Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Rudy Giuliani has been taking quite a few swings at MoveOn.org over the last several days. This afternoon, MoveOn swung back.
* On a related note, Dick Cheney waded into the fight himself today, saying, “The attacks on him by MoveOn.org in ad space provided at subsidized rates in the New York Times last week were an outrage.” The ad space wasn’t “subsidized,” but if Cheney ever managed to levy an honest attack, it’d probably cause a rift in the space-time continuum, so he might as well keep on lying.
* CREW wonders why the Senate GOP leadership stripped Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) of his committee assignments, but not Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). It’s a good question.
* Speaking of Craig, the ACLU filed a brief on the Republican senator’s behalf today with the Minnesota Court considering Craig’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea over his bathroom sting arrest.
* Happy ending in California: “UC Irvine Chancellor Michael V. Drake and Erwin Chemerinsky have reached an agreement that will return the liberal legal scholar to the dean’s post at the university’s new law school, the university announced this morning. With the deal, they hope to end the controversy that erupted when Chemerinsky was dropped as the first dean of the Donald Bren School of Law.”
* Kevin Drum makes the case that Dems aren’t really all that anxious to end the war in Iraq: “Iraq itself would probably get worse if we pulled out, at least in the short term, and there’s an outside chance that it would get way worse. Dems would get all the blame, of course. And finally, Democrats would no longer have the war as an issue to run on in 2008.”
* David Cole and Jules Lobel on the ineffectiveness of “going on offense” to combat terrorism: “Security rests not on exceptionalism and double standards but on a commitment to fairness, justice and the rule of law. The rule of law in no way precludes a state from defending itself from terrorists but requires that it do so within constraints. And properly understood, those constraints are assets, not obstacles.”
* U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker subtly criticized his boss yesterday on the slow pace of addressing the Iraqi refugee crisis. On this, he’s right.
* Joe Klein explains why Bush deserves far more blame than Petraeus: “The nature of military leadership is congenital optimism; officers are trained to complete the mission, to refuse to countenance the possibility of failure. That focus is essential when you go to war, but it lacks perspective. That’s why civilian leaders — the Commander in Chief — are there to set the mission, to change or abort it when necessary. The trouble is, George W. Bush’s credibility on Iraq is nonexistent. And so he has placed David Petraeus, an excellent soldier, in a position way above his pay grade. He has made Petraeus not just the arbiter of Iraq strategy but also, by default, the man who sets U.S. policy for the entire so-called war on terrorism.”
* David Broder’s praise for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) doesn’t make a lot of sense.
* Last week, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was caught lying to the Senate about a revised FISA law’s role in preventing a terrorist attack in Germany. This week, he’ll return to the Hill to ask House lawmakers to give him even more surveillance authority. These guys have chutzpah, I’ll give them that.
* Scott Bloch and the Office of Special Counsel may soon find their investigation into White House malfeasance coming to an abrupt end — the probe needs an extra $3 million.
* Tom Schaller on white guys: “Those who have been closely following the politics of the Democratic primaries may have noticed that someone is missing…. I’m talking about the white male voter, or at least a certain long-coveted variety thereof. He is variously known as ‘NASCAR dad’ — that shirt-sleeved, straight-talkin’, these-colors-don’t-run fella who votes his cultural values above all else — or ‘Bubba,’ as Steve Jarding and Dave ‘Mudcat’ Saunders affectionately call him… Start looking on milk cartons for Bubba because he has vanished, and not a moment too soon: The Democratic obsession with the down-home, blue-collar, white male voter, that heartbreaker who crossed the aisle to the Republicans many decades ago, may finally be coming to a merciful end.”
* In his new autobiography, former Mexico President Vicente Fox describes George W. Bush as “the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life.” He added that the president’s Spanish skills are at a “grade-school” level and says, “I can’t honestly say that I had ever seen George W. Bush getting to the White House.”
* The Senate is moving forward on a plan to revisit the Military Commissions Act. Good.
* Ron Brownstein is moving from the LA Times to become the political director of Atlantic Media. It’s a nice gig.
* And finally, it’s disconcerting to know that the bathroom in the Minneapolis airport in which Larry Craig was arrested has become a tourist attraction. Said one man who works at a shoeshine near the men’s room, “People have been going inside, taking pictures of the stall, taking pictures outside the bathroom door — man, it’s been crazy,”
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.