Murdoch Goes to Work

WSJ (subscription required):

As a presidential candidate, Democrat John Edwards has regularly attacked subprime lenders, particularly those that have filed foreclosure suits against victims of Hurricane Katrina. But as an investor, Mr. Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims.

The Wall Street Journal has identified 34 New Orleans homes whose owners have faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Mr. Edwards has about $16 million invested in Fortress funds, according to a campaign aide who confirmed a more general Federal Election Commission report. Mr. Edwards worked for Fortress, a publicly held private-equity fund, from late 2005 through 2006.

...

He also promised to cleanse his portfolio of any investments that may be profiting from their losses. "I am going to divest" from any Fortress funds that have a stake in the subprime lenders that filed the foreclosures, he said in a telephone interview. "I will not have my family's money invested in these firms."

Two weeks after News Corp. purchased Dow Jones, the owner of the Wall Street Journal, the Journal runs a front page hit piece on a top tier Democratic presidential candidate.

I discussed this in an earlier post, but to recap, Edwards is getting slammed because he has done something that supposedly runs counter to the media's narratives of Democrats - "weak, effeminate socialists." If a Republican had done it - Hi Bain Capital's Mitt Romney! - the only narrative it would fit is "a rich Republican trying to screw the poor", which is not news and would not get any press - just see Haley Barbour's latest.

Even though this is a hit piece it is clear that there is no evidence of foul play or hypocrisy on Edwards' part. This is character assassination plain and simple, as they are trying to create an image of sleaze to undermine Edwards' trustworthiness and character. Murdoch has showed his hand.

On Iraq

What Digby said.

Very Smart People

The State Department:

The United States sealed a deal on Thursday to provide Israel with $30 billion in defense grants over the next decade, a 25 percent boost that Washington describes as strengthening a bulwark against Iran.

At a signing ceremony in Jerusalem, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the United States would help Israel maintain a military advantage over foes ranging from Iran and Syria to their proxies in Lebanon and Palestinian territories.

"There is no question that, from an American point of view, the Middle East is a more dangerous region now even than it was 10 or 20 years ago and that Israel is facing a growing threat. It's immediate and it's also long-term," Burns told reporters.

"The United States faces many of the same threats from the same organizations and countries as Israel does, and so we felt this was the right level of assistance."

These people understand nothing and are wrong about everything, all the time. Even though this decision came from Foggy Bottom, I am sure Fourthbranch had a hand in it.

A large part of the reason so many muslims hate the U.S. has to do with Israel. Is Israel worthy of this level of assistance? I doubt it. Furthermore, as we have learned countless times in the last 5 years, the enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend. All this serves to do is galvanize Iran and increase the possibility of a conflict. Why is Iran automatically our enemy? What threat does Iran pose to the U.S.? It is notable that the U.A.E., Dubai in particular, is much more anti-Israel and anti-Jewish than Iran, as well as far more rich and powerful, but you never hear any angry rhetoric pointed at Dubai.

The U.S. should cut most - if not all - of its military aid to Israel. That would be a good first step toward easing tensions with many of our "enemies" and at no cost to us - profit, actually. Israel is not an enemy, but it is not automatically an ally. It is another country and should be afforded the same status as any other country.

Supporting the Generals

What they really mean is supporting Bush. Can we cut the crap now?

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

And though Petraeus and Crocker will present their recommendations on Capitol Hill, legislation passed by Congress leaves it to the president to decide how to interpret the report's data.

That report is going to be just swell!

No one in this administration has any credibility left and therefore no one should pay attention to anything they have to say.

War?

Oh yeah, that war.

At least 175 people were killed when three suicide bombers driving fuel tankers attacked residential compounds home to the ancient minority Yazidi sect in northern Iraq on Tuesday, an Iraqi army captain said.

Captain Mohammad al-Jaad said at least another 200 people were wounded in the bombings in the Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair areas near the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, close to the Syrian border.

But it's ok because Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack tell me that things are looking upbeat and we're making progress.

Centrists vs. Moderates

Somebody gets it.

The first mistake is to believe that a "moderate" and a "centrist" is the same thing. A "moderate" is a person who is neither ideologically left nor ideologically right, but rather has policy positions which set squarely within the middle of the Overton Window of popular political possibilities for the mainstream American public. Thus, a moderate may want lower taxes, be pro-death penalty, and desire slightly stricter controls on abortion, but be fairly progressive on a number of issues where public opinion resides squarely with us--issues from guaranteed healthcare to Iraq to the environment to even national security at this point.

A "centrist", on the other hand, is a person who stands squarely between the two major political parties. A "centrist" is a person like Joe Lieberman, who assumes a smorgasbord of policy positions taken from each of the parties, and has no compunction about trashing his/her own party if it benefits his/her political career. Due to the rightward shift of both political parties over the last 25 years, a "centrist" is guaranteed to stand to the right of the American Public on most issues, while trashing the overall image of the Democratic Party brand. Joe Lieberman is no "moderate"; rather, he's a crazed "centrist."

Read on.

O'Hanlon Gone Wild

Not Serious Person-style, by Glenn Greenwald.

Frogmarch

Leahy:

“Earlier this month, Karl Rove failed to comply with the Judiciary Committee's subpoena to testify about the mass firings of United States Attorneys. Despite evidence that he played a central role in these firings, just as he did in the Libby case involving the outing of an undercover CIA agent and improper political briefings at over 20 government agencies, Mr. Rove acted as if he was above the law. That is wrong. Now that he is leaving the White House while under subpoena, I continue to ask what Mr. Rove and others at the White House are so desperate to hide. Mr. Rove’s apparent attempts to manipulate elections and push out prosecutors citing bogus claims of voter fraud shows corruption of federal law enforcement for partisan political purposes, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue its investigation into this serious issue.

“The list of senior White House and Justice Department officials who have resigned during the course of these congressional investigations continues to grow, and today, Mr. Rove added his name to that list. There is a cloud over this White House, and a gathering storm. A similar cloud envelops Mr. Rove, even as he leaves the White House.”

Bring it.

Us and Them

Us:

Jacob Alexander, the former chief executive of Comverse Technology, who faces charges in the United States of options fraud and is regarded as a fugitive, has taken his latest step to fight extradition from Namibia to New York.

Them:

An owner of a Chinese toy factory at the center of a major recall by Mattel Inc. earlier this month committed suicide, according to a Chinese public security official.

Things don't have to come to death, but can we please be a little more responsible?

All Hail the Mighty Kos

Seriously though, I thought Markos was totally in control of his debate today with Harold Ford (DLC chmn) on Meet the Press and also won the subtext of the debate, which was that "centrism" is nothing more than a lame excuse for "the political views of my friends and me, and everyone should agree with us - if you don't you're part of the fringe." Centrism stands for nothing, but progressivism does.