But we can still slam David Brooks all night....

Jim Lehrer knows he's about as old-fashioned as a TV journalist can be these days.

In a TV news universe where some figures spout commentary one minute and news reports the next, Lehrer insists staffers on his NewsHour broadcast avoid opinionating. As one of the three anchors picked to moderate a presidential debate this year — his 11th — Lehrer vows to avoid the attention-getting questions from previous debates, saying "if people are talking about me or some question I have asked, then I have failed."

"It's the beginning of finalizing the sale, is what it really boils down to," said Lehrer, who will lead PBS's convention coverage throughout prime time, starting at 8 p.m. and running until events end each evening. "My guess is that the networks will regret the fact that they're not giving more coverage to it. Because people are going to be paying attention."

UPDATE LAST:(8:25 cst) Right after the commercials, SUPPOSEDLY

UPDATE II- Dammit, he just said "Next Hour" again !!

UPDATE: It's 6:40 cst here, and Tom just said Michelle will be on NEXT HOUR.  Presuming around 7:20, the usual guest timing.....

Just a Heads-Up, will be a soon to be deleted diary.

Michelle Obama is about to have an interview on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, America's #1 (by market share) syndicated format.

Tom and Cybil very much approve of the Biden selection, btw.

Dial up your local FM, Michelle's interviews with Tom are usually more informative and fun than other shows.

(thats 300 characters, I'll delete this when it's out of date)

I would like some intrepid reporter to ask Sen. John McCain about a Wednesday McClatchy report by Leila Fadel, Key U.S. Iraq strategy in danger of collapse. McCain wants everyone to acknowledge what a genius he is regarding the "surge", but he will not mention carving up Baghdad into walled off enclaves, new neighborhoods behind 12 foot high blast walls.  

We introduced the concept of "gated communities". However, when we look at the future in Iraq, another American corporate concept, the "non-compete clause" is about to bite us in the ass.  The Fadel report begins with the past and present:

American officials have credited the militias, known as the Sons of Iraq or Awakening councils, with undercutting support for the group al Qaida in Iraq and bringing peace to large swaths of the country, including Anbar province and parts of Baghdad. Under the program, the United States pays each militia member a stipend of about $300 a month and promised that they'd get jobs with the Iraqi government.

What does the future portend?

"All the Americans are doing is paying them just to be quiet," said Haider al Abadi.

Do you remember the very FIRST inauguration day story of January 2001?  

No, it was not the eggs being thrown at Shrub's motorcade, preventing his strutting up the street.  ShrubCo was able to manipulate protest images, most of America first saw that outraged footage later in "Farenheit 9-11".

The very first White House report was how the outgoing Clinton staff had prankishly removed ALL the "W" keys off the keyboards.  By the time rightwing radio squeezed the story, file cabinets were ransacked and feces smeared on the office walls.  

The meme was so effective, I heard it from a Fox radio caller last week.  It does not take much imagination to predict the January 2009 janitorial situation, as the thieves cover their tracks.  

(AP) Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct. The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.

So, before we let the vandals take the handles, I propose we start making a list, checking it thrice...

The new McCain ad "Broken" decries how we are worse off than four years ago.  But will he tarnish Olympic gold performances with this downer of a message?  What will Shrub say when he sees how poor he's done?

From Ad Age; Going for Gold? McCain Makes $6 Million Olympic Buy

Tops Obama Buy by $1 Million

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is buying into NBC Universal's Olympics coverage.

The McCain campaign made a last-minute $6 million ad buy, which tops the $5 million Sen. Barack Obama's campaign announced last month it was buying during the Olympic Games, which begin Aug. 8.

I liked how, while Obama was in Europe, McCain's poll numbers fell in 10 out of 11 states where his POW ad ran.  We continue to find he is a follower, not a leader, in advertising trends.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of the Campaign Media Analysis Group at TNS Media Intelligence. "For the same reason the idea was good for Barack, it is good for McCain: It's high traffic for eyeballs in a normally low-traffic time of year."

I kind of LIKE the tone of this weeks ad thrust:

CHICAGO (AP)  -- U.S. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama's campaign will begin running a television ad Monday in the U.S., that attacks Republican John McCain's energy policies.

"After one president in the pocket of big oil we can't afford another," says the ad, referring to President Bush's previous work in the oil industry.

