couple, members of the Georgia delegation, discuss the news that Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter Bristol is pregnant.

Her: “I guess it’s not so bad if the guy is 17. It’s not like he’s older, right?”

Him: “I wouldn’t know. I abstained until I was 24.”

Her: “We were dating when you were 24.”

Him: “Right.”

Laughter fills the back of the bus.

On Sunday night, as Hurricane Gustav bore down on New Orleans and Republican Party elders scrambled to muffle all sounds of revelry from the Twin Cities, Sammy Hagar, the former Van Halen frontman, stood before a microphone at the legendary Minneapolis nightclub First Avenue. He was wearing plaid board shorts, sunglasses, and a logo T-shirt from Cabo Wabo Cantina, a bar he owns in Mexico. Hagar, who had just ripped through a set of his old standards, including “I Can’t Drive 55,” told his audience—several hundred Republican notables—that his band had just come from a gig in Houston.

“The hurricane is going to hit down there and that’s a big shame and all,” Hagar said.  read more »

DENVER—Michael Nutter, the young, brainy, African-American mayor of Philadelphia, took a chance during the Democratic primary season. He vocally supported Hillary Clinton against Barack Obama, the candidate with whom he shares many qualities—and the overwhelming preference, as it turned out, of his constituents. He explained his decision by citing the Clintons’ track record of delivering for cities like Philadelphia, which experienced a revival during the 1990s. But in terms of raw political calculation, Nutter was picking sides in a battle that split Pennsylvania’s Democrats, from the highest levels (Governor Ed Rendell supported Hillary, Senator Bob Casey, Obama) right down to the neighborhood clubhouses that make up Philadelphia’s fabled—though somewhat diminished—Democratic machine.  read more »

DENVER--“America has come very far,” Charity Ngilu said.

Sitting in a Denver cafe, sipping a cup of English tea, Ngilu—Kenya’s minister for water and irrigation, and the highest-ranking member of a small delegation of leaders from her nation who are attending the Democratic convention—was reflecting on the unlikely rise of Barack Obama. Four years ago, the obscure Illinois legislator introduced himself to delegates at the Boston convention—and, by electrifying extension, the entire world—as a “skinny kid with a funny name.” That name, of course, is Kenyan, and back in the country where it originated, they’re feeling vicariously triumphant that it is now known around the globe.  read more »

DENVER--Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, is a man of large and unfettered appetites, and to see him tear into a small, crustless reuben sandwich, corned beef flying, is a little like watching a lion take after a plump, wounded antelope. His first order of business completed, Rendell gallumphed up the microphone at the Pinnacle Club, where the Pennsylvania delegation was having lunch on Tuesday afternoon, a few hours before Rendell and Hillary Clinton were to address the Democratic Convention.

“Isn’t the food terrific here?” the governor began, and then segued into some stern instructions. “I want to make sure that we do two things tonight.  read more »

DENVER—Art is to presidential politics what food rations are to war—a necessary component of the enterprise, but nothing one would choose to consume under normal circumstances. In this, as in so many ways, Barack Obama’s campaign is different.

Early on, Mr. Obama captured the fancy of the bicoastal artistic community, and he’s gone to unprecedented lengths to incorporate their creations into his campaign. Perhaps the most successful example of this collaboration between the graphic and the political is a series of posters created by the designer Shepard Fairey: agitprop-like images of the candidate’s face, superimposed over words like “hope” and “progress.” Copies of the posters, once available through Mr.  read more »

DENVER—This Democratic convention, with its change-agent star, is supposed to be all about the future. But for one evening, in one small corner of Denver, the talk was still all about the past—four years past, to be exact.

At a private reception on Monday, Senator John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, welcomed a select group of donors and fund-raisers to this year’s convention, while offering up a notably raw retrospective of the campaign they lost. Or maybe, the way they see it, the one they didn’t actually lose after all.

