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Dialogue with candidates via MySpace/MTV.

By Amanda Terkel on Sep 19, 2007 at 10:37 pm

Tomorrow begins the MySpace/MTV Presidential Candidate Dialogues, which “mark the first time in history that viewers at home and online will be able to interact in real time with the candidates.” More details:

On Thursday, September 27, at 12 p.m. ET, Democratic candidate John Edwards will sit down with MTV News correspondents Gideon Yago and SuChin Pak and WashingtonPost.com political reporter Chris Cillizza on the University of New Hampshire campus to answer questions submitted via MySpaceIM and MTV.com. Questions will also be asked by a live audience comprised of UNH students.

Participants will also be able to rate Edwards’ responses in real time — everything from a simple “I agree/disagree” to the decidedly less traditional “Full of bull” — thanks to the Flektor instant-polling tool. A “popular vote” function will allow viewers to compare their opinions against those of the entire viewing community. Poll results will be available online live during each event and archived for future viewing.

Ten other candidates, both Republican and Democratic, will be participating in the dialogues at later dates.

Security

State Dept. ‘Discounts’ Iraqi Report, Clings To Blackwater Line Of ‘Defensive Fire’

By Matt Corley on Sep 19, 2007 at 8:00 pm

ap04022007003.jpg On Sunday, employees of an American private security company were involved in a shoot out in central Baghdad that left at least 11 civilians dead, including a mother and her child. A spokeswoman for the firm, Blackwater USA, told reporters that the “independent contractors acted lawfully and appropriately in response to a hostile attack.”

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack supported Blackwater’s version of events, saying yesterday that “the basic fact is that there was an attack on the convoy.” This version of the events, however, was contradicted today by “a preliminary Iraqi report” obtained by the New York Times:

“There was not shooting against the convoy,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government’s spokesman. “There was no fire from anyone in the square.” [...]

American Embassy officials had said Monday that the Blackwater guards had been responding to a car bomb, but Mr. Dabbagh said the bomb was so far away that it could not possibly have been a reason for the convoy to begin shooting.

Instead, he said, the convoy had initiated the shooting when a car did not heed a police officer and moved into an intersection.

“The traffic policeman was trying to open the road for them,” he said. “It was a crowded square. But one small car did not stop. It was moving very slowly. They shot against the couple and their child. They started shooting randomly.”

Witnesses of the incident who spoke to McClatchy on Monday support the Iraqi report. “Three people who claimed to have witnessed the shooting said that only the Blackwater guards were firing.” But in a press briefing today, State Department spokesman Tom Casey dismissed the preliminary report while sticking to the Blackwater line:

QUESTION: But you still maintain that this was a defense action in response to an attack. This is — that’s not, apparently, what the Iraqis are saying.

CASEY: You know, what I know and what Sean said yesterday is the convoy came under attack and there was defensive fire as a result of that.

There are various — there are eyewitness accounts that say a whole variety of different things as to what the sequence was and where fire came from and all that. That’s what the investigation has to figure out.

And I don’t — I don’t want to try and assert for you that things happened in a specific order of events, because I just don’t know that’s true.

QUESTION: OK. This is different from an eyewitness account. This is the Iraqi investigation. So you’re discounting their investigation…

As Spencer Ackerman of TPMmuckraker reports, the State Department has a vested interest in whether Blackwater acted offensively or defensively during the shootout, since their rules of engagement “are set by State” and are more aggressive than “other security contractors who use the Military Rules of Engagement and Rules of Force.”

Additionally, the State Department “rarely” conducts thorough investigations of such incidents in Iraq. “We get almost weekly reports of such shootings,” a State Department official told The Blotter. “But it is close to impossible to go the crime scene and interview witnesses.”

UPDATE: Here’s the video of Casey’s press briefing:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/09/CaseyBlackwater.320.240.flv]

Politics

At Long Last

By ThinkProgress on Sep 19, 2007 at 6:37 pm

Some say the campaign season has become too long, but I say that it’s just now gotten long enough to treat us to the spectacle of John Edwards and Gideon Yago on camera together, discussing the issues.

Yglesias

DCPS’s Vanishing Students

By ThinkProgress on Sep 19, 2007 at 6:25 pm

cardozo.jpg

Catherine’s link to Washingtonian‘s profile of DC’s new and much-hyped schools chancellor Michelle Rhee reminded me that I only recently learned about one of the odder issues with the DC school system — what you could only call undercrowding of the schools.

