Clinton Blueprint For Victory Would Tear Dems Apart

In today's Column, Washington Post columnist Chris Cillizza outlines what the Clinton Campaign considers its way to victory. It includes two actions that will drive the Democratic Party apart: 1) Clinton as fighter, which really means Clinton using racist means of campaigning, and 2) having Florida and Michigan count.

Look, I don't care what anyone else writes, Florida and Michigan are using their voters as tools to get what they want. That's smelly. Both states signed a contract and then violated that contract. So the voters should stay put and if they're pissed off about it, then they should throw their elected officials out of office.

Barack Obama's ahead -- deal with it.

Charlotte Allen's WashPost Anti-Feminist Column Causes Firestorm

I first learned about Charlotte Allen's controversial column in a response writen by Alex Leo in the Huffington Post and titled "Charlotte Allen Is a Bigot", which is bound to get anyone's attention. But before I jumped on the Anti-Charlotte bandwagon, I figured I'd do two things: 1) read her column and 2) contact her.

I did both.

I got this response from Charlotte, who was kind enough to take the time to write back. Now, "CA" is her and "ZA" is me.

CA: Zennie:
I'll try to respond to your queries, but briefly:

ZA: I write a blog called Zennie's Zeitgeist
http://zennie2005.blogspot.com and I have a question for my post about
your column that has caused such controversy.

What was the movivating factor for writing it?

CA: Just fun--a friend of mine and I had been ventilating about all the dumb things women say and do.

ZA: Also, is there some discomfort with being a woman?

CA: I love being a woman?

ZA: In other words, what's wrong with essentially being how you're wired?

CA: Nothing--I'm not one of those gender studies types who believe that gender traits are all socially imposed.

ZA: Also, isn't it true that a lot of women aren't that way?

CA: Sure--I carefully pointed that out in the article.

ZA: I'm just curious. Also, did you expect to launch a controversy?

CA: I knew the piece would be loathed by many feminists, but not quite on this scale.

ZA: Would you still write the column if you knew it was going to piss off so many people?

ZA: It's been overwhelming trying to answer all the e-mails, but of course I'd do it. I refused to be intimidated by humorless politically correct types.

CA: Thanks! Hope this helps!

Actually, it does. I figured that Charlotte had -- as I told her -- her tongue way down her cheek when she wrote the column. I took the episode as something where she wanted to piss off a particular group of women who perhaps take themselves too seriously and she hit the mark -- bullseye.

Still, now there's a bullseye on her back. With so many calls for her head amoung the 1,000 comments and 10,000 blog responses, it will be interesting to see what happens to her. My bet is that she winds up on some TV show. Hey look, the WashPost editors must be loving this stuff. It's online churn of the first order.

I disagree with Alex Leo as I do think it was satrical and also balanced; not the divisive work Leo painted it to be.

Media Matters Exposes Wash Posts Dana Milbank As Bad Journalist For Misrepresenting Obama's Heath Care Record

The Washinton Post has a Barack Obama problem. From the untrue Muslim smear article to misquotes, it's clear the Washington Post so badly wants Barack Obama to lose -- and may be working under racist fears -- that it gives displays of bad and unethical journalism in the process.

Consider Dana Milbank.

Dana Milbank is the Washington Post writer who misrepresented Obama's Illinois Health Care record. Media Matters reports..

"Summary: The Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote that Sen. Barack Obama's "signature legislation as a state senator, the Health Care Justice Act, merely set up a panel to craft a plan," not, as Obama claimed, "expanded health care in Illinois by bringing Democrats and Republicans together, by taking on the insurance industry." In fact, Obama sponsored a bill that expanded health insurance programs for low-income families in Illinois. Following that bill's passage, more than 150,000 additional people reportedly received health insurance through the programs."

Whether it be for old-fashioned racism or lobbyist involvement, or both, The Washington Post is developing a terrible, race-based record of opposition to the Obama campaign. They're afraid, it seems, to give the Senator a fair shake in coverage because they know he can win.

Flush With Cash, Karl Rove To Resign - Wash Post

Now, I'm guessing about the cash matter, but it reads he's not going to take another job. Plus, he's going to write a book (!) which means - drum roll, please -- a large book advance! Personally, as one who's worked in politics, I admire Karl Rove's work and the reputation he crafted as a top-flight political strategist.

Karl Rove, Adviser to President Bush, to Resign
By Peter Baker and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers

Monday, August 13, 2007; 7:34 AM

Karl Rove, the architect of President Bush's two national campaigns and his most prominent adviser through 6-1/2 tumultuous years in the White House, will resign at month's end and leave politics, a White House spokeswoman said this morning.