This convention, Ms. Heinz Kerry said, is “full of meaning and full of opportunity, and if you, as I, believe, and I know a lot of you do, we did not lose the last election, nor did Al Gore lose his last election.  read more »

This guy is canvassing outside the Colorado Convention Center for some kind of Halloween-related voter turnout drive called trick or vote. Kind of an unfortunate choice of costume though, all things considered.

DENVER -- Howard Dean came up from behind and clapped Walter Mondale on the shoulder. “Joe Biden,” he said. “Great choice. Great choice.”

It was two glasses into cocktail hour on Sunday evening at the International Leaders Forum, a quadrennial powwow of foreign dignitaries hosted by the National Democratic Institute, an organization that promotes good governance around the world. The NDI is loosely affiliated with the national Democratic Party, which explains why the forum’s opening reception, held at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, attracted both Dean and Mondale, who’d spoken at an earlier panel discussion. (Not to mention House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who gave an opening speech, and a shambling Ted Turner, who politely declined to be interviewed.  read more »

Hillary Clinton got a temporary boost out of Pennsylvania last night, and today, her surrogates are likely to be arguing to superdelegates that her comfortable victory in a swing state is yet more proof that she is the superior general election candidate.  read more »

[This article originally appeared in the 8/2/2004 edition of The New York Observer.]

Uhuru Kenyatta and Barack Obama have a lot in common. They both have Kenyan fathers. They are a year apart in age. (Mr. Kenyatta is 43, Mr. Obama, 42.) They are both in politics.  read more »

At night, when Mark Penn sleeps and dreams of Hillary Clinton’s electorate, his head dances with visions of voters like this. Born June 13, 1944. White, female. College-educated. An elementary school teacher. Pays a mortgage and worries about her retirement. A lifelong Democrat. Born in the North, but lives in the South. Has four kids, three of them girls. Divorced. Definitely convinced that a woman could run this country.

Mr. Penn, meet my mother, Diane Rice.  read more »

The John Edwards “surge” has been the Loch Ness Monster of this primary campaign. There have been unconfirmed sightings of this elusive creature in the closing days of Iowa, New Hampshire and even (to a small degree) in Nevada, where he actually ended up getting just four percent of the vote. Now, based on a couple of polls that show Edwards within striking distance of second place in South Carolina, some people are saying they see the surge for real. Today, the lead sentence of a story in The State, the daily newspaper in Columbia (regrettably the article is nowhere to be found online): “Watch John Edwards.”

This morning, Edwards cited the surge rumors at a rally held in a crammed convention center conference room in Columbia. He told his audience, mostly college students, that he saw an “opportunity for a surprise” tomorrow. Edwards was energetic and impressive, emphasizing issues that were of interest to his young audience—many of whom wore t-shirts emblazoned with slogans like “I Vote For Darfur”—while taking care to strike notes that were also palatable to social conservatives, whom he’s clearly hoping to court in this devoutly religious state. When one young woman asked about threats to Roe v. Wade, Edwards only fleetingly reiterated his support for a woman’s right to choose, before going into a long and eloquent speech about the “need to be very inclusive and respectful” of those who oppose abortion. “There are very good people who have a different view about this,” he said. “Nobody made me God.”

More after the jump.  read more »

Walterboro, S.C.—“This is huge,” Bill Clinton was saying. His speaking voice, the most famously fragile in politics, was at full-tilt croakiness, yet another reminder of campaigns past.

“You can make biofuels in every county in this state…” The former president was standing alone on an auditorium stage in this Spanish moss-festooned town of 5,000 in the South Carolina lowcountry. It was mid-afternoon, and the chilly, darkened hall was maybe two-thirds full.

“You can make it from grass, you can make it from wood chips, you can make it from the leavings of all your agricultural operations. You can make it from all the organic materials in all the landfills. We can get rid of landfills forever and make biofeuls.”  read more »

WALTERBORO, S.C.—At a panel and Q&A session this afternoon, one attendee asked Bill Clinton about how accessible Hillary would be as President. After speaking to the topic, he digressed, and challenged the Bush administration’s rationale for warrantless wiretaps.

