WILL FOX NEWS COMMENTATORS LISTEN TO NETWORK'S OWN POLL? Via Atrios, a new poll has just come out which shows rather strikingly that nearly 60 percent of Americans support pulling all the troops out of Iraq over the next year.

And get this: the poll was released by Fox News. So it'll be interesting to keep an eye on this: Will Fox News's own commentators acknowledge the existence of this poll?

Here's the poll question:

Thinking about the situation in Iraq, do you think the United States should...

Pull out all troops by year-end -- 27%

Pull out all troops gradually over the next year -- 31%

Pull out after Iraqi troops are capable of taking over, even if it takes years -- 33%

Send more troops -- 4%

Don’t know -- 5%

So 58 percent -- 27 plus 31 -- support pulling out entirely within a year or less. Yes, public opinion is compicated. But nonetheless, these are stark numbers which show pretty dramatically -- as other surveys have, too -- where American mainstream opinion is right now. So it'll be interesting indeed to see what Fox's commentators do about them -- particularly the ones who specialize in pretending that calls for withdrawal are "extreme." As I wrote below, Chuck Schumer basically had to bully reporters from the Washington Post to get them to print the fact that the paper's own poll showed that the GOP's presumed "advantage" on national security issues had vanished. Will Fox be any different?

--Greg Sargent

UPDATE: Commenter Steve rightly notes that the percentages add up to 110. Even if you subtract 10 points, that would mean 58% back pulling out within a year -- also a figure that some Fox commentators will have a very difficult time acknowledging. I'm checking with the pollster to see what gives.

UPDATE II: I've rewritten the post for accuracy. The original wrongly said that more than two-thirds wanted a pullout within a year. That was based on the news account which got it wrong -- hence commenter Steve's objection -- and I've now inserted the correct numbers. Meanwhile, here's Fox News's own version: It shows 58% support a full pullout either by year's end or within a full year. That's a striking number. So again: Will Fox commentators -- particularly the ones who like pretending that those calling for a pullout are "extreme" -- acknowledge the network's own poll?

NEWSFLASH: A MAJOR NEWS ORG NOTICES GOP "ADVANTAGE" ON NATIONAL SECURITY HAS VANISHED.

Media Matters already flagged this, but I wanted to highlight it again, because it's important. CNN has now become the second big news org to acknowledge that the GOP's advantage on national security issues has disappeared. The Washington Post acknowledged this yesterday, though Chuck Schumer basically had to bully the paper into doing it, even though its own poll showed this to be the case.

But back to CNN. From an analysis by CNN's Bill Schneider:

In a CNN poll taken by the Opinion Research Corporation last week -- before the arrest of terror suspects in Britain -- terrorism topped the list of issues that voters said would be "extremely important" to their vote this year...

But among voters concerned about terrorism, slightly more said they would vote for a Democrat (50 percent) rather than a Republican (45 percent) for Congress.

The point here is not that national security is now a winner for Dems. It's that public opinion on which party has the advantage on it is now so obviously mixed that any commentator who now declares it an automatic winner for the GOP is either lying or incompetent. It'll be interesting to see what CNN's other commentators have to say on the subject going forward, now that the network's own polling is clearly showing that the Republican advantage on national security has vanished.

Of course, this polling was done before the GOP so brilliantly capitalized on the foiled terror plot with the brilliant speed, brilliant tactical acumen and all around brilliance we keep reading about, so commentators can now say that these numbers don't count anymore.

--Greg Sargent

MEDIA IGNORING LAMONT CAMPAIGN'S DEMAND FOR AN APOLOGY TO LIEBERMAN "HACK" CHARGE.

You may recall that the big news orgs gave wall-to-wall coverage of Joe Lieberman's election-day charge that Ned Lamont backers hacked into the Lieberman campaign Web site.

But now that the Lamont campaign is demanding an apology, the same big news orgs are ignoring it completely.

--Greg Sargent

DEMS FEEDING MEDIA'S CRAVING FOR AGGRESSION. Today's Washington Post has a good piece which shows pretty clearly that the Dems are hitting their stride now in a key way. They seem to grasp one of the less fortunate conventions governing the political media, which is simply this: Reporters and commentators can always be counted on to reward aggression.

From the Post:

The aggressive Democratic response to this week's foiled terrorist plot reflects a widely shared view among party strategists that intensified attacks against President Bush represent the best chance to offset what historically has been a clear Republican advantage whenever national security issues become more prominent, Democratic officials said yesterday....

More than a dozen Democrats, for instance, criticized the GOP yesterday for refusing to implement all of the recommendations put forth by the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission. At the same time, Democratic leaders in Washington moved on several fronts to accuse Republicans of exploiting terrorism fears for political gain -- and to warn that Democrats will respond to weak-on-security attacks of the sort launched by Vice President Cheney on Wednesday...

In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) said terrorism no longer works as a GOP issue. "If they are going to throw political bombs on the issue, we are going to answer loud and clear," Schumer said....

Schumer twice cited the Washington Post-ABC poll -- which showed Democrats with an edge when people were asked which party they trusted to handle terrorism issues -- as evidence the political tide has turned.

I think this shows that something important is happening. For some time now a key component of GOP strategy has been for party leaders to always say that they're winning or that this or that issue is a winner for them, no matter what they actually believe. It works: Gullible commentators then parrot the Republicans' assertion that they're confident or on the offensive without realizing that the original GOP assertion of confidence was itself strategic.

Now Dems seem to be doing the same: Note Schumer's efforts to assert that terrorism is now a winning issue for Dems, not Republicans. Whether this is true isn't really the issue. The point is that it's good that Schumer is saying that it's true. No question, there's a long way to go before most commentators stop reflexively spouting the national-security-automatically-good-for-Republicans hooey. As Atrios wrote, Newsweek today actually tried to argue that just because President Bush's handling-of-terrorism numbers have gone up, that proves that "news of a serious terror threat boosts the president's ratings" -- even though Bush's approval rating is stuck at 38 percent.

