Month: October 2007

She was on The View today. For all her positioning, her public statement is quite close to Bush’s who also inveighs against torture, while authorizing it as policy. Clinton won’t call the techniques in question torture; and she won’t explicitly rule out specific techniques. I remain skeptical of her bona fides on the matter. She is characterologically unable to take a clear stand. And yet she wants to enjoy the global benefits of a clear stand. She can’t have it both ways. If you want to end torture as an instrument of American policy, I don’t believe Hillary Clinton is your candidate.

They may have killed the Washington Post reporter, Saif Aldin. Just when you think you have a solution in Iraq, it tends to become a problem.

Congrats on getting married. Extra points for not reading a single blog for 16 days.

Flesherton, Ontario, Canada, 3 pm.

I know, reading the MSM, that Hillary Clinton is already the president-elect, but on the ground, things are less certain:

It’s abundantly clear that, less than four months before the onslaught of decisive primaries and caucuses, many Democratic voters have just not made up their minds. "Of those that would speak to us, almost all were undecided," reports correspondent Phoebe Love who followed the Obama canvass through Ballard, Washington. She is echoed by contributor Ethan Hova in Studio City, a middle-class Democratic suburban stronghold in Los Angeles: "The vast majority of voters were very much undecided and expressed reluctance to engage in debate without conducting research on their own." Daniel Macht, following the Obama campaign in Brooklyn, New York noted the same hesitation: "They were all undecided, save one Edwards supporter." Perhaps most importantly, correspondent Beverly Davis reports from Des Moines, "Smith [ an Obama volunteer] knocks on Dan Arply’s door and launches into his opening rap but Arply soon interrupts by saying, ‘Thanks for stopping by, but I haven’t decided on supporting anyone yet.’ Arply is a typical Iowan."

She can be stopped.

Like pulling teeth … your own.

One benefit of this primary campaign: have black women voters ever been this thoroughly fought over? Maya Angelou has famously endorsed Clinton. Now Alice Walker backs the "real" and "complex" Obama. I can’t believe I find myself agreeing with Walker. But I guess times change. And I think our world-historical challenges demand thinking outside our existing categories:

Josh Marshall’s pioneering site gets its CJR profile. Money quote:

"I think within TPM lies the DNA of the future of journalism," says Justin Rood, a former TPM Muckraker reporter who now works for ABC News. "In terms of its relationship with its audience, its ability to advance stories incrementally and to give credit to other news organizations, and its ability to get the story to readers—it’s been able to foster a real spirit of collaboration."

Rood’s vision is plausible enough—but it seems equally possible that TPM will be remembered fifty years from now as a brief efflorescence, as something like I.F. Stone’s Weekly….

"Brief efflorescence" is another word for life, right? Keep going, Josh …

Ed Brayton says he’s discovered the best campaign slogan ever.

And so do the men who love them, apparently.