• The New York Times writes about the 300 foreign policy experts advising Barack Obama on the eve of his overseas trip and Marc Ambinder identifies a 301st adviser. Obama's "foreign policy voice"  is speechwriter Ben Rhodes, one of the authors of the 9/11 commission report and a participant in the Iraq Study Group.
• John McCain surrogate and 2004 swiftboater Bud Day on the threat from Islamic extremism: "The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us." How sophisticated! And McCain, calling to extend the gas tax holiday, noted that Obama has "the most extreme" record in the Senate, "more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.” Asked whether this made Obama a socialist, McCain replied that he "didn't know." Straight Talk!
• The Markham Group, a company associated with the Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, has purchased the domain name HRC2012.com, although it is unclear whether this is for a second presidential run or the second defense of her New York Senate seat. Clinton used the more familiar hillaryclinton.com domain during her 2006 Senate reelection campaign.
• Robert Novak reports that Phil "mental-recession-in-a-nation-of-whiners" Gramm and John McCain are BFFs again and that Gramm has resumed advising the campaign on the economy.
• Rocky Mountain News reports on the wide variety of protesters who will descend on Denver next month for the Democratic National Convention.
• The Wall Street Journal confirms how far conservatives are lagging behind the progressive netroots, who are holding a conference in Austin, Texas this week.
• Rasmussen has Barack Obama behind John McCain by a single point in Virginia, 48-47, in a new poll.
• Josh Marshall summarizes the Bush White House/John McCain campaign's slow embrace of Barack Obama's positions on Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. Supposedly this is to take Middle East foreign policy "off the table" as a campaign topic. But I'm confused. Isn't foreign policy supposed to be McCain greatest -- if not his sole -- advantage? Doesn't taking these issues off the table mean voters will focus, even more than they are now, on the economy and domestic issues, where Democrats in general and Obama in particular have a distinct advantage? I realize McCain and Bush are trying to force Obama into contradicting himself by saying the surge worked, for instance, but this seems to me to have the makings of a colossal error in tactical judgment.

--Mori Dinauer

Hysterical predictions aside, Kevin Drum notes that the initiative to overturn the pro-gay-marriage ruling of the California Courts is trailing by nine points (see Harold's take here). I don't want to be complacent -- things can change -- but it is very likely that Prop 8 will fail, and California's same-sex marriages will be entrenched. Alas, I fear that Kevin is excessively optimistic when he says that "gay marriage will have been approved by the courts, the governor, the legislature, and the public. There's no way anyone will be able to complain that it's anything but completely legitimate." As far is I can tell, many of the people obsessed with "backlash" have no coherent democratic theory except that any social change that makes them or any significant number of people uncomfortable is ipso facto illegitimate.

In other backlash news, Massachusetts state legislators, who last year were were so outraged about judicial usurpation that almost 25% of them voted to throw the question of gay marriage to a referendum, voted this week to repeal "a 1913 law that prevents Massachusetts from marrying out-of-state couples if their marriages would not be legal in their home states." Fittingly enough, the law had its roots in white supremacy and was exhumed in pursuit of similarly bigoted purposes by Mitt Romney. It richly deserves its place in the dustbin of history.

--Scott Lemieux

Mark the date: the air wars of the 2008 presidential election began on Friday, July 18th:

Most of these are tried-and-true McCain talking points, packaged into a patriotic theme, but the first slam, namely the claim that Obama hasn’t held a single hearing during his time as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Europe (which handles oversight over NATO relations and thus the mission in Afghanistan) deserves more comment. This fact was, weirdly enough, first dug up by progressive foreign policy expert Steve Clemons and, while true, it doesn’t do justice to Obama’s Senate record.

Obama’s tenure as chairman began with the Democratic takeover of Congress in January 2007, around the same time he began running for president. Suffice it to say, he was a little preoccupied. More importantly, though, Obama has been defended on this issue by the chairman of the full Senate Foreign Relations committee, Joe Biden. Biden pointed out, in a letter to the subcommittee’s ranking member, Jim DeMint, that he has dealt with Afghanistan at the full committee level, holding three hearings . He also noted that Obama ran the confirmation hearing for the ambassador to NATO, a hearing of critical importance to the Afghanistan mission. So while McCain’s allegation is technically true, Obama has been far from absent on this issue, and it’s misleading for McCain to imply that he has.