Catty-corner from our house, for example, is Cardozo High School (home, hilariously, of the Clerks) and it’s extremely imposing multi-story building. The school grounds as a whole are enormous, and the building itself is several standard city blocks. I’d lived in its shadow for years, but only last week learned that the school only has 749 students. And that’s very typical. The student population served by DC public schools is way down from its peak, so the system’s oldish buildings are too big for their current populations. This, in turn, makes the system’s facilities inefficient to maintain and adds another problem onto an already very troubled system.

Indeed, despite Rhee’s popularity and good press coverage, one has to wonder on some level if DCPS isn’t in a death spiral. The basic demographic trends in the city point in the direction of declining public school enrollment, and the system is legendarily crappy which has led to burgeoning interest in charter schools and very rapid declines in enrollment which, as it leads to school closures, can open up more facilities to be used for charters. You could easily imagine the city transitioning to an Andrei Cherny-style model where all the schools are charter schools.

Politics

Giuliani Spins Reasons For Quitting The Iraq Study Group, Says ‘It Was A Mistake To Join’

By Matt Corley on Sep 19, 2007 at 6:18 pm

On Monday, MoveOn.org launched a new TV ad slamming former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for quitting the Iraq Study Group last year, saying that even though he’s “a big fan of George Bush’s war in Iraq,” he went “AWOL” when he “had the chance to actually do something about the war.”

In an interview with CNN’s John King today, Giuliani responded to the ad, claiming that he quit because he didn’t want to “politicize” the report with his presidential ambitions:

I knew, that ultimately, I could very well be running for President of the United States. I wasn’t sure at the time. And had I stayed on that group, their report was put out just around the time I announced for President, and I would have totally politicized it. It was a mistake to join in the first place.

Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/09/GiulianiISG.320.240.flv]

Giuliani already tried this line out in June after Newsday reported the details of his departure from the panel. But it was quickly debunked.

As TPM’s Greg Sargent noted at the time, Giuliani’s role on the Iraq Study Group was anounced in March 2006, but as early as October 2005, he was touting himself as a potential presidential candidate. “I will be considering it next year,” Giuliani told the AP.

Additionally, “several” members of the bipartisan commission told NBC’s Tim Russert in June “that presidential politics never entered the discussion, it was all about Giuliani’s schedule and commitments versus showing up for the Iraq Study Group”:

RUSSERT: The Giuliani campaign said part of the equation is he was considering to run for president at that time and his presence on the group may pose a potential conflict. Several commission members said to me that presidential politics never entered the discussion, it was all about Giuliani’s schedule and commitments versus showing up for the Iraq Study Group.

Politics

Breaking: Webb amendment fails.

By ThinkProgress on Sep 19, 2007 at 5:59 pm

The Senate just voted 56 to 44 on Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) amendment “requiring that active-duty troops and units have at least equal time at home as the length of their previous tour overseas.” The bill failed to garner the 60 votes needed to move forward.

cspan

When the legislation was considered in July, the vote was 56 to 41. Sens. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and David Vitter (R-LA), who didn’t vote in July, today voted against the legislation. Sen. John Warner (R-VA) switched his July vote, also voting against the bill today. Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) voted “yea.”

Digg It!

Politics

War means windfall for defense contractors.

By Faiz Shakir on Sep 19, 2007 at 5:23 pm

Michael Brush writes, “CEOs at top defense contractors have reaped annual pay gains of 200% to 688% in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.” Additionally, “The CEOs made an average of $12.4 million a year, easily more than the average corporate chief. Since the start of the war, CEOs at defense contractors such General Dynamics, Halliburton and Oshkosh Truck have made, on average, more in four days than what a top general makes in a whole year, or $187,390.”

Yglesias

Self-Determination

By ThinkProgress on Sep 19, 2007 at 5:22 pm

Now here I was thinking to myself that there’s really just no way you could turn a discussion of Taiwan-PRC relations into a pretext for talking about the perfidy of the Palestinians. Obviously, I hadn’t taken Peretz-power into consideration. He’s talking about Taiwan’s quest for UN membership:

I have a suggestion–giving up the fight is not my way–and here it is: Without giving up its ultimate ambitions for U.N. membership, it should apply for observer status in the world organization. Like the Palestine Liberation Organization which, unlike Taiwan, rules no territory, commands no popular consensus, represents no coherent principles, has no economy, but struts around the world with embassies and ambassadors and plenipotentiaries and the usual bull-shit of diplomacy. Moreover, it actually speaks before the General Assembly and the Security Council and is represented here, there and everywhere in international organizations.

