The Political Chase

Cheney: Bomb Iran daily

Vice President Dick Cheney says bomb Iran daily.

Democratic Debate on NPR

National Public Radio (NPR) hosted a debate in Des Moines for Democratic presidential candidates this afternoon. The forum was atypical — radio broadcast only and no audience at the debate — and somewhat heated according to reports. I did not listen to the debate, but media accounts indicate Hillary Clinton was slammed on Iran by her rivals and time was was more equally allocated to all candidates relative to televised debates.

Dan Balz and Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post reported “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton faced repeated criticism…for supporting” the Senate Resolution on Iran (Kyl-Lieberman Amendment). John Edwards levied the most criticism on Clinton and repeated his view that Clinton’s support of the Resolution “amounted to agreement with Bush’s worldview on terrorism,” Balz and Kornblut report.

Not amused by Edwards’ remarks, Clinton responded:

I understand politics, and I understand making outlandish political charges, but this really goes way too far. Having designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, we’ve actually seen some changes in their behavior.

But Clinton stood alone - there was no knight in shining armor today. Gov. Bill Richardson was unable to attend and did not come to Clinton’s aid as he did in the last MSNBC Democratic debate. Instead, Edwards was reinforced by other candidates.

“There’s no evidence — none, zero that this declaration caused any change in action on the part of the Iranian government,” Joe Biden said.

Barack Obama’s response was more tempered and indirect, but obviously critical of Clinton’s support of the amendment ultimately initiated by the Bush administration.

It is absolutely clear that this administration and President Bush continues to not let facts get in the way of his ideology . . .They should have stopped the saber rattling; should have never started it. And they need, now, to aggressively move on the diplomatic front.

Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post’s “The Fix” declared John Edwards the winner, followed by Joe Biden and Chris Dodd on a par level. On Edwards, Cilliza writes::

In the debates to date, Edwards has wavered between two personas: effective critic and angry outsider. At times Edwards’ strident critique against “the establishment” sizzles with populist brio. But, it can also occasionally come across as cranky and complaining — not exactly the two leading traits that people want in a president. In today’s debate, Edwards took on the effective critic persona. He sought to politely highlight what he called real divides between himself and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) on Iran, and largely kept his focus on the mistakes made by the Bush Administration. Edwards was also able to hold his own when the debate turned to China — demonstrating that he does indeed have some heft on foreign policy.

In the Losers’ category, Cilliza selected Hillary Clinton, followed by Mike Gravel with a virtual asterisk.

Here’s the problem for the junior Senator from New York: Despite the fact that polling in Iowa shows her in tight race with Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), her rivals for the nomination still treat her as though she is the frontrunner. On Iran, she took incoming from all sides — Obama and Edwards accused her of attempting to distort their past statements, while Dodd and Biden castigated Clinton for her vote in favor of the now infamous Kyl-Lieberman amendment that designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Clinton was also hurt by the topics chosen by NPR; on Iran and immigration she has taken considerable flack for her positions; her strongest issue, health care, was left out of the mix.

As to the virtual asterisk for Gravel, Cilliza writes:

It’s just hard to see why the former Alaska Senator continues to make the cut for these debates. He is an asterisk in every state and national poll we’ve seen, has raised next to nothing, and seems to believe his role in these gatherings is to serve as the resident crank.

Bill Clinton: Media not fair to Hillary

Former President Bill Clinton says the media is not being fair in its coverage of Hillary. His complaint? If reporters covered the candidates public records better, Sen. Clinton’s position in the presidential campaign would well ahead of the other candidates. Taking an indirect swipe at Barack Obama, President Clinton said he could not understand why the media ignores Hillary’s experience.

Referencing a study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, Clinton said:

One percent of the press coverage was devoted to their record in public life. No wonder people think experience is irrelevant. A lot of the people covering the race think it is (irrelevant).

Sixty-seven percent of the coverage is pure politics. That stuff has a half life of about 15 seconds. It won’t matter tomorrow. It is very vulnerable to being slanted and rude. And it won’t affect your life.

There is no doubting Bill Clinton’s intelligence and obviously he has done his homework, but when his wife’s campaign focuses on issues such as Barack Obama’s class work in kindergarten, what can he expect?