—Dylan Matthews

California’s venerable Field Poll this week has come out with some new survey results which make clear that the Obama campaign would be well advised to open more headquarters in Montana than in the Golden State. According to Field, Obama leads John McCain by a cozy 24-point margin, 54 percent to 30 percent. When Field last polled in May, Obama’s margin was a mere 17 points -- the same as in the May polling by the Public Policy Institute of California.

And today, the Field Poll has more numbers to gladden a liberal’s heart. According to Field, Proposition 8 on the November ballot -- the proposed constitutional amendment that would overturn the state Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage -- is trailing by 9 points, with 42 percent of likely voters backing the measure and 51 percent opposing it. As a general rule in California politics, once a ballot measure falls behind, it stays behind.

These two surveys underscore two other general rules of California politics. The first is that in California independents tend to vote like Democrats, and that on social and cultural issues, they are, if anything, as or more liberal than Democrats. In Field’s presidential polling, Democrats favor Obama over McCain by a 78-to-9 margin, but independents are not far behind, backing Obama over McCain by a 64-to-18 margin. (Republicans are going for McCain by a 65 to 16 margin.) And in Field’s polling on the proposed gay marriage ban, independents’ opposition to the measure actually exceeds the Democrats’. Indys oppose by ban by a 66 to 27 margin, while Democrats oppose it by 63 to 30. (Republicans support it, 68 to 27.)

How is this possible? When Field breaks down the polling by race, it’s clear that the answer is Latino voters. Whites oppose the measure by a 54 to 41 margin, and a category that Field designates as “African-American/Asian” (one of the least helpful sub-group designations I’ve ever encountered) opposes it by the identical 54 to 51 margin. But Latinos, who constitute 17 percent of the state’s likely voters and who cluster disproportionately within the Democratic Party, back the measure by 49 to 38.

Now, one theory beloved of Republicans is that Latinos, because they are culturally conservative, will end up in the Republican column. Not so, says Field. While backing the gay marriage ban, Latinos also support Obama over McCain by 64 percent to 21 percent. Which brings us to the second general rule of California politics: Latinos tend to be culturally traditionalist, as most new immigrant groups to the U.S. have tended to be -- but this cultural traditionalism doesn’t affect their support for Democratic candidates and progressive economic positions.

In election after election in California, Latinos have voted for measures providing more funding for schools and according more rights to workers at the highest rate of any race or ethnic group, exceeding the rate of support for such measures even by African-Americans. Latinos’ support for Democratic candidates has also been constant. And surveys have shown that they consider economic issues far more important than social and cultural ones in their deliberations on candidates for office.

Combine the Independent Rule with the Latino Rule, and you get a pretty clear sense of why America’s mega-state is also one of its most liberal.

--Harold Meyerson

Harold Meyerson reviews a new book that uses science (science!) to determine what strategies for increasing voter turnout actually work:

The late Alan Baron, sometime political consultant and full-time political wag, used to tell a story about a campaign kibitzer in Des Moines in the autumn of 1964. Every day as the election drew closer, the kibitzer would turn up at Democratic Party headquarters and implore the directors of the get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operation to use sound trucks. Such trucks, he insisted, if properly used--touring the streets of Des Moines while amplified voices urged the folks on the sidewalks to vote Democratic--were guaranteed to tilt the election in the Democrats' favor. And on Election Day, in no small part just to shut the guy up, the field directors did dispatch a couple of sound trucks to ride around town.

And Sasha Abramsky writes about how our brains' imperfect design compromises our decisions:

The human mind, we like to think, is an embodiment of perfection. For those with a religious inclination, our ability to think through issues logically, to construct narratives about our surroundings, and to recall events that happened decades earlier is proof positive of a divine hand at work. For the nonreligious, the mind is a secular miracle, an indication that, left to its own devices, evolution produces something akin to a Panglossian vision of the best outcomes in the best of all possible worlds.

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--The Editors

When we announced the hiring of our new fearless leader, Mark Schmitt, we noted that he’s a dedicated reader of Crappy Hour. Thankfully, we can now confirm that the writers behind Crappy Hour are dedicated readers of the Prospect. In today’s dialogue, TAP senior correspondent Spencer Ackerman brings up our deputy editor, Ann Friedman’s piece from the March issue, “Solidarity Politics”, and his interlocutor, Megan Carpentier, approves:

MEGAN: I have to say, please introduce me to Ann sometime and I promise not to fan girl out. I almost always really love her stuff — thoughtful, well-written, etc.

We think so too, Megan.