Still, things can change, and it's pretty gratifying to see the Dems being aggressive as part of a concerted strategy, particularly in their hammering of the GOP for trying to reap political gain from terror fears. As Bob Somerby wrote yesterday: "In politics, answering-correctly-when-attacked isn’t enough; you have to punch the bums back as you do so." If you do, the unfortunate truth is that the media will reward you for it. Exhibit A, incidently, is this Post piece.

--Greg Sargent

THE HACK ATTACK CONTINUES IN CONNECTICUT. The big news orgs have finally noticed that something important is happening in Connecticut, and are now sinking huge amounts of resources into covering the race.

In this week's Media Matters column, Jamison Foser catalogues the most recent hackery in Connecticut in truly dispiriting detail.

CONNECTICUT WRAP-UP. The big news orgs have finally realized that Connecticut is a very big story, and the resulting coverage has been predictably dismal. Because there's suddenly so much stuff out there about the race, I thought it would be useful to do a quick wrap-up of some of the more egregious offenders and the better criticism of them:

1) Jamison Foser has a great catch over at Media Matters: The Associated Press wrote up Joe Lieberman's attack on Ned Lamont over the foiled terror plots, without mentioning that Lieberman had himself denounced political attacks on national security the same day as "just unacceptable and in my opinion un-American."

2) Another good Media Matters item: The big networks gave Lieberman a forum for attacking Lamont the morning after Lieberman's humiliating loss, but didn't give Lamont -- or even a surrogate -- a chance at a rebuttal.

3) Atrios sees the problem behind the traditional media's adoption of GOP spin on the Lieberman loss as a generational one that might not even be altered by a Dem takeover of power: "We have an entire generation of the national political reporting establishment who have done nothing but take their cues from Republicans. I really don't think anything -- including a complete takeover of government by Democrats -- is going to change that."

4) Atrios also links to Eric Boehlert, who sees the commentators proping up Lieberman as being spooked by the fact that the Connecticut electorate held someone accountable for being wrong about the Iraq war.

5) Bob Somerby offers a sharp analysis of Mike Allen's awful piece in Time magazine about the race: "There is nothing in his report—nothing at all—to support his basic claim, the claim that the Democrats are `on the defensive.'"

6)) Matt Stoller hammers the AP's subpar coverage of the phony "Lieberman Web site hacked" story.

The big news orgs are now sinking huge amounts of resources into covering this race. There's going to be a ton of stuff to keep tabs on between now and November.

--Greg Sargent

TERROR ARRESTS GOOD FOR REPUBLICANS, BAD FOR DEMOCRATS? Check out the hed and first few paragraphs of this pleasantly surprising article on the political fallout of yesterday's terror arrests in England:

Terror Arrests Bolster Democratic Case Against Bush

Democrats seized yesterday on the arrests of terrorism suspects in England to bolster their case against the Bush administration and the GOP leadership in Congress heading into the midterm elections, arguing that the terror plot showed that the administration's homeland security policies were woefully inadequate and that the GOP-backed Iraq war was a substantial drain on military resources which are required to combat other global threats.

The developments played tidily into the hands of Democratic strategists, who noted with glee that the arrests reinforced their argument that the GOP has placed America's national security at risk by getting the U.S military bogged down in Iraq when global terrorism is on the rise elsewhere. Polls show substantial erosion in the confidence Americans place in the Republican Party on matters of national security, which has slowly become a neutral issue and possibly a winning one for Democrats. While previous polls have shown the GOP with an advantage on terror, a recent Washington Post poll found that the trend has begun to reverse. Americans now trust Democrats to handle the war on terror better than Republicans by a notable margin, the poll demonstrated.

Democrats went on the offensive yesterday, firing off statements which hammered the GOP for failing the nation on national security matters at a critical moment. “The war in Iraq had nothing to do with the war against international terrorism, or very little to do with the war on terrorism,” said James Webb, a former Reagan administration official running as a Democratic candidate for Senate in Virginia. “It has distracted our attention, it has pulled our forces in, and we are now in a situation where we have 135,000 on the ground, which affects our ability to do a lot of things that we would be able to do otherwise.”

The terror arrests also roiled Connecticut politics, placing incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman on the defensive for his pro-Iraq war views just days after his stunning loss to challenger Ned Lamont underscored the extreme political peril facing those who support the Iraq war. Lamont hammered Lieberman yesterday, linking Lieberman to the Bush adminstration and faulting him for supporting Bush policies which have bogged the U.S. down in Iraq while global threats elsewhere are ascendant. “Both of them believe our invasion of Iraq has a lot to do with 9/11," Lamont said, speaking of Lieberman and Vice President Dick Cheney. "That’s a false premise.”

Meanwhile, Republicans who have been on the defensive for weeks over Iraq didn't notably change their rhetorical approach yesterday, asserting once again that Democratic calls for a phased pullout from Iraq showed that the party was weak. Many political analysts have questioned the GOP's approach, saying it is unclear whether it will be effective at a time when the public overwhelmingly says that the Iraq war was a mistake and clear majorities want to pull out of it.

OK -- by now you've probably figured out that I'm kidding. I wrote the above. It didn't actually appear anywhere. But the question is, Why not? It's no more slanted than the analyses that have been filling the papers over the past few weeks asserting that this or that development is stunningly good news for Republicans. It's also every bit as accurate as the analyses that did appear this morning.