“After 9/11, I think most people thought we may need a stronger President to deal with the terrorist threat, but a stronger presidency does not mean an unaccountable presidency,” Clinton said.  read more »

WEST COLUMBIA, S.C.—We were at a community center attached to a megachurch-ish place called the Brookland Baptist Church. No one seemed to know we were coming. Charlie Rangel ambled in, looking Ranglian. He took three questions. The first, from a Greenville news reporter, was basically, what are you doing here.

"I have no idea,” Rangel responded. “I'm campaigning for Hillary Cllnton and this is my first stop...I'm here to do what campaigning is all about."

The second question was about why people should vote for her versus Obama.  read more »

Warming up a crowd for John Edwards yesterday in Lancaster, S.C., the bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, a slight man with a shock of white hair, stood alone at a microphone on a flag-bedecked auditorium stage. “I’m death I come to take the soul,” he sang, in a husky a capella warble. “Leave the body and leave it cold … O, Death / O, Death / Won’t you spare me over ‘til another year.”

As campaign anthems go, Stanley’s Appalachian dirge—made famous by the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack—wasn’t exactly “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” But in these last-gasp days, Edwards is striving to convey an authentic cultural connection to his audiences in South Carolina, and sometimes southerners can get pretty gloomy. Especially these days, as the candidate is telling audiences in a bus tour across the upstate that he’s dubbed his “Back Home, Back Roads Barnstorm.”  read more »

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- I'm going to be spending the rest of the week in my home state, South Carolina, writing about the upcoming Democratic primary for the Politicker.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into my mother's house, where I'm staying, was a flashing red light on the answering machine. I pushed the button, thinking my mom might have left an update on the status of the supply of cold cuts in the fridge, but instead, there was a drawling recorded voice:

Hello. FBI agent Gary Aldrich says that Hillary on Inauguration Day, 1993 was in an uncontrolled and unbridled fury, yelling and screaming profanities, because she was not allowed to have Vice President Al Gore’s office in the White House. Hillary treats people like they are invisible; can you trust her?

And this:

Hillary knew about and helped cover up Bill’s rape of Juanita Broaddrick. Hillary treats women like they are invisible; can you trust her?

It went on in this vein for a minute or so. (In one particularly ludicrous bit of slander, the robo-caller accused the Clintons of stealing or killing Kathleen Willey's cat, concluding with the following punchline: “Hillary thinks cats are expendable; can you trust her?”

It would have been funny if it weren't so sad.TPM Muckraker was on these calls (apparently the work of a unaffiliated Black Helicopter-type) yesterday, so they're not exactly news, but somehow this kind of mud seems dirtier when it's being flung in your (or your mom’s) direction.

Should be an interesting few days.

Andrew Cuomo makes dating safe and cheap.

Shrinking violet Bo Dietl criticizes Spitzer, wants his phone calls returned.

Binding arbitration gets the veto treatment in Albany.

Steve thinks that letting Scooter off did nothing for Bush with the base.

Michelle Obama says her husband has plenty of experience.

The Politico breaks down the GOP candidates’ “burn rates.”

Greg Sargent is hopping mad about that Edwards hairdresser story in the Washington Post.

Ben asks whether someone is manipulating the political futures market.

It sounds like Rudy’s trying to run up the score with his fundraising.

Ron Paul’s partisans respond surprisingly rapidly to mild ridicule.

Rupert Murdoch does not own the Wall Street Journal. Yet.

Well, dear readers, that’s it for my stint as guest editor. It’s been a long, hectic and often quite rewarding week and a half. You regular editor, Josh Benson, will be home from the Dalmatian Coast and back at the helm on Monday, and the Observer will resume weekly publication with a new issue on Wednesday. It’s been a very great pleasure to waste a few precious moments of your workdays.