--The Editors (but not Ann)

Ever since I wrote a Prospect column on becoming a bike commuter, friends have been sending along articles about cycling. This one, about members of the Baltimore Orioles biking to the stadium, is pretty great. But I've also heard some chilling news about cyclists killed in accidents, most notably Alice Swanson, a 22-year old D.C. resident who lived two blocks from my house and and worked around the corner from my office. Our commuting paths were almost identical.

Today MSNBC reports that as gas prices spike, accidents involving bikes are up as well -- in large part because American drivers aren't accustomed to sharing the roads. (Ezra has a great post detailing how the situation is different in Europe.) In New Jersey, for example, 12 cyclists were killed in 2007, while in just the first half of 2008, 11 cyclists have died in traffic accidents. Still, we shouldn't overstate this trend -- there are no national data available. In D.C., only one or two cyclists are killed in the typical year, and Swanson's death was the first of 2008. And not all cyclists are giving up car commutes -- many are using bikes as a more health-conscious, faster, and more fun alternative to overcrowded public transportation.

Still, there's a lot that towns and cities can do to make biking safer and more popular, beginning with creating more bike trails, bike lines, and bike racks. D.C. has a nice billboard campaign right now advertising the health and financial benefits of biking; it should be accompanied by highly visible signage reminding drivers that bikes have all the same rights as cars on the road. And biking and public transportation should work seamlessly together. D.C. prohibits bikes on Metro during the rush hour; another option is to follow the lead of cities such as Salt Like City and outfit train cars with bike straps that keep cycles out from underfoot. D.C. already has racks that can hold up to two bikes on every bus.

--Dana Goldstein

Who else but Stuart Taylor? His argument seems to be that the best remedy for illegal acts of torture is to assure that (apart from some isolated low-level "bad apple" scapegoats) nobody is held responsible for them:

President George W. Bush ought to pardon any official from cabinet secretary on down who might plausibly face prosecution for interrogation methods approved by administration lawyers. (It would be unseemly for Bush to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney or himself, but the next president wouldn't allow them to be prosecuted anyway -- galling as that may be to critics.) The reason for pardons is simple: what this country needs most is a full and true accounting of what took place. The incoming president should convene a truth commission, with subpoena power, to explore every possible misdeed and derive lessons from it. But this should not be a criminal investigation, which would only force officials to hire lawyers and batten down the hatches.[...]

Pardons would not be favors to criminals. One can argue that officials could have or should have resigned rather than implement questionable legal judgments, but there is no evidence that any high-level official acted with criminal intent.

There's an obvious contradiction here: If there's a great deal we don't know, how can we be sure that nobody aced with "criminal intent?" Wouldn't individual immunity deals, which don't require that assumption, be preferable to blanket pardons? But more importantly, if a legal opinion from DOJ lawyers (with the collaboration of their superiors) asserting that illegal and arbitrary actions are in fact legal is all that's necessary to avoid legal accountability for any administration member, any subsequent attempt to prevent similar abuses is a waste of time.

The key here is what Taylor identifies as the key goals of the "Truth Commission" he envisions:

Pardons would further a truth commission's most important goals: to uncover all important facts, identify innocent victims to be compensated, foster a serious conversation about what U.S. interrogation rules should be, recommend legal reforms, pave the way for appropriate apologies and restore America's good name. The goals should not include wrecking the lives of men and women who made grievous mistakes while doing dirty work—work they had been advised by administration lawyers was legal, and which they believed was necessary to prevent terrorist mass murder.

A criminal investigation would only hinder efforts to determine the truth, and preclude any apologies.

I have to concede that if you consider it an important priority that people responsible for arbitrary torture policies "apologize" and that we have a Very Serious "conversation" about torture, then pardons are a good strategy. If you take my view that preventing future arbitrary torture is an infinitely higher priority than people saying they're sorry, you're likely to think that justice and accountability are more important. All the best-conceived "legal reforms" in the world will mean absolutely nothing if a DOJ opinion can be expected to immunize virtually any action approved by an executive branch official as long as it can somehow be linked to the "dirty work" of the War on Terror.

--Scott Lemieux

Here's what I learned about masculinity from Lou Aguilar, author of a column entitled "Why Real Men Vote for McCain."

1. Marrying an intellectual partner who can't bankroll your Senate campaigns proves you're a girly-man. You know, because true manly-men should always leave their first wives for younger, blonder, richer versions.

Obama is married to a bitter, angry lawyer who became “proud” of her country for the first time this year. McCain’s wife is a beer heiress who founded an organization to provide MASH-style units to disaster-torn world regions. Did I mention that she’s a beer heiress?