ROBERT NOVAK WHITEWASHES DONALD RUMSFELD'S IRAQ REMARKS. In his latest syndicated column today, Robert Novak sank to stunning levels of dishonesty in order to defend Donald Rumsfeld from Hillary Clinton's hammering of him at a recent Senate Armed Services hearing.

Here's what happened at the hearing. After Hillary slammed Rumsfeld at the hearing for his "rosy assurances" about Iraq, Rumsfeld said this: “Senator, I don’t think that’s true. I’ve never painted a rosy picture. I’ve been very measured in my words. And you’d have a dickens of a time trying to find instances where I’ve been excessively optimistic.” But at the end of their exchange, Hillary also entered into the public record a series of a dozen such rosy prognostications from Rumsfeld.

Now Novak has risen to Rumsfeld's defense, writing this:

Rumsfeld's characterization was apt. Of 13 examples mined by Clinton's staff, only four were among the ''many'' statements to the Armed Services Committee. They are no more triumphant than this 2004 comment: ''I do believe we're on the right track.''

Many of the supposedly false claims Clinton attributed to Rumsfeld are subject to interpretation.

This is almost comically false and dishonest. Recall that Rumsfeld said: "I've never painted a rosy picture." And yet...he demonstrably and emphatically did just that. As Charles Kaiser showed conclusively in a column in The New York Observer, a simple Google seacrh turns up a bunch of rosy assurances. Check out the following Rumsfeld statements:

Here's one: “And it is not knowable if force will be used, but if it is to be used, it is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”

Here's another: “The Taliban are gone. The al Qaeda are gone.”

Here's a third: “QUESTION: One clarification on "the long war." Is Iraq going to be a long war? RUMSFELD: No, I don't believe it is.”

Here's a fourth: “The increased demand on the force we are experiencing today is likely a ‘spike,’ driven by the deployment of nearly 115,000 troops in Iraq. We hope and anticipate that that spike will be temporary.

Here's a fifth: "There is no question but that [the invasion] would be welcomed.”

And on and on. Despite what Novak writes, every one of those Rumsfeld utterances was more rosy than, “My impression is that the war was highly successful." And take note of Novak's rhetorical bait-and-switch. He says, "Many of the supposedly false claims Clinton attributed to Rumsfeld are subject to interpretation." But of course they were subject to interpretation -- they were predictions and assurances, not factual statements. Finally, Novak suggests that because Rumsfeld at times also made not entirely rosy pronouncements in addition to rosy ones, that somehow the rosy ones no longer count or were cancelled out. This is mind-bogglingly absurd. Indeed, Novak's entire pushback is laughably inane and dishonest.

--Greg Sargent

MEDIA LETS TONY SNOW'S LIES ABOUT DEMS GO UNCHALLENGED. For the sake of argument, let's stipulate that one of the most basic tasks of journalists is to provide readers or viewers with the basic information they need to evaluate the truth or falsehood of what their public officials are saying. Can we agree on that?

OK, then. With that in mind, it needs to be said that today's coverage of White House press secretary Tony Snow's remarks amid the aftermath of Ned Lamont's victory constitutes an extraordinary across-the-board abdication of journalistic duty.

During yesterday's press briefing, Snow said this:

I know a lot of people have tried to make this a referendum on the President; I would flip it. I think instead it's a defining moment for the Democratic Party, whose national leaders now have made it clear that if you disagree with the extreme left in their party they're going to come after you.

This is not only a lie; it's an easily demonstrable lie. Most of the Democratic Party's key leadership figures backed Joe Lieberman, not Lamont. This is a matter of public record. It's a point which can be made in half a sentence. And it's a point that should have been in every single news account which carried Snow's remarks.

So was it? Nope. Far from it, in fact. Did the Los Angeles Times piece quoting Snow's lies carry this simple rebuttal? No, it didn't. Neither did Time magazine's big wrap-up of how the GOP is allegedly going to reap enormous gains from Lamont's victory. Nor did the Associated Press's account. The AP story was carried by CBS and likely by newspapers across the country. In short, anyone with the misfortune of getting his or her news from the above news orgs -- or from the perhaps scores of papers carrying the AP account -- was almost certainly deprived of the most basic info required to evaluate the White House's calculated remarks on the biggest story of the day.

As best as I can determine, the only reporter who took the elementary step of rebutting Snow's lies was Adam Nagourney of the New York Times. After quoting Snow, Nagourney wrote this:

In fact, the vast majority of Democratic Party leaders supported Mr. Lieberman in the primary, and did not endorse Mr. Lamont until after the results were in.

For God's sake, was that really so difficult? Don't the editors and reporters who failed to include that one sentence take any professional pride at all in their work anymore?

--Greg Sargent

WASHINGTON POST REPORTS THAT RIGHT-WING LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS BLOG WAS INVESTIGATED BY FBI FOR ANTI-MUSLIM THREATS.

Now this is pretty interesting indeed. From today's Washington Post piece on Charles Johnson of the right-wing Little Green Footballs blog:

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights organization often vilified on Johnson's blog, calls Little Green Footballs "a vicious, anti-Muslim hate site . . . that has unfortunately become popular."

The irony, Hooper says, is that if the same kind of "hatred" that appears on LGF appeared on Muslim sites, it soon would be used by LGF's fans to justify their worldview...

The FBI, according to Hooper, recently investigated several threats of physical harm against Muslims posted by Little Green Footballs readers.

Johnson acknowledges the investigation but says Hooper's organization initiated the complaints to try to stifle free speech on his blog.

Johnson's response to the Post piece this morning is even more interesting:

The claim that the FBI investigated “several threats of physical harm against Muslims” posted on LGF is false, and Mr. Hooper knows it.