How poorly is fundraising going for the Republican presidential contenders? Libertarian fringe candidate Ron Paul is in third place among the candidates in terms of cash-on-hand, with $2.4 million. George Stephanopoulos, who might want to have a frank conversation with his booker, will have an "exclusive interview" with Paul on Sunday's edition of "This Week."

The only question I have is, how much did Rudy pay him to stay in the race?

Steve Kornacki has a long column today on the reemergence of Mark Warner, the former Virginia governor who dropped out of the presidential race last year, ostensibly because he didn't want to put the strain on his family. With rumors abounding that Senator John Warner might step aside, the other, younger, Democratic Warner is sending unambiguous signals that he's ready to get back in the game. Which will only serve to stoke the suspicions--never substaintiated in any way--that his decision to leave the presidential race before it even got started was somewhat more complicated than its been publicly portrayed.

Live From Congress: Rep. Ingersoll's Murder of a Hobo

From the Onion, via Wonkette, positive proof that any sentence becomes funny if you add the word "hobo" to it.

President Bush’s spokesman takes a shot at Bill Clinton, saying it took “chutzpah” for him to offer criticism on the subject of presidential pardons.

Governor Spitzer’s spokesman called today’s Post story about alleged monitoring of Joe Bruno’s travel arrangements “grossly inaccurate and false.”

Bruno threw another temper tantrum, accusing Spitzer of “political espionage.”

The state GOP chairman called the alleged monitoring “Nixonesque.”

Newsday’s John Riley says, “This is war.”

Dick Gephardt endorses Hillary Clinton. Maybe the Post was just four years ahead of everyone?

John McCain pushed aside his state director in South Carolina. His controversial longtime South Carolina strategist, Richard Quinn, will stay on without pay.

Bruce Reed condenses that enormous Mitt Romney profile from the Boston Globe.

The guy with the knife outside Obama’s hotel seems less menacing than it first appeared.

Bush and Putin didn’t accomplish much at their Kennebunkport summit.

And, in honor of a miserably slow news day, Azi passes along the above bit of found political commentary, a snapshot taken at a park somewhere near Bush and Clinton Streets in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

It’s often been said that political careers, like love affairs, go in cycles. They begin with flirtation, progress to infatuation, and—if the politician is lucky—lead to consummation. But, as in a relationship, there comes a point in every politician’s time in public life when he (or she) starts to become a little grating, when affection dims, when the act of congress with the populace starts to feel awkward and perfunctory. The qualities that made him (or her) so attractive in the first place become gradually less endearing. Confidence starts to look like cockiness. Charming words start to sound glib. The affair begins to sour.

(I get to the point after the jump.)  read more »

While it's true that politics never ends, it does--ever so occasionally--rest, and so does the Politicker. Barring any huge, unforeseen developments (hang in there, John McCain!) the site will be quiet for the rest of the day, as we commemorate the founding of our great nation just as our founding fathers did: with gunplay in Brooklyn. Rest assured, however, that we will be back tomorrow.

God bless you and God bless these United States of America.

Now eat some hot dogs!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the text of Scooter Libby’s commutation.

Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani announce their second-quarter takes: Worse than the top Dems, but way better than John McCain.

Chris Cillizza thinks John McCain’s money problems have been a long time in coming, and are not necessarily terminal.

John Dickerson on McCain’s woes: “If McCain is a panderer, he may be the most ineffective one in the history of American politics.”

Joe Bruno cancels his subscription to the Albany Times-Union, which broke the story about his chopper use. He says an ad salesman for the paper called him to suggest buying space in the paper if he wanted to appear positively in its pages.

Daniel Pearl’s mother has a problem with A Mighty Heart.

There’s more speculation that Virginia’s John Warner might be the next Republican senator to retire. Think Jim Gilmore might be keeping a detached eye on his seat?

