Thursday!

* Following up on my article in the Indy this week on the excessive costs of nuclear power, here's a report from the head of FERC claiming "We may not need any [new nuclear or coal plants], ever."

* Also at Climate Progress: Obama vs. the Ponzi scheme and what the climate of the U.S. might look like a hundred years from now.

* Republicans aren't just talking about secession to rile up the base; they're actually invoking neo-secessionist legal strategies. It's funny, but it's not a joke.

* Jonathan Martin on why the Republican noise machine can't seem to get anywhere against Obama. It's interesting that the issue that seems to have to most traction against this White House is his failure to prosecute the previous, Republication administration for its many crimes. It's the only place where their attempts to derail Obama have worked, but it's not a viable strategy for electoral success.

* And speaking of prosecuting the Bush White House: Vermont Senator (and Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee) Patrick Leahy is determined to move forward with a torture probe. Amen to that.

O'Reilly v. Hertzberg. An intriguing behind-the-scenes look either at a just crusade for fair treatment of Newt Gingrich or else at what it's like to be on the receiving end of a Bill O'Reilly smearjob, depending on whether or not you know the meaning of the word "fascism." (Thanks, td!)

I'm a Godless Atheist, and I vote: Elizabeth Dole desperately wants me to vote for Kay Hagan. (Done.)

Sen. Elizabeth Dole's latest advertisement suggests her Democratic opponent, Kay Hagan, is a godless heathen.

"A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser for Kay Hagan," the 30-second spot says, showing footage of the group's members talking about their atheist beliefs on cable news.

"Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took godless money," the ad concludes. "What did Kay Hagan promise in return?"

At the very end of the ad, a voice sounding like Hagan's says: "There is no God."

Don't get too excited, fellow heathens: as Washington Monthly reports, Hagan called a press conference with her family and pastor to denounce the ad—for lying. Like calling your opponent a Muslim, calling your opponent an atheist is prima facie an insult. God forbid it actually be true!

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel particularly strong about this because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay, was of a mother at Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone, and it gave his awards - Purple Heart, Bronze Star - showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death, he was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the head stone, it didn't have a Christian cross. It didn't have a Star of David. It has a crescent and star of the Islamic faith.

And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could serve his country and he gave his life.

(via Huffington Post)

The debate begins in just a few minutes, but there's time to appreciate some good early voting news: 'Obama Dominating Among Early Voters in Five Swing States.'

There's also time to worry a bit about some bad early voting news: Republicans in Ohio have won a court case requiring Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to create computer programs to cross check all new voter registrations so that county boards of elections can doublecheck new registrants. Voter suppression there just got a whole lot easier.

It may not matter: no matter what McCain says or does, it looks like people are voting for Obama anyway.

54 year-old white male, voted Kerry '04, Bush '00, Dole '96, hunter, NASCAR fan...hard for Obama said: "I'm gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He's gonna be a bad president. But I won't ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President."

The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. "Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack."

The McCain campaign directive that 'The Ayers smears we've been enjoying from the McCain campaign since the weekend are apparently no longer operative' (issued, you may recall, just yesterday) is apparently no longer operative.

I guess this was the "major announcement." (UPDATE: Martin confirms it was.)

Well done, sir.



UPDATE: Somebody owes Alex $20.

The difference between strategy and tactics: The Ayers smears we've been enjoying from the McCain campaign since the weekend are apparently no longer operative. If this is a case of McCain stepping up and doing the right thing, then good for him, but I'm afraid I suspect Greg Sargent's theory is more likely:

If it's really true that the McCain team is holstering this pistol, it suggests that the McCain campaign's internal polling on how the Ayers stuff is playing is just brutal, likely among independents. It also suggests that Obama's counter-attack -- lambasting McCain's campaign for wanting to change the subject from the economy to personal attacks -- has been effective.

The Keating 5 and Council for World Freedom counterattacks probably helped clarify things a bit for them, too.

It remains to be seen whether Palin and other McCain surrogates will really put Ayers back in the box, or not.

A little bit of politics.

* Yesterday's Tina Fey/Sarah Palin skit was another instant classic. It's no exaggeration to say that Tina Fey may have single-handedly saved America from a Sarah Palin presidency, and for that she deserves our deepest thanks.



* As for what Gwen Ifill thought of the debate she (poorly) moderated, on Meet the Press this morning she seemed a little miffed that Palin "blew [her] off."

* For better or for worse Obama has decided that the Keating Five scandal is now fair game. I say "or for worse" only because it's not clear to me that aggressive negative campaign is still necessary anymore; the Ayers smear to which it is a response is very old news, and there's strong evidence that McCain has permanently damaged his own brand through his lying and smearing. There's also good reason to think McCain is already beat, which makes me wonder whether it's worth it at this point to climb back down to McCain's level and potentially damage the Obama brand as a consequence.

* Open Left also has a post on realignment elections with some nice very nice historical maps.

* And Nicholas Kristof tackles privilege in the time.

One of the fallacies this election season is that if Barack Obama is paying an electoral price for his skin tone, it must be because of racists.