Maybe President Clinton should start knocking the heads of Hillary’s campaign managers and tell them to focus on the issues. If her campaign places a priority on issuing mudslinging press releases, the media is going to report it. Better still, maybe Sen. Clinton should be managing her campaign and the media rather than President Clinton.

Giuliani aide: It’s a CIA plot to protect Iran

You just can’t make something this ridiculous up. Rudy Giuliani’s Mideast Advisor Norman Podhoretz says the CIA is “fibbing about the Iranian nuclear program to protect the Iranians from an attack by Bush or Rudy.”

Josh Marshall has the story.

Bush: Iran remains a danger

President Bush: “Iran remains a threat.”

In a forty-minute news conference this morning, President Bush said Iran remains a danger, criticized Congress for not supporting the troops because they had not provided him funding bills that meet his approval, and reporters largely carried out their stenographer roles quite well.

Bush began with the worn-out, tiresome accusations that Congress wasn’t doing anything and they were putting the troops in danger because Congress would not send him funding bills that met his exact specifications for Iraq and other government operations. Of course he didn’t bother to mention how many funding bills Congress has sent him, he chose to veto, and that he may be the obstacle rather than Congress.

Most of the questions in the session focused on the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released yesterday, which contradicted the administration’s claims of the past two years that Iran had an active nuclear weapons program and posed a grave threat to the world.

Bush’s rhetoric was not as bellicose as in the past — no World War III threats — but his basic message on Iran did not change. He said Iran was a threat, is a threat, and will remain a threat. Moreover, he repeated the same ludicrous statement Stephen Hadley made yesterday — the NIE confirmed they (the administration) were right all along about Iran. It simply defies any sense of logic.

Two claims the administration has frequently made against Iran were noticeably absent: Iran is the largest contributor to state-sponsored terrorism in the world, and Iran’s alleged intervention in the Iraq war (e.g., supplying IED’s, funding, militia training, etc. ). While the state-sponsorship of terror has been part of the administration’s continuing rhetoric against Iran, the accusations related to the Iraq war have been diminishing lately. Why?

The press failed to make the connection between the NIE released yesterday and prior administration claims of Iran’s alleged involvement of counter-coalition and terrorist-related activities in Iraq. They politely carried out their normal role as stenographers and failed to ask about anything other than the narrow-focus the administration provided. Bush was challenged– minimally at best — on the dire warnings he and Dick Cheney have made in the last six weeks.

Asked by one reporter if the administration did not know about the NIE before his World War III speech and Cheney’s “inescapable reality” speech, he replied “No.” The reporter accepted the answer.

Another reporter probed a bit further and asked Bush if the administration had any knowledge of any kind, from any of the intelligence agencies, prior to their speeches that might have raised suspicions about Iran’s alleged nuclear program. Bush said Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, told him in August they had intelligence that needed further analysis before making a formal conclusion, but McConnell did not tell him anything further. Bush added he first learned of the new intelligence two weeks ago. Reporters promptly wrote his answer down and simply let it go.

What person with a modicum of intelligence actually believed McConnell simply told the president he needed to delay an extremely important intelligence report on Iran and nothing more was said or asked by the president or McConnell. And if that is what happened, which we know is not the truth,, should not the reporters stenographers have exposed Bush’s gross incompetence by asking questions why he dismissed McConnell as if McConnell had just told him he would be a few minutes late for a meeting because he needed to call his wife first? Of course the media should not be posing such questions. As Tim Russert once said, “the opposition party should ask those questions.”

Bush had no choice but to moderate his tone, but the message did not change. Tomorrow will likely be different. Mistakes or not, nothing changes the Bush Manichean principle.

The burning question I have is why did Bush really decide to release this report, when just days ago Mike McConnell declared NIE’s would no longer be made public. Why did Bush release a report that he knows proves Cheney and himself wrong? Forget the idiotic statements that it proves they were right — that’s just spin. They know the report contradicts virtually everything they’ve said for more than two years. After seven years, Bush and Cheney suddenly succumb to an infusion of integrity?

John Edwards wanted to be Superman

How will Hillary Clinton’s campaign respond to this serious issue? On Morning Joe today, John Edwards made the astonishing revelation that in kindergarten he aspired to be Superman or a cowboy.