Inside the Clintons’ Des Moines rally.

Ron Paul, on the cutting edge.

Ed Koch, always relevant.

This Viola Plummer story will never end, apparently.

Marty Peretz attacks one of TNR’s own staffers’ posts as “malicious and malevolent nonsense.” Good thing he doesn’t own the place anymore!

This is hilarious. Meet the ferret-owning baggage handler to who helped to save the day in Glasgow.

And finally, in the picture above, some Iowans learn there’s one more reason to vote for Obama—he can dunk flatfooted (via Marc Ambinder).

Details to come, but it looks like Rudy Giuliani's going to be the second-quarter fundraising champ on the Republican side. This should cement his position as the frontrunner, for now.

One interesting reversal of fortune: The biggest Republican numbers are roughly half what Obama raised.

UPDATE: The AP reports Rudy raised $17 million. That's $3 million more than Mitt Romney, although Romney more than made up the difference by loaning himself $6.5 million

Yes, we've sunken to posting funny-sign pictures.

Jason Horowitz just saw this one as he was driving around Vienna, Virginia.

Steve just posted a pair of columns. In the first of them, he looks back on the Samuel Alito confirmation hearings and wonders whether Democrats would be have been better off if they'd tried to Bork him. He notes that after the defeat of Bork, Reagan nominated Anthony Kennedy, obviously a more moderate choice. "What if Democrats had stuck together – as they did with Bork – and held out for a second, or third nominee from President Bush? Would there be another Kennedy on the court right now?" he asks.

It's an interesting counterfactual, though I must note one big difference: the Democrats had taken back the Senate in 1986, the year before Bork's nomination, and Reagan was in the midst of Iran-Contra and other late-term scandals. The real analogy would be if Stevens or another justice died or stepped down unexpectedly this year--and does anyone doubt that the Democrats of 2007 would put up a fight in that case?

On a lighter note, Steve also debuts the Observer's inaugural edition of the Also-Ran Dead Pool, a tongue-in-cheek assessment of which presidential "contenders" are likely to drop out of the race first, and why. Your wisecracks are welcome, as always, in the comments section.

By the way, the Polticker is still trying to put together a list of July 4 events, and I'm sure we'd all like to knock off as early as possible today, so please email anything you've got to nyopoliticker@gmail.com.

 

George Bush pardoned Scooter Libby, surprising his staff and outraging his critics.

The latest round of U.K. bombings look to be a “doctor’s plot.” Wait—that name’s already taken.

Mayor Bloomberg tells everyone to relax and enjoy the holiday.

John McCain huffily dismissed speculation that yesterday’s staff layoffs were a prelude to dropping out of the race for president.

The L.A. Times says Hillary Clinton is “aiming at voters who are dubious about her but are not partisan enemies,” with some success.

She got the endorsement of Philadelphia’s mayor, John Street, yesterday. Street used to be a hot dog vendor.

Bill Clinton plunges back into the fray in Iowa, saying he’d be behind her “even if we weren’t married.”

The Times has a good piece on the Clintons’ efforts to revive Hillary’s “struggling” campaign in Iowa.

Jim Gilmore is suspending his campaign for president after seeing “bright flashes” in his eyes. It’s Gilmore, so we know they weren’t flashbulbs.

Cory Booker is still having trouble overcoming the “not black enough” label, according to a big Times feature, which is a terrific read.

Charles Barron stands by his embattled staff member.

The Post reports that Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum circumvented the city’s competitive bidding rules to buy furniture, computer equipment and the like.

The Sun says Bloomberg gathered the flacks for all city agencies earlier this year to emphasize his “independence.”

Beverley Sills, opera diva and former chairwoman of Lincoln Center, is dead.

The state inspector general released a voluminous report on the bidders for Aqueduct and other race tracks.

Two attorney generals are looking into Joe Bruno’s travel arrangements now.

Bruno once again called New York’s governor a “rich, spoiled brat.”

