*

* 

Perhaps one of the most under-reported stories of the decade is the deliberate, illegal destruction of White House and RNC-routed emails for a time period between 473 to over 1000 days. And you thought 17 minutes of missing tape in Nixon's office was a big deal? Of course, the real story isn't about how the National Archives is pressing forward to retrieve documents which should be legally recorded. The story is about the Mother Lode of criminal evidence against the White House regarding Iraq, the Wilson-Plame Leak Gate, and lord knows what else went on in the Rove-Cheney West Wing from January 2003 to August 2005.

Today's WaPo article, GOP Halts Efforts to Retrieve White House Emails, is almost as lost as the emails it reports on, buried somewhere deep in the Politics section under all of the Obama/Clinton drama.  It was visible first thing this morning, but by mid-day I had to find it again by searching “White House emails” on the WaPo site.

I guess the big news today really is about Roger Clemens, and not Steven McDevitt, former techie in the White House.  Richard Martin at Information Week pens: 

Taking a break from grilling pro baseball players, Congress on Tuesday held a hearing to try to get to the bottom of the growing scandal of the missing White House e-mail archives.

Fortunately, our man over at The Carpetbagger is covering the subject today.   You've got my vote for this year's “Best Political Blog” Daysie Award, Steve.

A PDF file copy of yesterday's Memorandum to the Oversight Committee is available, too.  ZDNet's Richard Koman provided the link in his article.

*

*

Last spring when the word IMPEACH began to circulate widely in the grassroots and the press, it was the issue of missing emails that finally broke the camel's back for me.  A case for criminality in the Iraq War, in my opinion, could never be made conclusively, no matter how tragic it continues to be. 

But missing documents?  Documents withheld from legal inspection?  An invisibly managed Executive Branch?  Here we have clear cut violations of federal law.

And not enough political will or media interest to pursue it.

Nate

One of the reasons Clinton was doing well in earlier debates was that she was able to sort of jump in and take charge, and did some good push back against Wolf Blitzer’s stupid questions, making her look like a leader.

She could have done that last night, and blew it.  

Quite simply: when Russert started going after Obama about anti-Semitism and Farrakhan, etc., she could have stopped it.  She could have done the classy thing and said “you know, this is ridiculous.  Let’s debate actual issues, and not pull this sort of nonsense with one another.”

But that’s not what happened.

I made the mistake of, just for a moment, thinking that she was about to do that but, not so much so.  When she was given an opportunity to respond, she instead piled on, trying to draw an obscure lexical distinction.   Instead, this is what happened (including much of Russert’s original race-baiting questioning):

The very worst part of this is that Clinton seems to think she’s achieved a victory here.  At the end, when she’s smirking about it, she looks like she thinks she won because she got Obama to agree with here.

I was an Edwards supporter and when he dropped out, I was truly undecided.  Both candidates had done things to earn my respect, and both had presented issues of concern for me.  At this point, though, I think either one would make a decent president, and either one would be far better than McCain.

So for me, this boils down to two things:

• who’s got the better chance of winning in November;
• who is conducting their campaign in the fashion which I find to be the most ethical and moral.

Generally when faced with those two items, I an presented with a choice between two candidates, one of whom I would think of as being the most ethical and one of whom I think of as the most electable.  This happened in this cycle when I was stuck between Edwards (most ethical) and Obama or Clinton (more electable).  

I no longer have to concern myself with choosing between the two.  Obama has demonstrated himself to be conducting his campaign in a fashion which is civil, acceptable to me and appropriate, and he’s also doing so in a fashion which is clearly a winning strategy.  

I don’t mean this to pile on to Clinton.  I think, in a lot of ways, she’s run a very strong campaign and has done well despite a serious disadvantage in funding.  I think she is, overall, a good Senator and would make a great Secretary of State if the next President were inclined to offer it to her.

But she’s really lost this one, and this sort of petty squabbling over minor definitions makes her seem smaller than she is.  It makes her seem immature and vindictive.  It does not serve her, and it does not serve the country for her to pull this crap.

And really, that’s it for me: if she can’t figure out how to criticize a candidate who is generally liked and respected, without just attacking him, she’s not going to do any better against McCain.  Obama’s figured out how to respond to Clinton’s attacks with geniality and humor.  

It’s over.  It was mostly over before this debate, but last night sealed it.  Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont will just confirm it.  