The facts: one reader posted one comment that could be interpreted as a threat against Mr. Hooper in particular (not against “Muslims”), and this comment was deleted soon after it was posted. The FBI contacted me months after the comment had been deleted, at the urging of CAIR. The FBI also contacted me (again on CAIR’s urging) about harassing emails sent with our “email this article” feature — and again these emails were sent directly to Mr. Hooper in particular, not to “Muslims.” Both of these incidents were handled promptly and with integrity on our side.

So let's get this straight: The FBI did contact Johnson twice. The first time it was because of a comment that "could be interpreted as a threat," and the second time it was because of "harassing emails." OK, so if we accept Johnson's version, is the Post piece really wrong in any meaningful sense? OK, "several" isn't twice, and in the second instance, the harassment was via email rather than via a post on the blog. Big deal. And Johnson's contention that the target was Hooper, not "Muslims"? Come on. He's the spokesperson for a Muslim group. Johnson's pushback is just inane.

Bottom line: Little Green Footballs has been contacted at least twice by the FBI about comments that could be construed as anti-Muslim threats. Given the hateful garbage that the site spews, I can't say I'm at all surprised.

Via Romenesko.

--Greg Sargent

A QUESTION FOR MEDIA COVERING TODAY'S HACK ATTACK STORY IN CONNECTICUT. The national press is all over the big story of the day today in Connecticut, which is that the Joe Lieberman campaign is accusing supporters of Ned Lamont of a hack attack on the Lieberman campaign web site.

But here's a question: Have any of the reporters asked the Lieberman campaign if they have any actual evidence that Lamont supporters are behind this attack?

Here's the Times's lengthy piece on this whole saga; the paper didn't bother even raising the question, let alone ask it of Lieberman advisers. Neither did the Associated Press. Neither did CNN in its Web piece. If anyone finds any sign that the big news orgs are asking this question, please send it in.

Incidentally, I did ask the question of the Lieberman camp a few minutes ago, and key Lieberman adviser Dan Gerstein admitted that Lieberman aides have no evidence that Lamont surpporters are behind the attacks. Maybe at some point we'll discover that some Lamont supporters were behind the hacking. But for now, this story is completely bogus -- even though the big news orgs are straining as hard as possible to pretend that it's real.

--Greg Sargent

UPDATE: Commenter Brian says that one outlet did ask the question: Fox News. How 'bout that?

UPDATE II: In this morning's (Wednesday) coverage, many news stories, including the (now-updated) Times piece linked to above, do now mention the Lieberman campaign's acknowledgement that it had no evidence that Lamont supporters were behind the attacks.

ASSOCIATED PRESS OMITTING LAMONT CAMP'S FULL DENIAL FROM STORY ON ALLEGED HACKING. OK, so the story of the day today in Connecticut is that the Joe Lieberman campaign is accusing Ned Lamont supporters of hacking the Lieberman campaign Web site to a standstill. The Associated Press is running a huge story on this that is now the lead on Drudge Report.

Here's a question for the Associated Press, however. Why doesn't the story contain the full and categorical denial that the Lamont campaign has put out about this, or the fact that the Lamont camp has demanded that anyone responsible for it stop immediately? That seems like it's kind of important information, doesn't it?

--Greg Sargent

POLL: AMERICANS PREFER DEMOCRATS FOR WAR ON TERROR. It will be very interesting indeed to see what sort of play this gets, if any. As Jamison Foser wrote recently, your typical media commentator will keep repeating the idea that the GOP is politically strong on national security as surely as his leg will jerk forward when the doctor hits his knee with a rubber mallet.

But guess what? Buried in today's big Washington Post poll is a startling number: It shows that respondents actually trust Democrats more than Republicans not just to do the right thing about Iraq, but to better handle the broader war on terror, too. To see the number, click right here.

If future polls show the same, it'll be interesting to see how much longer commentators keep repeating the idea that national security issues are an automatic winner for the GOP, and a sure loser for Dems.

--Greg Sargent

UPDATE: Don't miss the extensive look Foser has now posted at Media Matters about how WaPo consistently ignores its own polls (like the one cited above) to reflexively argue that national security's always a winner for Republicans.

SHREVEPORT TIMES EDITOR CAVES TO ANN COULTER FANS, DECIDES TO KEEP HER COLUMN.

This is very sad. As I've noted a few times below, the Shreveport Times, a Gannett paper, has for the past few weeks been publicly considering whether or not to keep running the syndicated columns of Ann Coulter. The paper invited readers to weigh in on the question via email.

Now the paper's executive editor, Alan English, has posted its decision: It has decided to keep Coulter's column.

What's particularly bizarre about English's announcement is that he makes it very clear that he thinks her column is basically a steaming pile of feces. He assails Coulter's "rants and sometimes low-quality hyperbole" and her "self-promotion and sandbox name-calling," and says: "Providing a platform for anyone to lob threats irresponsibly -- even in hyperbole -- isn't for our community."

Only it is, apparently, because the paper's keeping her anyway. Why? Judging by English's explanation, it appears that Coulter's fans got very, very angry. That seems to have frightened the editors of the paper enough to ensure that preserving the quality of their own publication was no longer a factor in their decision. English writes:

The Shreveport-Bossier City response to the question of whether Coulter should stay was predominantly met with "if you drop her, I'll drop you."...

By checking the source of the almost 500 e-mails, we estimate no more than 10 percent were local responses. The split on the local response in favor of keeping her was about 60-40. This honest request for input results in an honest response. She will stay for now.

It's hard to know what's sadder: The fact that a slight majority of readers urged the paper to keep Coulter, or the fact that the Shreveport Times's editors caved to the sort of people who would threaten to "drop" a paper for not giving Coulter a platform -- even though the editors themselves clearly think her columns are degrading their own paper.

Incidentally, English shared his email address, too: It's aenglish@gannett.com.