Bruno also said Spitzer once threatened him, saying: "I'm going to knock you out.”

Which, on this pleasant July morning, diverts your aging blogger’s mind to a mean little ditty from the summer of 1990. (See above.)

The Observer’s Jason Horowitz broke the news of Scooter Libby’s commuted sentence.

Andrew Sullivan’s response to Bush: “I retained some minimal respect. No longer.”

John McCain takes some steps to create an, ahem, “more nimble campaign.”

Josh Marshall wonders if it’s “Phil Gramm ’96 redux.”

As for the other flagging frontrunner, Noam Scheiber says Hillary Clinton is “vulnerable in ways that weren’t apparent six months ago” and says she has to reevaluate her strategy before it’s too late.

Obama’s fundraising aside, Chris Cillizza thinks Hillary remains the frontrunner.

Jonathan Martin reports that McCain and Mitt Romney addressed a secretive conservative Christian group late last week.

A First Lady seeks the presidency—in Argentina.

More completely uninformed speculation about Bill Clinton’s hypothetical romantic adventures.

The war between Eliot Spitzer and Joe Bruno heightened. Bruno claimed that the story about his helicopter trips “came out of the governor’s office.”

Curbed takes a look the Times’ Sunday story about “possible risk” in the Atlantic Yards project and concludes that the projected sale prices (of $900 to $1000 a square foot) for condos at that location “[don’t] really sound that shocking.”

After masterminding a disastrous war and getting drummed out of his job running the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz has decided to lend a hand to Africa. Can Scooter be far behind?

One sure sign that a president has reached his sell-by date--in addition to the collapse of his domestic agenda, the recruitment of friendly intellectuals for brainstorming sessions, and a steady trickle of subpoenas and jail sentences for his trusted henchmen--is the beginning of a "place in history" debate on newspaper op-ed columns. The Washington Post's Sunday "Outlook" section got it all started some time back by asking several prominent historians to make a preliminary assessment of George W. Bush (the consensus seemed to be "at least he's not Nixon.") and yesterday, it continued its efforts to come to grips, printing a column by Lynne Olson, the author of a recent history focusing on Winston Churchill and the run-up to World War II. Bush himself is reportedly reading Olson's book, so it may dismay him a bit to hear the author's conclusion:

I think Bush's hero would be bemused, to say the least, by the president's wrapping himself in the Churchillian cloak. Indeed, the more you understand the historical record, the more the parallels leap out -- but they're between Bush and [Neville] Chamberlain, not Bush and Churchill.

Like Bush and unlike Churchill, Chamberlain came to office with almost no understanding of foreign affairs or experience in dealing with international leaders. Nonetheless, he was convinced that he alone could bring Hitler and Benito Mussolini to heel. He surrounded himself with like-minded advisers and refused to heed anyone who told him otherwise.

Olson goes on to make a very interesting case for the historical parallels between the styles of Bush and the prime minister whose very name has become synonymous with disastrous miscalculation. It just goes to underscore how far he--and we--have traveled since the fall of 2001.

Poring over the latest FEC reports, Ben predicts: “It's going to be a good year to be in ad sales in Des Moines.” This morning, the Nielsen Company put out a report that breaks down exactly who’s advertised so far, where they’ve done it, and—perhaps most interestingly, in this day and age—what medium they’ve chosen to get the message out.

According to the report (pdf here) Mitt Romney has advertised far more than all the other candidates, running 4,549 ads, through June 10, “mostly on local broadcast television” in seven markets, including Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s placed “more local TV advertisements than all other candidates combined,” the report says.

(Read the rest of my breakdown after the jump...)

UPDATE: The Nielsen people send along the following correction to the report that I linked above:

There was an labeling error in the chart "2008 Presidential Campaign Television & Radio Spots" on page 2 of the news release. The first column should read TV Total and not TV & Radio Total. The data for that chart is correct.

 read more »