The Dish

The chronology works against him:

It increasingly appears that the Bush interrogation program was already being used before Yoo was asked to write an opinion. He may therefore have provided after-the-fact legal cover. That would help explain why Yoo strained to take so many implausible positions in the memos.

It also appears that government lawyers had told Bush administration officials that some of the techniques already in use were illegal, even criminal. In fact, a senior Pentagon lawyer described to me exchanges he had with Yoo in which he stressed that those using the techniques could face prosecution. Yoo notes in his Pentagon memo that he communicated with the Criminal Division of the Justice Department and got assurances that prosecutions would not be brought. The question becomes, was Yoo giving his best effort at legal analysis, or was he attempting to protect the authors of the program from criminal investigation and prosecution?

In any case, Yoo kept the program running.

Empowered by Pat Buchanan, Karl Rove, Richard Scaife and Bob Novak, this is how Clinton is now spinning Pennsylvania:

An 11-point victory in Pennsylvania for Clinton would expand on margins scored in Ohio.

A blast of common sense and good judgment from the Financial Times:

Mr Obama has fought a brilliant campaign, out-organising his opponent, raising more money, and convincing undecided Democrats as well as the country at large that he was more likeable, more straightforward and more worthy of trust.

On form, he is a spell-binding orator and holds arena-sized audiences in thrall. He is given to airy exhortations, it is true, but genuinely seeks consensus and has cross-party appeal.

Note the "genuinely". This is obvious to anyone not blinkered. He is not perfect; and not a savior. But he is the best thing to happen to the Democrats in a very long time, and sometimes it takes an outsider like the FT to see it. Among the most perceptive of his critics, I’d put Dowd and Noonan. Maureen:

Obama has to prove to Americans that, despite his exotic background and multicultural looks, he shares or at least respects their values and understands why they would be upset about his associations with the Rev. Wright and an ex-Weatherman.

Peggy:

Sen. Obama seems honestly surprised by the furor his the-poor-cling-to-God-and-guns remarks elicited, and if one considers his background—intense marginalization followed by the establishment’s embrace—this is understandable. He was only caught speaking the secret language of America’s elite, and what he said was not meant as a putdown. It was an explanation aimed at ameliorating the elites’ anger toward and impatience with normal people. It’s a way of explaining them, of saying, "You have to remember they’re not comfortable and educated like us, they’re vulnerable and so we must try to understand them and feel sympathy for and solidarity with them." You could say this at any high-class dinner party in America and not cause a ruffle. But America is not a high-class dinner party.

The smartest critiques of Obama get the sincerity of his ambition, while noting his flaws and greenness. The dumbest critiques miss the point entirely. In general: I trust the Irish-Catholic women to get these things right. At least, that’s what my mother taught me.

(Photo: Scott Morgan/Getty.)

"The Americans will stay in Iraq twenty or thirty years if necessary, and leave only when they have transformed the society and the economy of those countries," – former British prime minister Edward Heath. Actually, I’ve changed the words a little. He said Southeast Asia, and made the remark in 1968. History doesn’t repeat itself, of course, But it sure does rhyme.

SUSA shows a big swing to Obama since its last poll. Quinnipiac gives the Clintons a 7 point lead, essentially unchanged. Zogby shows 6.

Astute as ever. The bloggery about Michelle Malkin’s status anxiety has turned out to be almost as interesting as a New Yorker profile might have been. I’ll say one thing about Malkin: she is independent, and I admire that about her. She is extremely polarizing, ridiculously partisan and quasi-fascist in her politics, but I can’t help but admire her pluck. She has made a name for herself almost entirely by her own efforts, she’s extremely hard-working, innovative and ballsy, and takes her own side to task from time to time. She’s also managed to rise above the disgusting misogyny and racism that has been thrown in her direction. Don’t get me wrong: her McCarthyite bomb-throwing is repellent a lot of the time. But the blogosphere forces you to take the good with the bad and none of us is perfect. Any individual who has wrested control of the discourse from the media establishment and forged their own path is part of the solution.

This discourse is a fascinating insight into a generational struggle within evangelical Christianity. The younger generation increasingly finds the rigidity and judgmentalism of the last generation with respect to homosexuals as lacking in Jesus’ compassion, and in perspective. The sometimes arid discussion of natural law or barren recourse to Biblical literalism in the face of genuine spiritual need and hunger is not lost on the next generation of Christians. It gives me hope. We have to find a way to include gay people in the church. Maybe it will take another generation to get there. When we do, a lot of us will still be here, hanging on, refusing to abandon the church just because it has abandoned us.

A classic.

From the Washington Post’s Book World, a poem currently circulating among US soldiers in Iraq:

If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable fight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And a dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue’s explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.

— By Brian Turner

Some perspective on Pennsylvania:

Best case scenario for Obama is 54-46.  Worst case scenario is 58-42.  Split the difference and call it 56-44. And, quite frankly, that’s optimistic given the media’s attempts to Swiftboat Obama every single day for the past two weeks.

More here:

"Popular vote matters,” says Steve Grossman, a marketing executive and one of Clinton’s top fundraisers. "If there is an opportunity for her to pick up enough popular votes, that is a powerful calling card to the superdelegates to say the will of the people is a split decision.”

To earn that split decision, though, Clinton would need a 25-point victory in Pennsylvania, plus 20-point wins in later contests in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Even that scenario assumes Clinton, 60, would break even in Indiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana and Oregon — a prospect that’s not at all certain.

538 predicts a 16 point Clinton win, based on undecideds. I’m sticking with my view that she needs double digits in Pennsylvania to stay in the race. Then May 6 looms large. The Obamaites who have long predicted an end on May 7 may well be proven right.