Bush plans to make a statement with Rove on the South Lawn this morning before the president departs for his ranch near Crawford, Tex. Rove, who holds the titles of deputy chief of staff and senior adviser, has been talking about finding the right time to depart for a year, colleagues said, and decided he had to either leave now or remain through the end of the presidency.

"Obviously it's a big loss to us," White House spokeswoman Dana M. Perino said this morning. "He's a great colleague, a good friend, and a brilliant mind. He will be greatly missed. But we know he wouldn't be going if he wasn't sure this was the right time to be giving more to his family, his wife Darby and their son. He will continue to be one of the president's greatest friends."

Rove, 56, who escaped indictment in the CIA leak case, has been under scrutiny by the new Democratic Congress for his role in the firings of U.S. attorneys and in a series of political briefings provided to various agencies across government. Citing executive privilege, he defied a subpoena and refused to show up for a congressional hearing just two weeks ago on the allegedly improper use by White House aides of Republican National Committee email accounts. Fellow Bush advisers have said they believe the congressional probes have been aimed in part at driving Rove out.

The White House said his departure was unrelated to the investigations. In an interview published this morning, Rove told Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul A. Gigot that he had been interested in leaving last year but did not want to go immediately after the Democrats took over Congress, nor did he want to abandon Bush as he fought for his troop buildup in Iraq and an immigration overhaul.

"I just think it's time," Rove told Gigot in comments confirmed by the White House. The Journal said White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten told Rove and other senior aides that if they stay past Labor Day, they would be expected to remain through the end of the second term, Jan. 20, 2009.

"There's always something that can keep you here," Rove said, "and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family."

Rove said he was finished with political consulting and plans to spend much of his time at his house in Ingram, Tex., with his wife, Darby, and near their son, who attends college in San Antonio. He said he plans to write a book about Bush's years in office, a project encouraged by the president, and would like to teach at some point, but has no job lined up for now. He does not plan to work on a presidential campaign nor would he endorse a candidate.

Rove is the latest of a string of high-profile presidential aides to head for the door as the Bush administration enters its final stages. In recent months, presidential counselor Dan Bartlett, budget director Rob Portman, deputy national security advisers J.D. Crouch and Meghan O'Sullivan, political director Sara M. Taylor, strategic initiatives director Peter H. Wehner and a string of other longtime aides have resigned one after the other.

None came close to Rove's stature or influence, however. His departure is the end of an era in modern GOP politics, the conclusion of 14 years that began with advising the son of the last Republican to hold the White House, then guiding that son first to the Texas governor's mansion and, ultimately, to the White House. Along the way, Rove became the most prominent political strategist of his generation and a bete noire for liberals and even a number of conservative critics.

Along with Karen Hughes and Joe Allbaugh, Rove was part of a group known as the "Iron Triangle" who were central to Bush's early political success in Texas, but he was the most enduring of the three. Bush termed him "The Architect" for his role in capturing the White House in 2000 and Rove was similarly credited with midterm Congressional election victories in 2002 and Bush's reelection over Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004. The ouster of the Republican Congress in 2006, punctured Rove's long winning streak and empowered his enemies.

Rove's influence extended far beyond the politics of electioneering, deep into policymaking. He helped craft the first-term Bush agenda of tax cuts, which succeeded, and the second-term agenda of Social Security private accounts, which did not. More broadly, he provided the intellectual and historic framework for the Bush presidency and hoped to use it to open a new era of Republican political dominance, a project that today looks potentially crippled by the unpopularity of both the president and the Iraq war.

Rove was investigated for his role in leaking the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative whose husband publicly criticized the administration's handling of prewar intelligence. Although White House spokesman Scott McClellan initially spoke with Rove and publicly denied that Rove had anything to do with the leak, the investigation later determined that he had in fact divulged or confirmed Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald brought Rove before the grand jury multiple times and considered charging him in the case but ultimately decided not to. Fitzgerald did indict I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to investigators, although Bush later commuted his sentence. Libby's attorney asserted at his trial that he was being sacrificed to protect Rove.

Rove told Gigot that he remains confident Bush will recover politically despite his low approval ratings. "He will move back up in the polls," Rove said. And he said Republicans could still retain the White House next year. The Democrats are likely to nominate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), "a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate," he said, but Republicans have "a very good chance" of beating her.

Rove laughed off his own reputation as the svengali of the Bush presidency. "I'm a myth," he said. "There's the Mark of Rove. I read about some of the things I'm supposed to have done and I have to try not to laugh."

Staff writer Howard Schneider contributed to this report.

Virginia Tech Shooting Murder - Web 2.0 Gives Us A Unique View

The Washington Post covers the role of cell phones and other video recorders in the coverage of the Virginia Tech Shooting Murder as well as the ability to upload the digital information to a website for view by many people.