--Greg Sargent

EXTRAORDINARY. A few days ago Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released a massive and detailed report alleging that the Bush adminstration has violated an extensive number of Federal laws.

Is that news?

Apparently not. Steve Benen writes:

To be fair, the timing of the release wasn’t ideal. A Friday afternoon in August was probably not the way to maximize exposure for the report.

Regardless, this is a well-documented, thoroughly-researched report from congressional Democrats about the Bush administration possibly violating over two dozen federal laws and regulations — some of them multiple times. And yet, nothing in the AP; nothing in any of the major dailies; nothing on ABC, CBS, or NBC. Not one word.

CNN apparently was able to spare around 200 words for the story, though.

--Greg Sargent

TAKE TWO: U.S. INTEL OFFICIALS DON'T THINK THERE'S ANY EVIDENCE THAT IRAN INCITED HEZBOLLAH'S ATTACK.

Kevin Drum has a post today pointing to an interview which Shimon Peres gave to Newsweek, in which Peres says that Iran is "behind" the Hezbollah attacks on Israel. Drum lays out two possible explanations for why Iran might have done this, then asks: "Is there a third theory?"

In fact, there is a third theory: That Iran may not in fact have ordered Hezbollah's attacks at all. Who subscribes to this theory? U.S. intel officials do.

As I noted below, the New York Times actually reported yesterday that while there are of course some links between Iran and Hezbollah, U.S. intel officials don't see any evidence that Iran was behind the latest attack. Now, you probably missed the story, because it was spectacularly underplayed and buried. But the fact remains that this is what the Times did indeed report:

Officials also say that available intelligence does not offer proof that Iran inspired or directed the Hezbollah kidnappings and rocket launchings that set off the war with Israel...

[I]ntelligence analysts say there is little evidence that the Hezbollah raid more than three weeks ago that touched off the current fighting was ordered by Tehran, or that Iran is directly coordinating the steady attacks on Israeli targets.

“Nobody thinks that the Iranians have walked off the field, but we are just not seeing any direct control of things from Tehran,” said an intelligence official who was given anonymity to discuss classified intelligence.

Another administration official said there was no proof that Iran was pulling the strings in southern Lebanon today, while adding, “But it’s a very convenient distraction away from the nuclear issue, don’t you think? And it’s a way of sending a message about their reach.’’

There are of course plenty of possible motives behind these leaks. And I'm the first to admit that I'm woefully out of my depth on Mideast issues. So this is a sincere question for those who do know something about this: Whether or not you believe what these intel officials are saying, shouldn't the fact that they are saying it at least have some sort of role in a conversation about why Iran is or isn't "behind" the Hezbollah attacks? Isn't the fact that U.S. intel officials are leaking word that they see no evidence that Iran was behind the attacks at least somewhat relevant to a discussion about Iran and Hezbollah?

Like I said, it's a sincere question: Please tell me why we shouldn't accord this some importance.

--Greg Sargent

U.S. INTEL OFFICIALS SAY NO EVIDENCE THAT IRAN INCITED HEZBOLLAH VIOLENCE.

Yes, that is indeed what was reported today in the New York Times, but you really had to dig in order to get your hands on the information. It's in a story buried on the bottom of an inside page, and though this is critical info indeed, it wasn't even the main focus of the story, which was more concerned with the politics driving the United States's decision to "stop short of accusing Iran of inciting the crisis," as the piece puts it.

But check out what you find in the guts of the story:

Officials also say that available intelligence does not offer proof that Iran inspired or directed the Hezbollah kidnappings and rocket launchings that set off the war with Israel...

“A lot of the weapons being fired by Hezbollah are Iranian weapons,” Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said this week. “And Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, and Iran’s their principal financial and military supplier and supporter.”

But intelligence analysts say there is little evidence that the Hezbollah raid more than three weeks ago that touched off the current fighting was ordered by Tehran, or that Iran is directly coordinating the steady attacks on Israeli targets.

“Nobody thinks that the Iranians have walked off the field, but we are just not seeing any direct control of things from Tehran,” said an intelligence official who was given anonymity to discuss classified intelligence.

Another administration official said there was no proof that Iran was pulling the strings in southern Lebanon today, while adding, “But it’s a very convenient distraction away from the nuclear issue, don’t you think? And it’s a way of sending a message about their reach.’’

Pretty interesting, right? The Bush administration is trying to vaguely insinuate in various ways that Iran is connected to the current violence. But now it turns out that some U.S. officials are leaking word that they don't think there's evidence of this. Sound familar?

Of course, it's also possible that these are authorized leaks designed to fend off pressure from the right on the administration to initiate hostilities with Iran or start World War III or whatever it is the wingnuts think they want. Whatever the motive behind the leaks, at a time when so many figures on the right are trying to turn public opinion against Iran, information like this is pretty darn important. It deserves much better play, and far more attention.

--Greg Sargent

U.S. TROOPS SAY CIVIL WAR HAS BEGUN IN IRAQ. With officials and policy-makers in D.C. arguing over whether civil war has begun in Iraq, reporter Tom Lasseter of Knight Ridder had a novel idea. He asked the troops in Iraq what they think about it:

While American politicians and generals in Washington debate the possibility of civil war in Iraq, U.S. officers and enlisted men who patrol Baghdad daily say it has already begun.

Army troops in and around Baghdad interviewed in the last week cite a long list of evidence that the center of the nation is coming undone: Villages have been abandoned by Sunni and Shiite Muslims; Sunni insurgents have killed thousands of Shiites in car bombings and assassinations; Shiite militia death squads have tortured and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Sunnis; and when night falls, neighborhoods become open battlegrounds...

The bodies of captured Sunni and Shiite fighters will turn up in the morning, dropped in canals and left on the side of the road...