On the contrary, the evidence is that Senator Obama is facing what scholars have dubbed “racism without racists.”

Random Friday Links, Politics Edition.

* McCain has finally stumbled on a winning message on the economy: "It's all Obama's fault!" Riiiiight.

* And judging from the above clip it looks like McCain's speechwriters are still trying to find a line that doesn't lead to a creepy smile.

* Turns out McCain doesn't know that Fannie and Freddie are private companies, either.

* Woody Allen says it will be "a disgrace and a humiliation" for the United States if Obama loses. Too right.

* But the disgrace and humiliation is already here: American democracy has a severe legitimacy problem in the face of a decade of Republican electoral malfeasance, as Ezra Klein shows.

* Obama hits back on the truly awful infanticide smear with the toughest ad I think I've seen him run.

* Kevin Drum and Blaney's Blarney take looks at our new nationally sponsored soccer team, Manchester United.

* And FiveThirtyEight.com shows that the probability of a 269-269 tie continues to increase, with most such scenarios centering on an Obama loss in New Hampshire. Come on, Omaha, don't fail us now...

Why Republicans are better at conventions.

But, to extend a point I raised last night, I don't think the definition of McCain has been sharp enough. Each speaker seemed to approach the task his/her own separate way (and sometimes not at all), leaving viewers with a kind of mish-mash of objections: too many houses, too unilateralist, too long in Washington, too close to right-wingers, too resistant to energy reform. The one person who distilled the objections into a single, pithy critique was Kerry, with his inspired "Senator McCain" versus "candidate McCain" riff. But I worry it'll get lost in the whirlwind.

Which brings me to my point: Had the Republicans stumbled onto such a worthy frame, their convention would have played it on a permanent loop. (I'm sure they'll do that anyway, with less inspired material.) Every no-name speaker would have repeated it, so that, even if you'd barely been paying attention, you'd be mouthing it unconsciously by the end of the week.

I'm becoming very curious about just what form that "less inspired material" will actually take. What are the smears that the Republicans are going to run with at their convention?

They seem to really like the whole "The One" meme a lot, but that's not going to take them very far, especially after a sizable chunk of Obama's highly publicized speech is devoted to praising the hard work of his disciples volunteers and laying the groundwork for the biggest voter registration drive in history.

After Paris Hilton and Housegate, the celebrity line of attack seems pretty stalled, too, and doesn't make a lick of sense at a shrine to Ronald Reagan attended by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. (UPDATE: Whoops. Looks like Arnold's afraid he'll get his skirt dirty.)

The Muslim thing seems pretty far past its sell-by date. Same with Rezko, despite the heroic efforts of my cousin to flog that dead horse.

So is it just going to be the infanticide smear? Is that the last bomb left to throw? Will they call him gay? Back again to Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers? The nation can't be this stupid, can it?

Anatomy of a smear. Via Ben Smith.

This is the '08 version of a really weird conservative urban legend that pops up every four years, The names change, but the basics remain the same: 1) It always involves the wife of the Democratic presidential candidate; 2) It always portrays the wife -- not the candidate -- committing some anti-American, unpatriotic act.

I was first exposed to this during the 1988 campaign when the line was, "There's a picture out there of Kitty Dukakis burning the American flag...just wait til that comes out..." (that one got out of hand when a GOP senator actually believed it and called a press conference to say he would soon produce the evidence -- which never materialized). Four years later, "There's a picture out there of Hillary Clinton burning the American flag...just wait 'til that comes out..." In 1996, the Hillary thing repeated itself. In '04, there was a similar one about Teresa Heinz Kerry.

I'd been meaning to link to Matt Yglesias's post a few days ago about executive power, simply to note that he identifies one of the more pressing flaws in the American system, the fixed four-year presidential term (for which even impeachment is no longer a practical limit). If Bush has taught us nothing else, he's taught us that democracy requires a recall function, ideally one that can be initiated by the people directly without the intervention of the legislature. (Not that he hasn't taught us other things; for instance, it's also quite clear that the Electoral College needs to be scrapped altogether.) I propose a Constitutional Convention, next Friday in the Lit grad student lounge.

Matt is also scrapping a bit with Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolutions over his "Angry Ape" theory of electoral politics, and I think Matt gets this absolutely right too, not that the Clinton camp will notice:

Yesterday, Tyler Cowen revealed his Angry Ape Theory of American politics: "Under this theory foreign policy disasters, no matter who caused them, will help the Republican candidate. We will demand An Angrier Ape." That theory may or may not be correct, but the last thing you need is for Democratic political strategy to be framed by people who think it's correct. That just guarantees loss. You need to find people who think they can persuade the public that an Angry Ape isn't the way to go and let those people have a crack at it.

Elsewhere in Left Blogistan, Kevin Drum links to The Nation's investigation into the source of all those right-wing chain-emails. My family knows me well enough not to send these along, so I've never really gotten them, except for the few months after 9/11 when they briefly went mainstream—but everyone I've ever seen has been painfully, painfully stupid.