And I really can’t see how her campaign doesn’t get that.

Try:

http://www.cleveland.com/live/…

Msnbc.com is not cutting it, or perhaps it’s Comcast.

Doggy

Too much stuff to write about today. Oy.

Progressivepunch.org is the brainchild of Joshua Grossman, an activist and green entrepeneur. It’s an attempt to build a database of “progressive” votes by category, and create ratings for the different members of Congress. It’s a great idea, and his system is worth a look. It’s clearly Grossman’s baby, so these are progressive priorities captured and weighted through a single set of eyes – and eyes that are somewhat unknown, at that. Still, it’s an expansively comprehensive database. The operation is a bit rough around the edges, as visually demonstrated by both his press releases and the funky-ish website, but he deserves alot of credit nonetheless.

It’s an interesting system he’s set up, and he’s clearly put it through some rigorous testing. The algorithm is based, not on an external progressive ideal, but by the limits of progressivism and conservatism within the legislative bodies themselves, making it like an issue group’s scorecard. Overall scores are contrasted against what he calls “chips are down” scores, described as “votes where either progressives lost or where the progressive victory was narrow and could have been changed by a small group of Democrats voting differently.”

Curious how he rates Vermont’s delegation? So was I… check the flip for the scoop…

Rep. Welch’s overall progressive score is quite good, a 97.03 – but interestingly, that puts him way down at 59th in the House rankings (surprisingly, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is rated number 5 in this category at 98.78, right after Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.)

Welch’s “chips are down” value is a good chunk lower, at 87.66, but leaving him a bit higher on the list at a tie for 54th.

On the Senate side… brace yourselves Sanderistas…. Bernie is not number 1. Or number 2. Or 3, or 4. the godfather of Vermont’s Progressive Party comes in at number 10 with a score of 95.70 – trailing nearly 20% of the Democratic Party Senate caucus, falling between number 9 (Barbara Boxer) and number 11 (Patty Murray), with number 12 Patrick Leahy coming up next with an even 95 score.

And when the “chips are down,” our Senators each drop one ranking – Sanders to 11 and Leahy to 13 – with 93.37 and 92.22, respectively.

It’s truly an impressive piece of work – although a smidgin buggy – allowing users to break out the overall vote into thematic categories and look at more issue-specific ratings, all linked to the members’ voting records. I tell ya, it’s easy to get lost playing around with it. Do yourself a favor and check it out. I have little doubt that I’ll be referencing it frequently.

And if your curious (and you know you are)… Hillary Clinton comes in with an overall score of 91.42, putting her at number 27 on the list. Obama? Wayyyyy down at number 41 (after number 40, Chris Dodd) with a score of 83.64. The “chips are down” ranking are similar, with scores of 86.90 (number 27) and 76.87 (number 37) for Clinton and Obama respectively.

Ouch.

… and before you all leap to the tinfoil, I checked him out on opensecrets.org, and although he has given to a couple campaigns, he has not given to either Presidential campaign (or at least, not enough to trigger reporting).

Enjoy!

Iraq is front and center on a couple fronts today:

In Washington, Senators Leahy and Sanders are co-sponsors of the Feingold bill that would cut off funding in four months (well.. most funding.. There are exceptions for training of Iraqi troops and counterterrorism – Welch has supported companion legislation in the House).

The bill, surprisingly, was not squashed this afternoon, moving past a procedural roadblock 70-24. GOP leader McConnell’s green light likely means they’ll try to make a show to continue embarassing Dems when the vote comes up for real later in the week, but the more we talk about the War, the better, so McConnell isn’t doing himself any favors.  Stay tuned (but don’t hold your breath for passage).

In Vermont, From 5:30-7:30 this (Tuesday) evening, The Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee is hearing testimony on S.362, a bill that reins in “the constitutional and statutory authority of the President to federalize and deploy the Vermont National Guard in Iraq; declares that the authority for that deployment has terminated; requests that actions be taken to terminate federalization and bring troops back to Vermont as members of the Vermont national guard; and reaffirms that Vermont national guard members be limited to service on behalf of the state of Vermont, unless properly and lawfully called into federal service.” It is sponsored by much of the Senate Democratic leadership, and nearly half of the whole caucus.

To listen to the VPR stream, go to http://www.vpr.net/vpr_files/l…

(Note: Click on the “House” link, as they’re taking the testimony in the House Chamber)