2. John McCain has a "hero" name. (Because it sounds white and Anglo and yeah!!! Hero!!!) Barack Obama has an "elitist," "villain" name. (Read: Un-American! Un-American!)

The name John McCain sounds like “John McClain,” the action hero played by Bruce Willis in the manly Die Hard series. “Barack Obama” sounds like the kind of elitist villain John McClain has to outwit and defeat.

Those are some compelling arguments! Did you know that if you vote for John McCain, you will immediately grow two inches taller and receive a patented shot of heterosexuality in the arm? Cool!

--Dana Goldstein

Did you know John McCain was for doing something about fair pay before he was for doing nothing? Check out this video from People for the American Way.

Hat tip: Feministing.

--Dana Goldstein

Sorry folks, we forgot to put one of these up yesterday and that's a shame 'cause we had some great articles. First up, Gershom Gorenberg has five questions Israel should answer before bombing Iran (see this follow up post on his blog for more):

Destroying some Iranian facilities but not others, Litvak suggests, would only slow down Tehran's nuclear program. Even a solid military success might delay it by no more than a few years. In the meantime, the political effect would probably be to "unify the public in support of the regime." Dror lists as a "real possibility" that "Iran's determination to secretly develop nuclear weapons" would be redoubled, "with a thirst for revenge."

Dylan Matthews talks with J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami:

DM: Okay, about one of the other candidates you endorsed, Darcy Burner, in Washington. Matt Stoller had a report a couple weeks ago saying that Burner had told him that she had gotten a phone call from some people with affiliations with AIPAC, who told her, in explicit terms, to move away from J Street -- that you guys are extreme leftists who want to leave Israel for dead. How much do things like that worry you, both in that case and in going forward with J Street?

JB-A: It actually doesn't worry me at all, because, first of all, when people circulate lies and complete distortions of truth, it's not going to work. In the end, the types of things that they're saying are simply provable as wrong. If you go to our advisory council, people on our finance committee, people who signed up to support J Street in Israel, people who ran the Israel Defense Forces, the commander in chief of the Israel Defense Forces, the man who ran the occupation of the West Bank, and the former foreign minister of the state of Israel. If people are going to go around telling congressional candidates that people like that are anti-Israel or trying to undo the state and are anti-Semitic, it's just so ludicrous that I don't anticipate it would have any impact.

And Dean Baker has the latest economic news, including analysis of the recent surge in inflation and the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

However, the big question is how will the Fed respond to the news that rising import prices are pushing inflation higher? The correct response is to grin and bear it. We set ourselves up for this hit when the Clinton administration consciously pursued a high-dollar policy in the late 1990s. This policy produced short-term gains in the form of cheap imports but was clearly unsustainable over the long term. The Clinton crew rightly bet that it would be gone when it was time to pay the bill.

Subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our articles as soon as they’re published.

—The Editors

The term "Chair Farce" is typically used in a derogatory way by non-Air Force members of the uniformed military. It appears, however, that Air Force brass is trying to give the term some more substance:

The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents...

Air Force officials say the government needs the new capsules to ensure that leaders can talk, work and rest comfortably in the air. But the top brass's preoccupation with creating new luxury in wartime has alienated lower-ranking Air Force officers familiar with the effort, as well as congressional staff members and a nonprofit group that calls the program a waste of money.

Although the program's estimated $20 million cost is nearly equivalent to what the Pentagon spends in about 20 minutes, the e-mails show that small details have so far received the attention of many high-ranking officers, including [Gen. Robert H.] McMahon; Gen. Arthur J. Lichte, the current Air Mobility commander; and Brig. Gen. Kenneth D. Merchant, the mobility command's logistics director.

--Robert Farley

If you enjoy being beaten over the head with patriotism (and awkwardness), take a look at this web video produced by the Washington GOP. It "welcomes" Michelle Obama to the state on the occasion of an Obama campaign stop there and harps on her statement that the enthusiasm around the Democratic primary had made her proud of her country "for the first time in my adult life." Laura Bush later defended Michelle's controversial comments, saying, "I think she probably meant ‘I’m more proud.’ That’s what she really meant." But some folks haven't gotten the message:

As Ben Smith points out, the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in the video might be an allusion to the false Internet-driven rumors that Barack Obama refuses to say the pledge. Just another reminder that the conservative plan for beating Obama back is to tell voters, again and again, that he is un-American. Indeed, as our fearless editor Mark Schmitt has argued, flag-waving may be all the GOP has left.