"I hate to use the word `purify,' because it sounds very bad, but they are trying to force Shiites into Shiite areas and Sunnis into Sunni areas," said Lt. Col. Craig Osborne, who commands a 4th Infantry Division battalion on the western edge of Baghdad, a hotspot of sectarian violence.

Osborne, 39, of Decatur, Ill., compared Iraq to Rwanda, where hundreds of thousands of people were killed in an orgy of inter-tribal violence in 1994. "That was without doubt a civil war -- the same thing is happening here.

"But it's not called a civil war -- there's such a negative connotation to that word and it suggests failure," he said....

Lt. Col. Chris Pease, 48, the deputy commander for the 101st Airborne's brigade in eastern Baghdad, was asked whether he thought that Iraq's civil war had begun.

"Civil war," he said, and then paused for several moments.

"You've got to understand," said Pease, of Milton-Freewater, Ore., "you know, the United States Army and most of the people in the United States Army, the Marine Corps and the Air Force and the Navy have never really lost at anything."

Pease paused again.

"Whether it is there or not, I don't know," he said...

"I don't think there's any winning here. Victory for us is withdrawing," said Sgt. James Ellis, 25, of Chicago. "In this part of the world they have been fighting for 3,000 years, and we're not going to fix it in three."

It's not exactly beach reading, to be sure, but the whole thing is definitely worth a read.

--Greg Sargent

RUSH LIMBAUGH PLAYS FANS FOR CHUMPS, USES POLL TO ARGUE THAT ONLY DEMS THINK 9/11 WAS INSIDE JOB -- EVEN THOUGH THE POLL CLEARLY SHOWS OTHERWISE.

Rush Limbaugh is making a startling suggestion: He's pushing the idea that only Dems subscribe to the paranoid fantasy that the Sept. 11 attacks were aided and abetted by the U.S. government. But there's only one problem: The poll he's manipulating to make this insane claim clearly shows otherwise.

Rush's website links to this story about an Ohio University poll which found that over a third of Americans suspect that the Feds helped the 9/11 terrorist attacks or didn't act to stop them. Rush's site then blares:

[T]he Hearts & Minds Crowd Can't Bring Themselves to Confront Enemy Hate...Poll: 1/3 of Americans Say 9/11 Was Inside Job, 1/3 of Americans are Democrats -- Do the Math

Got that? Only Dems are crazy enough or hate their government enough to believe that Sept. 11 was helped or planned by the United States, Rush is saying. OK, now it's time to take a look at the actual poll -- the thing that Rush didn't want you to see and didn't link to. It's right here. Ready for the results?

The poll didn't ask for respondents' party affiliation. But it did ask respondents how they would have voted in every Presidential election from 2004 going back to 1964. And guess what? Respondents would have voted for Richard Nixon in 1968, Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, and George H.W. Bush in 1988 -- most by huge landslides. In most of the contests where the Dem won, a minority or only very slim majority of respondents picked the Dem.

Finally, the poll also asked whether respondents approve or disapprove of President Bush. The answer? Thirty-five percent approve, 59 percent disapprove -- almost exactly what polls of the national electorate show. So there you have it -- it's very clear that the respondents of the poll almost perfectly reflect the makeup of America in general. Yep, Rush lied again.

It's not surprising, of course, to see more lies streaming out of Rush Limbaugh. What's surprising is the sheer audacity of Rush's lies, the extent to which he knows he can drastically manipulate and distort the facts while remaining secure in the knowledge that his chump followers will believe literally anything he says, no matter how demonstrably false.

--Greg Sargent

THIS JUST IN: ANN COULTER SAYS HILLARY'S A LESBIAN. In her latest syndicated column -- yes, syndicated -- Ann Coulter writes that Senator Hillary Clinton is a lesbian. In the piece, Coulter transcribes some unpublished parts of an interview she recently gave. Here's one exchange:

Q: Does Hillary Clinton have a good chance in 2008? What are her strengths and weaknesses? What did her reaction to your "Jersey girls" comments tell you about her as a potential candidate?

A: Good chance of what? Coming out of the closet? I'd say that's about even money.

Incidentally, Coulter also said that Rush Limbaugh belongs on Mt. Rushmore, that Molly Ivins is "a lot uglier" than she is, and that Times editor Bill Keller is "either (a) a complete moron or (b) a traitor." So this is how you get rich in 21st Century America.

One of these days this blog will stop taking note of Coulter's wisdom. But not quite yet.

--Greg Sargent

WASHINGTON TIMES BACKS OFF SMEAR OF JOHN DINGELL. So the Washington Times has caved and offered a "clarification" of its smearing of Rep. John Dingell. As I noted below, Think Progress has shown conclusively that various wingnut outlets -- including Rush Limbaugh and the Washington Times -- have grossly misrepresented Dingell's remarks about Hezbollah in order to smear him as anti-Israel.

Late yesterday Dingell struck back, writing and making public a blistering letter to Rish which was essentially a shot across the bow of all the wingnuts who have unfairly smeared him. You can read Dingell's letter to Rush here.

Now the Washington Times has backed down and apologized for misrepresenting Dingell's remarks. Still no word from Rush, though. Lots more work to do on this one.

--Greg Sargent

DEM JOHN DINGELL RESPONDS TO WINGNUT SMEARS, SLAMS RUSH LIMBAUGH AS "DISHONEST AND MISLEADING." For the past couple days, Think Progress has been documenting in grisly detail the depths of dishonesty to which wingnuts at PowerlineBlog and The Washington Times are willing to go to smear Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan. Their primary tactic has been to completely misrepresent some of Dingell's recent comments about Hezbollah. Rush Limbaugh has also joined in the fun, bashing Dingell in similar terms on his radio show.

