Germany had a very good day yesterday, picking up 3 medals in events where little was expected of it, and may have resuscitated its chances of catching up to the United States. Meanwhile, the U.S.’s failure to take gold in ice dancing was a pretty big blow to our ability to win the gold medal count, particularly since Canada came away with the hardware instead.

Your one stop pundit stop.

Eugene Robinson nails it:

The word “McCarthyism” is overused, but in this case it’s mild. Liz Cheney, the former vice president’s ambitious daughter, has in her hand a list of Justice Department lawyers whose “values” she has the gall to question. She ought to spend the time examining her own principles, if she can find them.  [...]

Liz Cheney is not ignorant, and neither are the other co-chairs of her group, advocate Debra Burlingame and pundit William Kristol, who writes a monthly column for The Post. Presumably they know that “the American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams’ representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre” — in other words, older than the nation itself.  [...]

But maligning is apparently the whole point of the exercise. The smear campaign by Cheney, et al., has nothing to do with keeping America safe. It can only be an attempt to inflict political damage on the Obama administration by portraying the Justice Department as somehow “soft” on terrorism. Even by Washington’s low standards, this is unbelievably dishonest and dishonorable.  [...]

This time, obviously, they went too far. But the next Big Lie is probably already in the works. Scorched-earth groups like Keep America Safe may just be pretending not to understand our most firmly established and cherished legal principles, but there is one thing they genuinely don’t grasp: the concept of shame.

Marc Thiessen follows up Robinson, proving that neither he nor the Washington Post has any shame — although they do have a dishonestly skimpy bio at the end of his column.

Richard Cohen advocates reconciliation … and ramming.

Bob Herbert says that:

It’s not the message that’s a problem for Mr. Obama and the Democrats, it’s the all-too-clear reality. People know that the government that is supposed to be looking out for ordinary people — for working people and the poor — is not doing nearly enough about an employment crisis that is lowering standards of living and hollowing out the American dream.

Bartle Breese Bull takes a mostly positive look at Iraq’s current political landscape.

H.D.S. Greenway says that the United States must keep to its schedule to leave Iraq.

Derrick Z. Jackson promises to avoid Starbucks as long as they’re playing the cowardly bartender in their wild west drama:

The coffee mega chain, which made the Fortune 500 by convincing millions of us that $3 coffee is more critical than water for morning hydration, caved into a grassroots campaign of gun owners who are testing “open-carry’’ laws by dropping in at popular establishments and flaunting their firearms.

… Starbucks, hiding behind states’ rights in places such as California, Virginia, and its corporate home state of Washington, is offering no resistance. In a press release last week, the company noted that 43 states have open-carry laws on the books. “Were we to adopt a policy different from local laws allowing open carry,’’ the company said, “we would be forced to require our partners to ask law-abiding customers to leave our stores, putting our partners in an unfair and potentially unsafe position.’’

A “potentially unsafe position”? Think about that one for minute …

Ted Nugent, for reasons known only to the lunatics at The Washington Times, has a column where he explains why he’s better than SeaWorld. Or something related to past drug usage. Take your pick.

Tomorrow’s editorial page in The Wall Street Journal will be playing for laughs:

President Obama has laid a political trap for Republicans with his allegedly bipartisan budget deficit commission, and the question is whether the GOP leadership on Capitol Hill will fall into it. One way to increase the odds of dodging it would be for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to name the likes of former Texas Senator Phil Gramm as one of his three appointees. …

Mr. Gramm—who slowed the growth of spending in the 1980s, first as a Democrat in the House and later in the Senate as a Republican—would be one good selection. The Texan left the Senate in 2002 and now works for UBS. He knows where spending can be cut, and he’d be willing to say so.