--Dana Goldstein

• The big news today is that Barack Obama pulled in $52 million in June -- his second largest monthly haul since the campaign began. Only $2 million is for the general election, although after the convention primary money can be rolled over into his general election account. The DNC raised $22 million in June, giving it and Obama a combined $92 million cash-on-hand compared to McCain and the RNC's $95 million war chest.

• Domenico Montanaro observes that because the the Republicans believe the only shot they have at political survival is winning the White House, the GOP's resources are going to disappear for down-ticket candidates as they concentrate on beating Barack Obama.
• James Carney has a story in Time on the turbulent relationship between George W. Bush and John McCain. The most chilling segment relates a moment in 2002 when McCain glimpsed the megalomania and ignorance of Bush as the White House geared up for war with Iraq.
• Contrary to reports that state Democrats are getting the cold shoulder from Obama, Roll Call reports that the Obama campaign is automatically funneling a portion of checks written to his campaign to the local parties of the 18 Obama-defined battleground states.
• Marc Ambinder asks "when was the last time a Democratic candidate for president opened six campaign offices in Montana?" before noting that Obama has done just that with offices in Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Great Falls, Helena and Missoula.
• The Raleigh News and Observer reports that Democrats are pumping millions into Kay Hagan's challenge to Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina. And Rasmussen has Barack Obama down by only three points in the Tar Heel state, 45-42.
• The New Yorker and  The Wall Street Journal each have profiles of Freedom's Watch backer and right-wing casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
• Speaking to supporters in Nebraska, John McCain admitted that he is playing defensive against Barack Obama in the Cornhusker state. Bush beat John Kerry there in 2004 by 35 points.
• Katha Pollitt expresses her anger about the fact that the MSM isn't paying more attention to the fact that John McCain opposes contraception, an observation Dana has made in the past.
• Pew reports on efforts by pollsters to track the effect on polling results of voters who only own cellphones (as opposed to landines).

--Mori Dinauer

Hamas derives much of its popularity from it civilian infrastructure: It runs schools, orphanages, and other quasi-governmental services that aren't supplied by the Palestinian Authority. The IDF has apparently decided that the way to solve the problem of Hamas' popularity is to destroy those services:

"Last week, troops focused their efforts in Nablus, raiding the city hall and confiscating computers. They also stormed into a shopping mall and posted closure notices on the shop windows. A girls' school and a medical centre were shut down in the city, and a charitable association had its computers impounded and documents seized.

"This policy, officials say, is meant to deny the Islamic group, which is committed to Israel's destruction, the ability to use these institutions as a pipeline by which money is channelled to finance attacks on the Jewish state. But the main goal of this campaign is to stem Hamas's growing popularity in the West Bank. ...

"In recent months, the army has also closed down an orphanage, a bakery and other institutions in Hebron, which Israel believes are associated with Hamas. In Gaza, meanwhile, Israel and the Islamic group are observing a truce, but this does not pertain to the West Bank where the Israeli military operates freely."

The motivating concept behind strategic bombing in World War II was that enemy morale would be crushed by the destruction of the infrastructure of civilian life; the Japanese, it was thought, would stop supporting their government when the United States Army Air Force destroyed the ability of that government to supply civilian services. Essentially, the point is to make the people blame their own government for their hardships.

In somewhat modified form, this concept still motivates strategic bombing attacks -- blow up a bridge in Serbia, and the Serbs will stop supporting Milosevic, for example. Of course, the entire concept is built on the odd idea that people will blame their government for the absence of a bridge rather than the enemy force that blew up the bridge in the first place. As such, this kind of bombing almost invariably makes a target government <i>more</i> popular amongst its people.

The Israelis aren't actually blowing anything up, but the concept seems to be the same -- close an orphanage, and hope that the Palestinians blame Hamas instead of Israel. Good luck with that...

Also see Ulrich and Martin.

--Robert Farley

I'll admit it: Arguing against awful American foreign policy proposals can get tiresome after a while. A person can only explain how awful an idea bombing Iran is so many times without it getting old. Which is why I'm glad that Charli Carpenter has brought a new, equally horrendous proposition: assassinating Robert Mugabe.

Carpenter references a general ethical argument in favor of international assassination (I love the academy sometimes), which posits that the norm against such actions protects the guiltiest civilians while leading to wars that tend to kill more innocent ones. True enough, but, as Carpenter notes, the assassination of an African head of state in 1994 didn't end too well. Given the state Zimbabwe is in right now, the prospect of a Mugabe assassination leading to a Morgan Tsvangiri-led model state seems decidedly less likely than an exacerbation of the current mayhem.