It is actually a lie that the P.L.O. has all these rights, none of which is passed onto the dazed people it purports to represent.

At any rate, it’s fortunate for Peretz that he was able to make this pivot, because the consideration of the issue earlier in the post (“What this movement wants is recognition that 23 million people cannot be represented by a government which is historically alien and politically hostile”) was veering dangerously close to endorsing a principle of self-determination that might have applicability to a certain stateless people somewhere.

Politics

Australian PM Howard’s Party Bans Members From Gore’s Global Warming Speeches

By Ali Frick on Sep 19, 2007 at 4:32 pm

howardbush44.gif Al Gore is currently in Australia speaking on climate change, where he has launched a “passionate attack on the climate policies of Prime Minister John Howard and US President George Bush.” Yesterday, he spoke to a sold-out crowd of more than 700 people, and tomorrow’s event is anticipated to have similar attendance. From his speech yesterday:

I said it in Australia before and I will say it again, if Australia ratifies Kyoto, it is like Australia and the United States are Bonnie and Clyde in the world of environment.

And if Clyde is isolated and Bonnie has gone straight, Clyde won’t really be able to resist any more.

But according to the event organizer, Max Markson, Prime Minister John Howard’s Liberal Party has prohibited its members from attending the events:

Event organiser Markson says while he sent invitations to Liberals from the Prime Minister down, only one accepted and then promptly cancelled.

“There is absolutely an official boycott in place. We had one NSW Liberal MP [agree to come] and he had to ring back and apologise and say he wasn’t allowed to come,” says Markson.

Howard has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the truth of global warming. When Gore visited Australia in 2006 to promote his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Howard refused to meet with him. Though he did eventually view the film, he dismissed it as “alright” and said, “I don’t take policy advice from films.”

Not surprisingly, Howard is a steadfast Bush ally. Earlier this month, he stated, “We have no closer alliance with any country in the world than we have with the United States.” Howard, whom Bush has called his “mate of steel,” joined Bush in refusing to sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change. They remain the only major industrialized nations to stay out of the international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Howard is facing strong disapproval from the Australian public, the majority of whom view climate change as the number one external threat to the country. They are also increasingly frustrated with Howard’s unwavering support for Bush’s war in Iraq, with 57 percent wanting the war to end.

One poll previewing the upcoming parliamentary elections showed Howard losing his own seat by seven points, and overall, his Liberal Party is losing 43-57 to the opposition Labor party.

Digg It!

Media

In Uniform

By ThinkProgress on Sep 19, 2007 at 4:18 pm

Andrew links to K-Lo’s account of “a meeting with the president in the Roosevelt Room of the White House for a small group of conservative journalists.”

President Bush may have been most emphatic though when it came to the topic of “those left wing ads” attacking General Petraeus. The president brought the infamous New York Times MoveOn ad up without prompting, saying of his reaction to it: “I was incredulous at first and then became mad.”

“It is one thing to attack me — which is fine,” the president said. But the president’s view the attack on Petraeus as “an attack on men and women in uniform.”

The ad really did make me wonder about the intelligence of the folks behind it, but that was nothing compared to the baffling stupidity displayed by Bush in saying this and Lopez in just passing the remark on without comment. The ad was, very clearly, on attack on General Petraeus and there’s just no possible way a reasonable person could construe it as some kind of generalized slander against the troops.

Meanwhile, Bush’s disingenuousness in saying “It is one thing to attack me — which is fine” is just staggering. For years, the man took the view that criticism of his policies amount to criticism of the idea of freedom, that to disagree with his Iraq policy was racist and unpatriotic, and all the rest. Eventually, years and years of fruitless, bungled, unnecessary warfare caused him to become so unpopular that this line of counterattack became unviable. Thus, he hit on the strategy of finding a well-regarded media-savvy general and, in essence, appointing him front man for administration. For months and months and months the administration indicated that to question its policy was to question the Great Man Petraeus. So, naturally, people came to criticize Petraeus.

If he doesn’t like seeing a politicized officer’s corps, he shouldn’t have been hiding behind the generals in the first place.

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