As Richard Nadler wrote approvingly of Gramm upon the Senator’s retirement, “No member of Congress — not Jack Kemp, not Newt Gingrich, not Bob Dole — played a more decisive role in launching the Reagan agenda.” Indeed. So it stands to reason the Journal would like to see this supply-sider – who would likely have been Treasury Secretary in the administration (shudder) of John McCain – plunked into a commission that already is co-chaired by another former (but more cuddly) Senator who wants to deconstruct Social Security.

In case you’ve forgotten Gramm’s claims to infamy, besides telling Americans in 2008 that they were in a “mental recession,” it was he – as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs – who was point man for the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the law that  repealed hunks of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act. That 1930s law prevented commercial banks from operating as investment banks and from entering the insurance business. It was the repeal of Glass-Steagall which served as midwife to the financial conglomerates such as AIG and Citigroup. Ironically, McCain, together with Sen. Maria Cantwell, is now seeking to reinstate Glass-Steagall. The Enron loophole can be put on Gramm’s plate. As well as derivatives deregulation. He also blocked legislation that would have cracked down on off-shore tax havens, a law that might, just might, have had a little impact on reducing federal deficits. And he is now vice chairman of the scandal-plagued UBS investment firm.

Yeah. Definitely a good guy to have giving advice on keeping government spending in check. If Edward Teller were alive, the Journal’s editorialists would be recommending him for a seat on the President’s zero-nukes advisory team.

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2003: Reviews are in: Bush sucked:

A competent president would seek out the tough questions — proving by force of argument the truthfulness of his position. This is somethig Blair does almost weekly. Instead, Bush punishes any dissent (read: “real journalism”) and coddles the weakest amongst the press corps. That group has to be the laughing stock of the journalism world.

This evening’s Rescue Rangers are Louisiana 1976, aloha and mahola, Alfonso Nevarez, dopper0189, BentLiberal and vcmvo2 with shayera editing.

• indiemcemopants looks at the humanity behind the fight to overcome the injustice of Proposition 8, showing that the Plaintiffs are real people, just like the rest of us. (aloha and mahalo)
• Daphne Eviatar Human Rights 1st points out the distractive intent behind Liz Cheney’s recent attack against Eric Holder in Liz Cheney’s Impeccable Timing. (BentLiberal)
• RandomNonviolence provides some eye-popping charts and figures in Our Taxes are Off to War — 2010 Edition. (BentLiberal)
• In Schizophrenia: A Painfully Personal Story and Healthcare Reform Discussion, diarist dsnodgrass intersperses personal anecdotes with commentary on the need for mental health care reform. (BentLiberal)
• In a compelling poem, bernardpliers shares some memories while asking Where Did That Picture Go? (Grief). (Louisiana 1976)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: March 7, 2010.

virgomusic has Top Comments – International Women Composers’ Day Edition.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread.

Actually, a fairly slow day. Rasmussen is being particularly Ras-sy today, making the great horse-race site Swing State Project look pretty great for referring to their latest rash of polls as “another steaming pile of Rasmussen”.

Other than that, a few candidates leap into, while other notables leap out of, the 2010 cycle. It’s all here on the Monday edition of the Wrap….

THE U.S. SENATE

FL-Sen: PPP Hints That Crist Is Toast In Sunshine State
The actual numbers won’t be released until tomorrow, but an early tease from the polling crew at PPP tells us that the one-time GOP frontrunner, Charlie Crist, is in unbelievably deep shit as he tries to claim his party’s nomination for the US Senate. One key stat: more Republicans want to see him out of office that want to see him in either the Senate or in the Governor’s mansion. And it’s not even close: 56% of GOPers want him run out of office. Yikes.

KY-Sen: A Non-Rasmussen Poll (!) Says Look For Paul-Mongiardo Race
Here is an interesting poll, and not only because it is that beautiful luxury–a non-Rasmussen poll. SurveyUSA heads into the Bluegrass State, and polls the primaries for the US Senate that are now about two months away. They find, as other pollsters have done, that Rand Paul is well out in front in the GOP primary (42-27) over Trey Grayson. Meanwhile, they somewhat surprisingly find Dan Mongiardo with a big lead over Jack Conway on the Democratic side (45-27). Most pollsters have had that race considerably closer. Strangely, the SUSA team polled generics for the general election, and they give the GOP just a single-point lead (43-42) over the Democrats.

