Huckabee demands justice from the Washington State GOP, which apparently thinks calling the state for John McCain with only 87 percent of votes counted is a good idea.
I promise I’m only gonna do this once a year
My daughter Antonia is one year old today:
My pledge: Only one baby photo per year.
Bush honors Lincoln.
Tuesday, Feb. 12, marks the 199th anniversary of President Lincoln’s birthday. But President Bush is already commemorating the occasion, today speaking about the former president:
”It’s fitting that we honor Abe Lincoln,” Bush said in the ornate East Room of the White House. ”Of all the successors to George Washington, none had a bigger impact on the presidency and the country.”
In a recent interview with Fox News, Bush tried to “equate himself” with Lincoln. Karl Rove also compared Bush to Lincoln in his ability to “get to the nub of the thing.”
Selective Release
Clearly the big news in this story relates to the bombings, but an interesting B plot begins here:
Officials released two seized documents they said were handwritten by members of the group, in despair about defections and decreasing popular support.
The article then goes on to describe the contents of those documents as supporting that official interpretation and then notes that:
The military, citing security concerns, released only excerpts of the two documents.
Of course they are. It couldn’t be that the documents were released primarily for domestic propaganda purposes but that making them effective propaganda required some editing, thus leading to the excerpts only policy.
I will say, though, that there does seem to be a ray of genuinely good news lurking about. The anti-”Awakening” forces appear to have decided that operations resulting in large numbers of Sunni Arab civilian casualties are counterproductive and have focused on attacking Awakening fighters and police instead. That should make continued combat somewhat less deadly, which counts as a small mercy.
Maine for Obama
Back in October 2007, Clinton was beating Obama in Maine by a hilarious 47 to 10 margin, but it seems he’s carried the state today, once again by a large margin. My understanding, though, is that this doesn’t really count because it’s a small state, much as Utah doesn’t count because there aren’t many Democrats there, DC doesn’t count because there are too many black people, Washington doesn’t count because it’s a caucus, Illinois doesn’t count because Obama represents it in the Senate even though Hillary was born there, Hawaii won’t count because Obama was born there. I’m not sure why Delaware and Connecticut don’t count, but they definitely don’t.
Realistically, Clinton seems to have difficulty winning anywhere she can’t mobilize racial polarization in her favor. Obama has, of course, deployed polarization to his benefit in a number of states (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana most notably) but he’s also dominated the states with very few black voters.
UPDATE: I forgot about Missouri. Obama’s win in Missouri, of course, doesn’t count because the state was called too late.
Mapping Maine
These are the precincts in Maine that have reported so far. No huge surprises in the data, but I’d say this looks good for Obama. He’s winning the Bangor area, which is kind of a swing region between metro Maine and backwoods Maine, the fancy-pants set from Bar Harbor hasn’t reported yet and that big swatch of territory in the West where no votes have been counted yet and HRC may do well contains very few people (and they’ll have trouble going anywhere in the terrible weather) so it should be hard to make up ground there.
Afghanistan
I think absolutely everything Defense Secretary Robert Gates is trying to say to European leaders about the central importance of NATO’s mission in Afghanistan and the need for Europe to do more is correct. But what Gates needs to recognize is that realistically it’s going to be hard to accomplish very much on this front until the United States puts some distance between itself and the Iraq War. Both politically and strategically, a deep European investment in Afghanistan just isn’t going to be forthcoming as long as the U.S. remains politically and strategically invested in a hare-brained scheme to conquer the Persian Gulf.
My guess would be that Gates recognizes this on some level. But if he does, he needs to communicate that fact to George W. Bush and the other people who make the decisions.
The Grammy Primary
Barack Obama beats out Bill Clinton to win a Grammy (really), his second (also really). Bill already has two (also also really).
Shake-Up
Patti Solis Doyle, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, is out and will be replaced by Maggie Williams who was chief of staff in Clinton’s First Lady’s office.
Donna Edwards
Donna Edwards’ primary challenge to Al Wynn in Maryland has long been a cause celebre in the blogosphere, but it seems the Washington Post editorial board is on board too:
Mr. Wynn has long touted what he regards as a pragmatic ability to work across partisan lines. We’re all for bipartisanship, but in Mr. Wynn’s case, too often his stances have been unthinking and out of step with his district’s interests. His vote to scrap the estate tax suggested he was indifferent to his own middle-class constituents. By flip-flopping on fuel-efficiency standards and opposing campaign finance reforms, he showed his contempt for clean air and clean government. And he seems scarcely aware of the import of his votes to permit federal courts to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case and to support a constitutional amendment banning flag-burning: granting federal courts a license to meddle in private affairs and cramping free speech.
Peace between the ‘sphere and the Village — brought to you by Donna Edwards.