Perhaps one day the technology and use of it will become so widespread that a crime will be thwarted because of their use. I certainly wish that were true in this case.

Lewis Scooter Libby Found Guilty In CIA Leak Case - Washington Post

Wow. I didn't think Libby would be found guilty, but he was. I was not paying much attention to the trial, believing that fingers would point back to the Vice President during the process.

Here's the account from the Washington Post.

Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak Case
By Amy Goldstein and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, March 6, 2007; 12:52 PM

A federal jury today convicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of lying about his role in the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity, finding the vice president's former chief of staff guilty of two counts of perjury, one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice, while acquitting him of a single count of lying to the FBI.

The verdict, reached by the 11 jurors on the 10th day of deliberations, culminated the seven-week trial of the highest-ranking White House official to be indicted on criminal charges in modern times.


VIDEO | I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's lead attorney, Theodore V. Wells Jr., addresses the media following Tuesday's verdict in the CIA leak case.
Tuesday, March 6, 2 p.m. ET
Verdict in the Libby Trial
Criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt discusses the noon verdict in the perjury trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney.
Graphic

On the Stand
A look at witnesses in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and their conversations about Valerie Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
More on the Libby Trial

The perjury trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff calls up high-profile witnesses.
Evidence Entered in Trial Government exhibits used in the trial in the format admitted in the court.
PHOTOS: Libby's Career Highlights
Indictment: U.S. v Libby
Q&A Transcript
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Under federal sentencing guidlines, Libby faces a probable prison term of 1 1/2 to three years when he is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton June 5.

As the jury forewoman read each guilty count in a clear, solemn voice, Libby was impassive, remaining seated at the defense table, gazing straight ahead and displaying no visible emotion. His wife, Harriet Grant, sat in the front row with tears in her eyes and was was embraced by friends. Later she hugged each of Libby's lawyers.

A few minutes after the jury was dismissed, Libby appeared coatless outside the federal courthouse with his two main lawyers, Theodore V. Wells Jr. and William Jeffress Jr. Wells issued a brief statement to the crush of reporters and television crews.

"We intend to file a motion for a new trial," Wells said. "If that is denied, we will file an appeal. We believe Mr. Libby eventually will be vindicated."

" We intend to keep fighting for his innocence," he added.

Libby and his lawyers then briskly turned away and returned to the courthouse without taking questions. The trial's outcome may have been a repudiation of the strategy that Libby's attorneys chose by not calling either Libby or Vice President Cheney, his former boss, as a witness.

Libby, 56, was the only person charged in a three-year federal investigation that reached the highest echelons of the Bush White House. The central question in the probe was whether anyone in the administration illegally disclosed classified information during the late spring and early summer of 2003, when they told several journalists that an early critic of the Iraq war was married to undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.

No one was ever charged with the leak, but the results of the investigation, led by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, ultimately tarnished both the administration and the Washington press corps.

The trial revolved around whether Libby deliberately lied about--or simply was too busy toremember correctly--several conversations he had about Plame with colleagues and reporters whenhe was questioned months later by FBI agents and a federal grand jury investigating the leak.

Columnist Art Buchwald Dies at Age 81

Columnist Art Buchwald Dies at Age 81
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, January 18, 2007

(01-18) 15:11 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Columnist and author Art Buchwald, who for over four decades chronicled the life and times of Washington with an infectious wit and endeared himself to many with his never-say-die battle with failing kidneys, is dead at 81.

Buchwald's son, Joel, who was with his father, disclosed the satirist's death, saying he had passed away quietly at his home late Wednesday with his family.

Buchwald had refused dialysis treatments for his failing kidneys last year and was expected to die within weeks of moving to a hospice on Feb. 7. But he lived to return home and even write a book about his experiences.

"The last year he had the opportunity for a victory lap and I think he was really grateful for it," Joel Buchwald said. "He had an opportunity to write his book about his experience and he went out the way he wanted to go, on his own terms."

Neither Buchwald nor his doctors could explain how he survived in such grave condition, and he didn't seem to mind.

The unexpected lease on life gave Buchwald, a Pulitzer Prize winner, time for an extended and extraordinarily public goodbye, as he held court daily in a hospice salon with a procession of family, friends and acquaintances.

"I'm going out the way very few people do," he told The Associated Press in April.

Buchwald said in numerous interviews after his decision became public that he was not afraid to die, that he was not depressed about his fate and that he was, in fact, having the time of his life.

Often called "The Wit of Washington" during his years here, Buchwald's name became synonymous with political satire. He was well known, too, for his wide smile and affinity for cigars.

Among his more famous witticisms: "If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough, they will make you a member of it."