ND-Sen: Democrats Lose Another Prospect In Open Seat Senate Bid
Democrats have now lost arguably their next-best alternative in the Senate race to take on GOP Governor John Hoeven. Kristin Hedger, who ran very respectably for the Secretary of State’s office a few years back despite being only in her mid-20s, seemed interested a month back, only hedging that she’d defer to Heidi Heitkamp, the former state AG. But Heitkamp stepped out last week, and Hedger followed suit today. That leaves only state legislator Tracy Potter in the Dem field to try to defeat Hoeven, whose polling numbers are pretty formidable.

THE U.S. HOUSE

CA-47: Did GOP Get Addition By Subtraction? Pham Is Out
The GOP had a bit of an embarrassment of riches in the California 47th, as Republicans had two well-funded candidates in state Assemblyman Van Tran and well-funded businessman Quang Pham. That changed at the start of the weekend, when Pham (who was already well into six figures in that race) decided to stand down from his Congressional bid. On paper, this would seem to be a victory for the GOP, since Van Tran no longer has to deal with Pham. It might also be a defeat for the GOP, however, as Tran has had some pretty sizeable hiccups in his campaign. In fact, polling done by local entities in the OC had Tran actually running third. For what its worth, another scandal-tarred GOPer is also in the field now as former Sanchez opponent Tan Nguyen, who is awaiting federal trial on charges related to that campaign, announced a bid.

PA-12: Penn Dems Pick Critz For Special Election
It seemed likely after the local Democrats tabbed him over the weekend (despite an interesting rumor that his candidacy was in trouble), but this afternoon, it was made official: former Murtha staffer Mark Critz will be the Democratic nominee in the May 18th special election to replace the late John Murtha. Critz defeated former state treasurer Barbara Hafer 30-18 in the ballot among the party’s state Executive Committee.

THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES

CO-Gov: Rasmussen Sees Republican Surge (No, Really!!)
Last month, Rasmussen made unusual headlines for them: they showed a Democrat surging into the lead in the open seat race to replace outgoing Dem Governor Bill Ritter. This month, they went back to being Rasmussen again, showing Republican frontrunner Scott McInnis with a six-point edge over Denver’s Democratic Mayor, John Hickenlooper (48-42). This marks a ten-point swing for the Republican, which does not seem to be supported by either (a) any new revelations on the ground or (b) any GOP surge in national polling as of late (the numbers have held rather steady, actually).

NV-Gov: Rasmussen Sees Best Dem Chance With Incumbent Gov
This is no surprise, since pretty much every pollster has seen the same scenario, but Rasmussen confirms that the path to victory for the Democrats in the Silver State is through Jim Gibbons. The deeply unpopular incumbent GOP Governor loses to likely Democratic nominee Rory Reid (44-36), while the other two potential Republicans hold leads over the Democrat, according to Ras. In typical Ras fashion, their outcome in the likely battle between Reid and former federal judge Brian Sandoval is lopsided (53-35) in the Republicans’ favor.

OH-Gov: Rasmussen Sees Very Different Race From Quinnipiac
Last week, the team at Quinnipiac spied a Democratic comeback, with Governor Ted Strickland retaking the lead from GOP hopeful John Kasich. Not surprisingly, Rasmussen goes 180 degrees the other way, finding Kasich well out in front (49-38).

Today Politico has a lengthly article out about the lack of success by teabagger candidates. Basically, it’s three long pages of wondering why, oh why:

… success at the ballot box has been elusive for these grass-roots conservative activists — if not entirely nonexistent.