Now Dingell has struck back -- hard. He's written a long and blistering letter slamming Lilmbaugh as "dishonest and misleading" and demanding that Rush stop distorting his record and remarks. You can read Dingell's letter to Rush here.

--Greg Sargent

DID MICHELLE MALKIN SMEAR AND LIE ABOUT JANE HAMSHER? Media Needle, a great site with lots of political art and satire, gets to the bottom of this one so I don't have to. Media Needle's conclusion: Malkin's lying is "bordering on dementia."

--Greg Sargent

ANOTHER NUT SENDS POWDERY WHITE SUBSTANCE TO NEW YORK TIMES. From an internal memo at the paper:

At about 3:00 p.m. today an employee in the Postal Services Department at our headquarters building in New York opened an envelope addressed to The New York Times. A powdery substance came out of the envelope. We followed the normal protocols. The person who opened the envelope put it in a plastic bag and called the New York City police. They are now on site investigating. We will keep you updated on any developments.

This is the sort of thing that has been unleashed by crackpots like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, with the help of the major networks who give their attacks on the paper credibility and the invaluable assistance of real live Republican elected officials like Pete King, who pandered shamelessly to the right with his transparently phony call for criminal prosecution of the paper.

The last time an anthrax-like substance was sent to the Times it turned out to be a joke. No details are available yet this time -- it very well may be a joke again. But still -- isn't it time to stop laughing now?

Via Romenesko.

--Greg Sargent

UPDATE: I've just confirmed that this one may also have been a "joke." Times spokesperson Abbe Ruttenberg Serphos just emailed me the following:

New York City authorities have confirmed that the powdery substance found in an envelope addressed to The New York Times was determined to be non-hazardous.

Joke -- yuk, yuk, yuk.

GREG MITCHELL DEFTLY SKEWERS DAVID BROOKS. As I've said before, Greg Mitchell writes an indispensable column for Editor and Publisher. In his latest, he skewers David Brooks, and believe me, it's a thing of beauty:

The juxtaposition could not have been more humiliating (assuming a capacity for some): A New York Times news story about an Israeli air strike killing dozens of civilians in Qana, Lebanon, most of them children, and a Sunday column by David Brooks coming out against a ceasefire in the conflict and praising the Bush administration's adroit handling of the situation.

This is Brooks' right, as a Republican apologist, of course, but what is truly bankrupt about his stance is his admission that the current U.S. policy has little chance for success -- beyond the certain slaughtering of hundreds if not thousands more -- but he endorses it anyway. And why can't it succeed? Because, he admits, America's standing and influence has been fatally crippled by its Iraq debacle -- which Brooks strongly backed and still supports...

In other words, Brooks in the end admits that all of his fulminating about a solution to the conflict is crippled by a U.S. war in Iraq -- which he always thought, and still thinks, was a swell idea, launched and managed by an administration he still showers with "enormous credit." A former New York Times columnist, Russell Baker, used to write like this -- but his columns were meant to be funny.

Read the whole thing. Bottom line: Brooks and his ilk would sooner allow the complete deterioration of their credibility, their capacity for orderly, rational thinking, and perhaps even their sanity before admitting that in supporting Bush's Iraq invasion, they fell prey to a catastrophic lapse in judgment that's left us hopelessly mired in an ever-expanding disaster with no foreseeable end.

I just wish I understood why they won't just let go and admit this already. Would it really in the end be all that difficult? Wouldn't it be an enormous relief, even a great freeing experience of sorts?

--Greg Sargent

LATE AFTERNOON WRAP-UP. Here are a few key items going into the evening:

-- Over at The Prospect Online, Michael Tomasky, who is Far and Away the Most Important Human Being to Have Ever Graced the Planet Earth (beat that, Ezra), has written a long and very interesting analysis of the Rumble in Connecticut, the meaning of that Times endorsement, and what it will mean if Lieberman loses by a big margin.

-- Over at TPM muckraker, there's a big scoop: House Dems have concluded in an unreleased draft report that President Bush may have broken 26 statutes. And at Talking Points Memo's new Election Central blog, I've posted a flyer that the Joe Lieberman campaign is distributing at black churches questioning Ned Lamont's record on race. The two camps are on record taking shots at each other over it.

-- At Huffington Post, Eric Boehlert points out that Fox News host Oliver North is bizarrely suggesting that Israel may not have been responsible for the bombing in Qana.

-- And Media Matters catches U.S. News doing some suspicioius cherry-picking from a poll to prove that Dems will be in dire trouble if they so much as whisper any criticism of the GOP on national security issues.

--Greg Sargent

MORE LIES FROM ANN COULTER. In an interview with the Baltimore Sun, here's what Ann Coulter said about her new book, "Godless":

I'm not particularly surprised by the book's sales success, nor by the fact that the New York Times is pretending it doesn't exist.

Lying again. As blogger Tristram Shandy shows, Coulter's book has been mentioned in the Times five times in less than two months. Of those, one was in a full-length piece focussed entirely on her, and another in a piece (unlinkable) which discussed her work and career at some length.

No end to the lying.

--Greg Sargent

FORMER TOP BUSH ADVISER HEAPS SCORN ON PRESIDENT. Don't miss this devastating analysis in The Washington Post of how the Mideast violence is a huge setback for the Bush administration's policies in the region. In the piece, key former Bush policy adviser Richard Haass absolutely blisters Bush's empty optimism about the crisis providing an "opportunity" for long-term Mideast change. The whole piece is a must-read:

Analysts think that if the war drags on, as appears likely, it could leave the United States more isolated than at any time since the Iraq invasion three years ago and hindered in its foreign policy goals such as shutting down Iran's nuclear program and spreading democracy around the world.