Naturally, he found the humor in his choice to renounce dialysis, and he wrote about it in some final columns.

"I am known in the hospice as The Man Who Wouldn't Die," Buchwald wrote in March. "How long they allow me to stay here is another problem. I don't know where I'd go now, or if people would still want to see me if I wasn't in a hospice.

"But in case you're wondering, I'm having a swell time — the best time of my life."

Last January, doctors amputated Buchwald's right leg below the knee because of circulation problems. Losing it was "very traumatic" and he said it probably influenced his decision to reject the three-times-a-week, five-hours-a-day dialysis treatments. In 2000, he suffered a major stroke.

His syndicated column at one point appeared in more than 500 newspapers worldwide. It appeared twice a week in publications including The Washington Post and was distributed by Tribune Media Services.

In a 1995 memoir on his early years, "Leaving Home," Buchwald wrote that humor was his "salvation." In all, he wrote more than 30 books.

"People ask what I am really trying to do with humor," he wrote. "The answer is, 'I'm getting even.' ... For me, being funny is the best revenge."

In 1982, he won the Pulitzer, journalism's top honor, for outstanding commentary, and in 1986 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

He also was at the center of a landmark battle with Hollywood over the question of who originated the idea for Eddie Murphy's 1988 hit film "Coming to America."

Buchwald first attracted notice in the late 1940s in Paris, where he became a correspondent for Variety after dropping out of college.

A year later, he took a trial column called "Paris After Dark" to the New York Herald Tribune. He filled it with scraps of offbeat information about Paris nightlife.

In 1951, he started another column, "Mostly About People," featuring interviews with celebrities in Paris. The next year, the Herald Tribune introduced Buchwald to U.S. readers through yet another column, "Europe's Lighter Side."

"I'll Always Have Paris!" is the title of a 1996 book. He celebrated his 80th birthday at a party at the French Embassy in Washington.

Among the many who visited Buchwald at the hospice was French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, who brought a medal honoring the 14 years Buchwald spent as a journalist in Paris.

Buchwald returned to the United States in 1962, at the height of the glamour of the Kennedy administration, and set himself up in an office just two blocks from the White House. From there, he began a long career lampooning the Washington power establishment.

Over the years, he discovered the allure of show business and in 1970 he wrote the Broadway play "Sheep on the Runway."

But he was best known in that realm for the court battle over "Coming to America." A judge ruled that Paramount Pictures had stolen Buchwald's idea and in 1992 awarded $900,000 to him and a partner.

The case dated to a 1983 Paramount contract for rights to Buchwald's story "King for a Day." The studio had dropped its option to make such a movie in 1985, three years before releasing "Coming to America" without credit to Buchwald.

Both stories involved an African prince who comes to America in search of a bride.

Paramount argued that the two stories were not that similar. After the judge ruled in Buchwald's favor, Paramount lawyers insisted in the trial's next phase that the film failed to produce any net profits. The case became a celebrated example of "Hollywood accounting."

The judge wound up awarding Buchwald and his partner far less than the millions they had sought, but the columnist said he was satisfied.

Born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., on Oct. 25, 1925, Buchwald had a difficult childhood. He and his three sisters were sent to foster homes when their mother was institutionalized for mental illness. Their father, a drapery salesman, suffered Depression-era financial troubles and couldn't afford them.

At 17, Buchwald ran away to join the Marines and spent 3 1/2 years in the Pacific during World War II, attaining the rank of sergeant and spending much of his time editing a Corps newspaper.

After the war, he enrolled at the University of Southern California, where he became managing editor of the campus humor magazine and a columnist for the student paper. But he dropped out in 1948 and headed for Paris on a one-way ticket.

He married Ann McGarry, of Warren, Pa., in London on Oct. 12, 1952. The writer and one-time fashion coordinator for Neiman-Marcus later wrote a book with her husband. They adopted three children.

She died in 1994. In 2000, Buchwald published his first novel, "Stella In Heaven: Almost a Novel," about a widower who can communicate with his deceased wife.

Despite his successes, the perennial funny man said he battled depression in 1963 and 1987. He once joked about deciding not to commit suicide out of fear that The New York Times miss the story.

"You do get over it, and you get over it a better person," he once said of the illness.

Buchwald is survived by son Joel Buchwald, of Washington; daughters Jennifer Buchwald, of Roxbury, Mass.; and Connie Buchwald Marks, of Culpeper, Va.; sisters Edith Jaffe, of Bellevue, Wash., and Doris Kahme, of Delray Beach, Fla., and Monroe Township, N.J.; and five grandchildren.

A family spokeswoman said Buchwald would be interred at the Vineyard Haven Cemetery in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where his wife Ann is buried.

___

Associated Press writer Connie Cass contributed to this story.