Speculation abounds as to why teabagger candidates have been complete failures around the country:

• Some observers raise the question of whether the tea party crowd is cut out to achieve electoral success — or whether it is more influential as a more radical, guerrilla movement.

• The main reason seems to be a predictable growing pain of any new political movement. While tea party partisans have proved effective in organizing rallies and protests, they have yet to show they possess the bread-and-butter on-the-ground campaign skills it takes to win races …
• Then there is the question of fundraising …
• But the tea party electoral losses are also indicative of a broader challenge: Tea party leaders must find a way to define its platform and communicate to mainstream voters just what it stands for.
• As they seek to dislodge establishment Republican candidates in primaries across the country, tea party-inspired contenders are facing yet another challenge: fractured fields of like-minded, grass-roots conservative hopefuls that result in a splitting of the tea party vote.

… but the most obvious explanation isn’t explored. That the teabagger “movement” is nothing but a collection of right-wing extremists who were initially given a platform by Fox News and that the rest of the sheep-like traditional media ran with.

The traditional media was happy to ignore the hundreds of thousands who protested against the Iraq War or for immigration reform, but a few thousand lunatics, that the Republican Party gleefully leeched onto, screamed at town hall meetings and suddenly, a movement was born? Pfft.

There’s plenty to mull over in Joe Hagan’s excellent profile of Liz Cheney featured over the weekend in New York magazine. There’s focus on her role as her father’s bulldog, her own political future (dare we whisper, “President Cheney?”), her willingness to aggressively deny reality in defense of her father, Michael Goldfarb’s admission that he has “a little crush on her.” (“It’s hard not to!” he gushes.)

But perhaps the most disturbing bits are not about Cheney at all, but rather about the current state of the Village, and the press that waits upon m’lords and ladies. First, here’s what she’s up to, and here’s her mission:

She has spent nearly every day since her father’s departure from the White House attempting to extricate him from the jaws of infamy by turning current events into a referendum on his policies. Casting herself as his defense lawyer, she has appeared on television 40-odd times in the last year. And she’s conducting the research for a Dick Cheney memoir, a book she persuaded her father to write.

Forty-odd times on TV. Interesting, that. But not nearly as interesting as this part:

When her father has something to say about Obama, the former vice-president takes a break from the book to prepare a political attack, feeding statements to his preferred media conduit, Politico.com.

Yeah, you bet your sweet ass that’s emphasis added. There’s something that should go on the masthead: “Politico: Dick Cheney’s preferred media conduit when launching political attacks against President Obama.” Truth in advertising and all that.

Still, while Politico’s the most obvious go-to outlet for the Cheney Dynasty, it’s clear from reading the article that there’s enough nudge nudge palling around in The Village to make a mockery of the traditional media’s claim to professional objectivity. Politico’s not the only oh-so-cozy Cheney pet (it’s just the favorite!). Consider this:

Fox is a regular pulpit, of course, but Liz is also all over NBC, where she happens to be social friends with Meet the Press host David Gregory (whose wife worked with Liz ’s husband at the law firm Latham & Watkins), family friends with Justice Department reporter Pete Williams (Dick Cheney’s press aide when he was secretary of Defense), and neighborhood friends with Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Carter-administration national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Mika criticized Dick Cheney on her show last year, the former vice-president sent her a box of chocolate cupcakes.

Lawrence O’Donnell, an MSNBC pundit who engaged in a particularly testy shouting match on Good Morning America with Liz Cheney over waterboarding, says the networks have allowed her a high degree of control over her appearances. “She had up to that point been completely accustomed to having interviews go her way and ceded on her terms,” he observes. “She has been careful to make sure that the interviews worked that way.”

Or this:

Liz’s friends say she sets the bar for all-American normality: She watches Mad Men and 24 on TV, drives an SUV, attends Girl Scout meetings, and is frequently spotted on the sidelines of soccer fields, trading gossip with people like Terry McAuliffe, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, and other power players whose kids go to the Country Day School or the Potomac School.