But even if killing Mugabe did result in a relatively stable Tsvangiri administration it would set a highly undesirable precedent in the process. While I don't think anyone would mourn Mugabe's passing, the history of American-assisted regime change -- from the toppling of Arbenz in Guatemala, to Mosaddeq in Iran, to Allende in Chile -- is far from praiseworthy. Potentially disastrous future assassination attempts could be justified on the premise that if such a policy was effective in Zimbabwe, it should be tried in country X.

An assassination would also harm future efforts to press for human rights in Africa. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, for example, could portray attempts to stop the genocide in Darfur as yet another American attempt to meddle in African affairs, just like their assassination of Mugabe. After Iraq, I wouldn't blame the African public for not giving American protestations of benevolence the benefit of the doubt.

I definitely understand the impulse to "do something," given how awful the situation in Zimbabwe is getting. But killing Mugabe isn't the right "something".

--Dylan Matthews

Jesse and David say most of what needs to be said about Bruce Bartlett's op-ed, but it's worth saying more about one specific point. The central problem with Bartlett's argument is its triviality and irrelevance: It's indisputable that in the immediate wake of the Civil War and for several decades afterward the Republican Party was better on civil rights, but since this this is widely known and says nothing about contemporary politics, who cares? Presumably recognizing that persuading African-Americans to vote for people who have been dead for decades and wouldn't be Republicans if they were alive is not a viable approach for the GOP, Bartlett tries a more recent example and the tendentiousness becomes embarrassing:

Richard Nixon is said to have developed a "Southern strategy" of using racial code words like "law and order" to gain votes in the South. Yet he did more to desegregate southern schools than any president in history.

As Rick Perlstein notes in Nixonland, the Nixon administration broke with previous administrations and started filing briefs against desegregation plans. Nixon's reaction to the Swann decision (p. 604) lays out the basic strategy: talk about how the Courts have tied your hands in public, peel off Southern Democrats, and then appoint reactionary judges who will stop applying Brown aggressively.

And, of course, when Nixon got his appointments on the Supreme Court, this is what happened. In two landmark decisions with Nixon's appointees providing 4 of the 5 votes, the Supreme Court effectively held that school systems could be separate and unequal as long as this was accomplished through tax policy and and the arbitrary drawing of district boundaries rather than through direct pupil assignment. To give Nixon credit for the desegregation policies he opposed is grossly ahistorical nonsense.

--Scott Lemieux

A really excellent reported piece in the Times today taps into a broad swathe of Iraqi public opinion on withdrawal. Most seem to support it with some reservations about the timing and a few worry that the Iraqi Army will be unable to provide security without the backing of American troops. But presumably the first troop withdrawals won't begin for another six months -- a Friedman unit! -- giving the Iraqi troops more time to solidify their training and clear areas of insurgents. It's also clear that Iraq's governing officials are starting to assert themselves and reject American attempts to impose a "colonial relationship" on the country.

Some Iraqi citizens quoted in the piece echo a personal worry of mine that I suspect John McCain shares: that American troops' departure will lead to chaos in the country and a failure to live up to our moral, you-break-it-you-bought-it obligation to correct our mistakes there. But the U.S. has reached the limit of what it can achieve militarily in Iraq. Then there's this heart-rending observation: "Many Iraqis hate American forces because soldiers have killed their relatives and friends, and they say they want the troops out."

-- Tim Fernholz

The current federal poverty line -- $20,444 for a family of two adults and two children -- is hopelessly, ridiculously outdated. Based on consumption patterns from the mid-1950s, the formula for determining who is impoverished does not deal with the significant rise in single-parent homes, the expanding share of income now devoted to real estate costs, or the decrease in available low-skills jobs complete with health insurance and other benefits.

Today the House Ways and Means Committee is considering a proposal from Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) that would modernize how we "calculate" poverty, updating the formula to reflect contemporary consumption patterns and consider regional differences in the cost-of-living. But as Margy Waller writes at the indispensable DMI Blog, the changes would amount to, well, small change. McDermott's proposal would lift the poverty line from $20,444 to just $21,818 -- still an impossibly tiny income for a family of four to live on, especially in an urban area. It's useful to remember that most low-income people live in rental housing without any kind of subsidy. Nine percent of all American families are living in rentals that are unaffordable -- meaning housing costs exceed 30 percent of household income.