Update:THANKS VERILY FOR THE LINK:

It is titled POCKETS

When the celebrity ad came out this week, one of McCain's advisors pronounced "that their research showed Brittany and Paris to be the #2 and #3 celebrities in the world."

"What we decided to do is find the top three international celebrities in the world, and I would say from our indications, Britney and Paris came in second and third," said campaign manager Rick Davis.

What happened to Muhammed Ali?  

And when was he knocked off the "most recognizable" mountaintop?  He was historically always #1 !!!

A paragraph from Bob Herbert's Running on Black op ed this morning provided the clue....

Now, from the hapless but increasingly venomous McCain campaign, comes the slimy Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. The two highly sexualized women (both notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear) are shown briefly and incongruously at the beginning of a commercial critical of Mr. Obama.

McCain's advisor's were searching free porn !!

Michael Falcone in today's NYTimes blog notes that  

Republicans were forced to strip the comment wall and discussion board from the page attached to its new Facebook parody, BarackBook.com, which just went online early this morning, because of comment posts that were racist and anti-Muslim ... and some that were anti-Republican too.

And who is the named culprit?

Our very own

clubfed34's diary did the noble deed

In addition to some vulgarities, the site also became the target of liberal bloggers at DailyKos.com, who urged their readers to "befriend barackbook and add the application and basically turn it into a pro-Obama site." DailyKos diarist, clubfed34, added: "It’s already been started in barackbooks discussion boards. Bonus points to anyone who makes a facebook page mocking Mcsame and to anyone who can get barackbook.com to crash!!"

I'm watching the first half of Obama on MTP, but in a half hour Senators Hagel and Reed appear on CBS.

I'm not a fast typist, but think a LOT of campaign fodder might be had from the two guests who accompanied Obama.

It just seems like the place to be this hectic morning to get the "what's what."

Short diary, I'll delete within the hour.

(edit: it happens at :45 minutes of the 2nd hour, preceded at :30 minutes by a Netroots interview. I'll leave it long enough for Left Coast to see it)

2nd hour of NPR Weekend Edition is a story about a conductor, about to perform a Dead Symphony, with the Baltimore Philharmonic.

Sounds like a fun morning story....gotta go bottle feed some goat twins, so I can run back and hear it.

(well, that wasn't 300 characters, just gotta poke around, just gotta poke around........)

Capt. Morton: [on the loudspeaker in reference to his "missing" palm tree... ] All right! Who did it? Who did it? You are going to stand sweating at those battle stations until someone confesses! It's an insult to the honor of this ship! The symbol of our cargo record has been destroyed and I'm going to find out who did it if it takes all night!

With Emperor George down to his underwear, the Department of State memos this week come across as incredibly petty. One wonders if the other cabinet departments are going to be similarly instructed to throw monkey wrenches once Obama's plane touches back down in the states.

I'm recalling an episode Sister Mary M., O.S.B. told us, about the second protest (1991) at the School of The Americas, Fort Benning, GA.  

Better organized than the first, when the march reached the gates and the guest speakers began prepared remarks, 5 huge tractor lawnmowers came over the hill like Sherman tanks.  The mowers proceeded to ride back and forth inside the fence, for the entire speechifying part of the protest. (The amusing followup is down in the replies)    

My question is "Where in the World Is Donald Segretti?"

Watching the McCain camp flounder and flop around like fish on a riverbank, kind of reminds me of the PBS promo, where the goldfish dreams of being a salmon, and uses every vessel possible to join in the spawning rush upstream.

But this is pure fishsh*t:

"I know that Senator Obama is going to Iraq," McCain said. "I was very interested that he articulated and announced his policies and [approach to] Iraq before he went."

Mr. "Doesn't Know his Sunni from his Shi'a", (pitifully flanked by his twin handlers Lindsey and Jolted Joe), yesterday contended that Obama is wrong by having a future, general plan to end our participation in the Iraquagmire.

From CNN 7/17/08 Political Ticker

Since the June 28 news that Obama was planning to make a trip to Iraq, the McCain campaign has been working up their response plan.

For weeks McCain has been searching for lipstick to paint his pigs lips policies, but I seem to recall when McCain endangered the lives of thousands, including over a hundred US soldiers, to "prove his facts" ahead of a visit.  

I can't remember the "when", it must have been way back in 2002.  

The "who" was a neighbor, Mike and I, "what" we were talking about the recent arrest of a acquaintance, a guy about 5 years older than us, Boo C.