“That’s the bar for “all-American normality?” Palling around with the former head of the DNC and Post reporters between appearances on (40-odd) talk shows that are “ceded” on her own terms? This idea that the national press corps can cozy up to sources or people in power they cover during afternoon soccer games or over Saturday night dinners, then turn around and hold their feet to the fire is ridiculous. You know it. I know it. Everyone outside of Beltway zip codes knows that. Hell, anyone who’s ever tried to challenge a neighbor at a local meeting knows it.

But the Village? Meh. They have their own rules. And cupcakes.

The blowback against Liz Cheney and William Kristol’s hate group, “Keep America Safe,” continues to grow, following their group’s vicious attack against Department of Justice lawyers.

From Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly:

Last week, Liz Cheney’s right-wing vehicle, “Keep America Safe,” launched a pretty disgusting smear against nine Justice Department attorneys …

Last week, Cheney’s efforts faced some pushback from the left and right. Fortunately, the blowback from across the legal establishment is getting more forceful and organized.

A group that includes leading conservative lawyers and policy experts, former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and several senior officials of the last Bush Administration, is denouncing as “shameful” Republican attacks on lawyers who came to the Obama Justice Department after representing suspected terrorists. [...]

“We consider these attacks both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications,” wrote the 19 lawyers whose names were attached to the statement as of early Monday.

The statement cited John Adams’s defense of British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre to argue that “zealous representation of unpopular clients” is an important American tradition.

So apparently the line in the sand for the lies and smears that Cheney and company can peddle unchallenged is if it doesn’t attack the American justice system as a whole.

And of course one has to wonder if this (latest) example of fear-mongering by Cheney’s group has hurt their credibility with the traditional media … will they get their free and unfettered platform the next time they’re launching an agenda-driven attack?

Given the sleazy way he was appointed to the Senate, it should be no surprise that Roland Burris’ approval ratings are at 14 percent favorable, 60 percent unfavorable per PPP.

What’s more amazing is that anyone in the Senate could be more unpopular than Burris, but it’s true. There’s Blanche Lincoln, at 27 percent favorable, 62 percent unfavorable. Ouch. And she somehow thinks she has a chance to be in the Senate in 2011?

But get this, Lincoln isn’t the most unpopular senator. That dubious title goes to…

Joe Lieberman: 25 percent favorable, 67 percent unfavorable.

Seems that local constituents agree with our very own list of the worst Senators.

Burris and Lincoln will be gone after this year. The only question regarding Lieberman is whether he takes the easy way out and retires, or whether Connecticut voters get the chance to forcibly retire him.

What you missed over the weekend on Daily Kos ….

• In Natural Advantage, DarkSyde explored the newest phenomenon of the right wing’s lumping together of global warming, evolution (and, oddly, cloning) as unprovable “theories” that should be mentioned with skepticism in public schools.
• In Incarcerated women and their issues, SusanG reviewed two books — Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the United States and Offending Women: Power, Punishment, and the Regulation of Desire — that examine the problems unique to women in America’s penal system.
• In You Sure Are Angry, Angry Mouse staked out her claim — and the reasons behind it — for her reaction to political and social events over the past decade.
• In The return of the tide, exmearden lyrically evoked the atmosphere of the Coquille River estuary and its marshlands in a meditation on time, environment and memory.
• In AR-Sen: Musing on Week One, kos reflected on the entrance of Bill Halter into the Senate primary in Arkansas to challenge Blanche Lincoln, and looked at the impact of his candidacy and the road ahead.
• In I can’t believe it’s not Godwin!, Dante Atkins looked long and hard at the new groundswell of purported conservative outrage at the notion that African Americans are being targeted for genocide through legalizing abortions.
• In the latest installment of Community Power!, Meteor Blades took note of the many Kossacks who operate or participate in progressive state blogs and provided a list alphabetized from Alabama to Wyoming.