If your annual salary is $21,818, that would mean "affordable housing" would cost you just $545.45 per month. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to find adaquate, safe housing for a family of four at that price -- certainly in cities. And if $545.45 is what you can afford to pay on housing, you will likely be in a neighborhood with failing schools and a lack of other public services. So, as Waller writes, we really need a whole new way of "counting" poverty, one that considers regional inequality alongside income, and one that actively seeks to equally fund and improve the public services, including schools, that poor families rely upon.

--Dana Goldstein

The evidence is mounting: John Hagee is not a very popular person among American Jews.

A new poll commissioned by J Street, the pro-Israel lobby that advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and diplomacy rather than military intervention with Iran (see TAP's interview with founder Jeremy Ben-Ami here), found that 51 percent of respondents had a negative impression of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) -- and that's of the 70 percent  who had heard of it. While 65 percent of respondents had name recognition of Hagee personally, only 7 percent gave him a favorable rating. Fully 80 percent of respondents said that Jewish organizations and leadership should not form alliances with CUFI or Hagee, all demonstrating, as pollster Jim Gerstein put it, that Hagee "is very well known, and very disliked."

--Sarah Posner

Obama’s nearly-record-breaking June fundraising haul -- $52 million! -- ought to change the media narrative for the next few days. The campaign claims an average donation of $68. Assuming those numbers hold up when we get the full FEC reports, they support Obama's justification of his decision to back out of public financing -- that he won’t be beholden to wealthy interests if most of his money is coming in small chunks from regular folks.

We’ll see if that turns out to be true. But most impressive is the fact that this was done in June; fundraisers will tell you that the summer months are the most difficult time to raise money (primary’s over, the general hasn’t started to really heat up, people are going on vacation, etc.) although, given the amount of media coverage of this, er, amazing race has generated, perhaps that dynamic doesn’t apply.

John McCain and the RNC still have a good $28 million $1 million more cash-on-hand, but that’s in part because Obama has been up on TV more and has been opening field offices and hiring workers everywhere he can -- 20 offices in Virginia, 150 paid organizers in Missouri. Some political operatives I’ve spoken to who aren’t involved in the campaign were worried that this was a bit of an overreach (especially given his lower fundraising in the last few months) but early investment can’t be beat if you can keep up this kind of fundraising pace.

UPDATE: As StevenAttewell points out, the difference in funds between the two candidates and their respective parties is relatively small. Unfortunately, I wrote this post before the DNC announced its fundraising results.

—Tim Fernholz

• The New York Times ran a front-page story today with the misleading headline, "Poll Finds Obama Isn’t Closing Divide on Race," despite the fact that the poll's own numbers paint a far more varied picture. The Obama campaign briskly provided the evidence, and, in an email response, the story's lead writer Adam Nagourney said that he is "comfortable" with the story (if not the headline, which wouldn't have been his decision anyway).
• A new MoveOn ad criticizes John McCain for opposing Iraq withdrawal timetables, Vets for Freedom has a spot arguing the McCain talking point that Democrats were wrong on the surge, and the Obama campaign is running his second national security-themed ad in as many days.
• Three new national polls show a stable Obama lead: Zogby has Obama over McCain 47-40, CBS/NY Times has him up 48-42, and ABC/Washington Post 50-42.
• Marc Ambinder discusses the "management secrets of Barack Obama."
• John Judis has a piece on McCain's foreign policy that argues he is less the realist statesman in the mold of Richard Nixon, and more a hawk preparing to usher in a new Cold War.
• The Obama campaign is opening 20 new field offices in Virginia, making clear they intend to heavily contest Old Dominion this year.
• Pew finds that most Americans are still unclear about Obama and McCain's policy positions.
  
• Rocky Mountain News reports that Denver will be distributing hundreds of free passes to museums, movie theaters and other civic attractions to the city's homeless population in order to keep them away from the Democratic National Convention next month. In an even more callous -- dare I say un-American? -- decision, tailgating will be prohibited in the Invesco Field parking lot during Obama's acceptance speech.
• The blog Rum, Romanism and Rebellion digs up a story from the 1986 Tuscon Citizen that quotes then-U.S. Representative McCain cracking a rape joke.

--Mori Dinauer

You can't make this stuff up:

Obama is chuckling all the way to the White House. He knows that McCain is token competition, and that this election is merely an exhibition contest. Had the GOP base unified behind a Romney or a Thompson or a Hunter, Obama would be in for a real fight.