"Why" am I telling this tale?  

We may just be the original source of the rumor becoming true....(inspired by a report from AP this morning)

FLINT, Mich. - Officials in Flint, Mich., say they've had to replace hundreds of manhole covers and grates that were probably stolen and sold for scrap.

We have to go back to the day after Boo's arrest, which involved his pickup, a bathtub, a chain and a trail of sparks...

Secretary Rice provided a great example this week of the use of American power and influence. Andrew Kramer has an article in today's NY Times, Czechs See Oil Flow Fall and Suspect Russian Ire on Missile System

MOSCOW — Three days after the Czech Republic signed an agreement with the United States to host a tracking radar for an antiballistic missile system that Russia vehemently opposes, the authorities in Prague said the flow of Russian oil to their country was beginning to dwindle.

President George W. Bush deems the new Russian President a "smart man".  He does seem "true to his word"...

In one of his first foreign policy tests since becoming Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev said this week that Russia intended to retaliate. "We are extremely upset by this situation," Mr. Medvedev said at a news conference in Japan, where he was attending a Group of 8 summit meeting.

"We will not be hysterical about this, but we will think of retaliatory steps," he said.

Are you ready for a REAL Oil War?

In Todays New York Times Court  Dismisses Rendition Suit
       

By ALAN FEUER
Published: July 1, 2008

A federal appeals court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Syrian-born Canadian man who had accused the United States of violating the law and his civil rights after he was detained at Kennedy Airport and sent to Syria under what he claims was an act of "extraordinary rendition."

Such is the status of the courts and justice in the United States, that Kennedy Airport is the equivalent of Guantanemo, technically speaking.

The man, Maher Arar, tried to win civil damages from United States officials in his suit, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ruled that because he was never technically inside the United States, his claims could not be heard in the federal courts.

I don't know what precedent was used, perhaps that Tom Hanks movie "The Terminal"?

Three years ago when I interviewed Mr. McCain, he admitted that he doesn't understand economics very well. Clearly neither does Barack Obama. But one thing that separates the two is that at least Mr. McCain has the good sense to know where to turn to for first-rate advice.

How will the budget be balanced in four years?
How will McCain work with a Democratic controlled Congress?
Want to  catch a glimpse of how the Fed is going to keep inflation under control?

In Saturday's Wall Street Journal, senior economic writer Stephen Moore interviews Senator John McCain's almost certain Secretary of the Treasury nominee.  He even poses the question:

So have I been speaking with the next Treasury secretary? Almost certainly, yes, if Mr. McCain wins in November.

Now, I'm not an economist, but "Almost certainly" is a better wagering indicator than "its a 50/50 chance"  RIGHT?  

I've clipped a few of the important quotes of the article headlined Return of Dr. No.

I just finished reading a blog post that has a really interesting scenario.

Senator Obama just took another giant step toward winning the presidency. Actually, someone who considers himself a sworn enemy of Senator Obama took the step for him. Dr. Dobson of the Focus On the Family radio program (and evangelical media empire) has aired a program in which he attacks Senator Obama, the Senator's theology and his credentials as a Christian. With enemies like this Senator Obama doesn't need friends.

Over on Huffington post Frank Schaeffer says that
Dr. Dobson Has Just Handed Obama Victory , and he describes how the Dobson radio rant yesterday provided the opportunity   for Obama to align with the evangelical faction which is winning the power play versus Dobson (at the moment).

All that was missing to put the frosting on the Obama cake was for Dobson to attack him. For Obama to win all he needs to do is peel off a chunk of heretofore solid evangelical Republican votes. Dobson just handed Obama those votes.

Who are the Dominionists, and can we bury them before Dubya bombs Iran?  

Today's NY Times: Census Damage Control

So, not only can we not track food that is poisoning folks, it looks like one of the central government mandates has been "broken".

HEADLINE: Preparations for the 2010 census are a shambles.

In the election pandemonium, another agency is found "lacking"

Committees in the House have been holding hearings to vet the problems and monitor progress. But with each hearing, it becomes more obvious that prospects for a robust census are unlikely to improve considerably unless and until the next president brings in new leaders. They are needed at the Commerce Department, which includes the Census Bureau, and at the bureau itself, which — like so many federal agencies — has been mismanaged and demoralized during the Bush years.