That's D.R. Tucker on the Human Events site and, yes, he really is arguing that Duncan Hunter would have a better shot at beating Obama than McCain. It's impressive that conservatives like Tucker are sill able to convince themselves that the conservative movement is so powerful that Republicans need its enthusiastic support to be elected.

If that were the case wouldn't Republicans have, you know, not nominated John McCain, Bob Dole, or the first George Bush? The fact is that, as Rick Perlstein pointed out some months ago, the idea of a massive, homogeneous, well organized conservative movement is, and may always have been, a myth.

The extra-special-fun part for liberals of the persistence of views like Tucker's is that, as Matt Yglesias likes to point out, if McCain loses, people like Tucker will claim, wrongly, but most at least somewhat convincingly, that his loss proves them right. Hunter 2012 anyone?

--Sam Boyd

Yet another puzzling factor in the Iraq debate are the conservative types and media figures (see the third graf) who think it is so crazy for Obama to talk about Iraq policy before he visits the country. Is his arrival in Baghdad going to lead to some great epiphany? Between news reports, easy access to experts, and intelligence briefings (which I believe he's entitled to as nominee, though I'm not sure if he's getting them yet...) Obama or anyone else should have a solid enough idea of what's going on Iraq to make a broad strategic decisions about the conflict (as a President does) that can still be tactically flexible and respond to advice from policy implementers on the ground.

In fact, like most Congressional junkets, and especially those to dangerous places, he'll likely be whisked around in convoys -- recall McCain's delightful trip to a Baghdad market -- meet local dignitaries, and do some photo-ops. Sure, it'll be great to meet General Petraeus in person, but their conversation won't be any different than the General's congressional testimony, or any other statements he's made. Conservatives seem to believe there is some secret treasure trove of good news that isn't available to the general public (probably because of that liberal media) that becomes apparent once you get there. But, for the umpteenth time, if everything is so chipper, why not leave?

--Tim Fernholz

Conservative syndicated columnist Mona Charen takes her 14-year old son to the supermarket. He asks her, "What's up with Cosmopolitan? What is that?" She replies of the mass-market monthly (circulation 2,903,000), "It's a magazine for sluts."

Of course, I'm not going to mount a defense of Cosmo, which is vapid. But seriously. What more approval does a boy need to call women "sluts" for the rest of his life than his mom signaling to him that it's okay? Mona's son: If you're reading this, you should know that "slut" is a slur for which there is no companion term to refer to men. Calling women "sluts" will not endear you to the intelligent, self-confident ladies you may want to date someday. (If you're into ladies. And if you're not, that's okay too! No matter what your mother might say.)

--Dana Goldstein

Adam Serwer explains the often-confusing debate about this week's New Yorker cover:

As the image exploded across the blogosphere, it became apparent that many of those who were meant to get the joke did not. Some thought the cover didn't work as satire, while others thought it was a fantastic send-up of right-wing myths about Obama, and still others thought it shouldn't have been a big deal either way. And the conflicting opinions were not confined to liberals, or to Obama supporters. While some conservatives went so far as to praise the cover as accurate, others actually agreed the image was offensive. Below, a rundown of reactions.

Sarah Posner has the latest on the religious right:

After McCain clinched the nomination, the religious-right leadership slowly realized they had to play the game -- but they ended up getting played by McCain. Religious-right leaders acted publicly as if they were withholding judgment until McCain gave them something -- and oh, that something was not much: perfunctory support for the California gay marriage ban and a pledge to clone John Roberts and Samuel Alito for any Supreme Court appointments. That's it. No prayer sessions, no random citations of Bible verses, no evangelical code words embedded in speeches, and not a single rhetorical bone about Christian nationhood. Even his recently retooled campaign slogan, "Reform, Prosperity, Peace," abandoned religious-right buzzwords like "values," "family," and "faith."

And, in a column from our last print issue, Thomas Geoghegan writes about the new generation of young bankers financing the Democratic Party:

It's these under-30 wonder kids that Democratic Party leaders are already having to hit up for money. Of course, there should be campaign-finance reform, but the problem isn't solved simply by saying, "I won't take their money." The bigger problem is that these young plutocrat-to-be liberals from Teach for America already have so much clout in shaping the political message of the left.

One day, all we may care about is who heads the Fed. Indeed, under the very nice Ben Bernanke, the Fed has seized broad new authority for regulating the whole economy, to make sure that no one in the financial sector ever gets to fail. That's the new social contract: In Tribeca, at least, no kid will ever lose his (or her) first (or second) condo.

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—The Editors