"The arrows are all pointing in the wrong direction," said Richard N. Haass, who was President Bush's first-term State Department policy planning director. "The biggest danger in the short run is it just increases frustration and alienation from the United States in the Arab world. Not just the Arab world, but in Europe and around the world. People will get a daily drumbeat of suffering in Lebanon and this will just drive up anti-Americanism to new heights."...

[Haass] laughed at the president's public optimism. "An opportunity?" Haass said with an incredulous tone. "Lord, spare me. I don't laugh a lot. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what's Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?"

Finally, a big news org has come out and said that the Mideast violence isn't a wonderful development for Bush. We can only hope that editors at Time, Newsweek and CNN -- all of whom produced some truly absurd puffery about how great the crisis could prove for Bush -- will read this piece and think long and hard about why their own coverage was so lacking. But they probably won't, because there's literally nothing that can awaken these editors to the poor quality of some of what they publish -- even when a piece reveals it as clearly as this Post one did.

--Greg Sargent

RICHARD ARMITAGE SAYS U.S. MAY BE DOOMED TO FAILURE IN IRAQ. This deserves some more attention. From the Financial Times:

Richard Armitage, who was U.S. deputy secretary of state until January 2005, said: “The US has almost totally reversed the troop situation from two months ago. The danger is that this is too little and too late and that the U.S. will turn into a bystander in an Iraqi civil war it does not have sufficient resources to prevent.”

The rest of the Financial Times piece has an interesting look at how the U.S. has quietly reversed course from any discussion of reducing troop levels before the midterms, something which the paper notes "will prompt fears that the U.S. is becoming increasingly bogged down in an unwinnable conflict." Actually, it already has.

--Greg Sargent

DEPARTMENT OF GLASS HOUSES... From a speech given by Karl Rove yesterday:

"There are some in politics who hold that voters are dumb, ill informed and easily misled, that voters can be manipulated by a clever ad or a smart line," said Rove, who is credited with President Bush's victories in the 2000 and 2004 elections. "I've seen this cynicism over the years from political professionals and journalists."

It's hard to know what to say in response to the extraordinary level of, well, cynicism demonstrated in these remarks, in which the man who's easily the most cynical and manipulative political strategist in a generation or more is faulting other unnamed strategists for being...cynical and manipulative. So I'm passing it along without comment.

--Greg Sargent

BREAKING: TIMES TO ENDORSE...NED LAMONT! That's what Adam Nagourney has just reported. This is big, for a few reasons. First, the Times really, really hates to endorse challengers to incumbent Dems. More important, the imprimatur of credibility that the Times will lend the Ned Lamont candidacy will go a long way towards demolishing a key attack line from Joe Lieberman's camp: That the Lamont campaign is driven principally by an angry, rabble-rousing fringe.

Above all, this shows just how dramatically the center of respectable liberal opinion is beginning to shift in favor of those who want the Dems to stop playing the appeasement game with the GOP and instead want them to more aggressively stake out sharply defined, confrontational positions on the big issues that matter to people. Who would have thought such a thing would have been possible even a few months ago?

--Greg Sargent

CNN BOTCHES MIDEAST HEADLINE. Here's the hed on CNN's story on yesterday's Bush-Blair press conference:

Bush, Blair call for Mideast cease-fire

But is that really what happened yesterday? From The Times:

But both reiterated their position that any cease-fire resolution must include a long-term plan to disarm Hezbollah and evict it from southern Lebanon. The Israelis, and the Arab world as well, have taken the United States position as a tacit go-ahead to Israel to continue its campaign....

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair presented a united front as they pushed a position that was at odds with European and Arab allies who have been calling for an “immediate cease-fire."

From The Washington Post:

The resolution would also call for a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon, but Bush and Blair made it clear they were not talking about the kind of immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah being promoted by other world leaders.

As U.S. officials and foreign diplomats described the plan, the halt in fighting would be conditioned on a broader political settlement in which the international force would help the Lebanese government police the south and maintain a buffer zone separating Hezbollah from Israel, if not disarm the militant group.

From the actual press conference:

QUESTION: And also, will the multinational force potentially be used to effect a cease-fire, or simply to police an agreement once we eventually get to that?...

PRESIDENT BUSH: ...So, like the Prime Minister, I would like to end this as quickly as possible, as well. Having said that, I want to make sure that we address the root cause of the problem.

What actually happened was that Bush and Blair said they'd push a plan which called for a cessation of hostilities, but only if a really difficult political settlement were accomplished first. The Times and the Post got it right. CNN didn't.

CNN: Weaker and weaker.

--Greg Sargent

DEMS SHOULD TAKE ON KARL ROVE EVERY SINGLE TIME HE SLIMES THEM AS WEAK. This hasn't gotten any attention at all in the national media. But as we reported the other day over at Talking Points Memo's new Election Central blog, Karl Rove gave a speech to some Ohio Republicans the other day in which he slimed Dems as soft on national security. From the Columbus Dispatch:

[Rove] sharply criticized calls to pull out of Iraq by Democratic U.S. Rep. John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, and Sen. John Kerry, of Massachusetts, who lost to Bush in 2004. Rove called it a "Democratic policy of cut and run."

"I’m not questioning the patriotism of Senator Kerry and those who think like him. I’m not," Rove said. "But they are wrong, profoundly and dangerously wrong for our country."

I'll never understand why Dems don't leap at the chance to take on Rove every time he does this. For one thing, it's an opportunity to stamp Rove's face on the GOP. More important, given the press attention that results when a Dem does go after Rove (see Murtha, John), it's a chance for Dems to have a national argument about a topic where the American public agrees with the Democrats and not with the Republicans. I'm talking, of course, about Iraq. Yesterday's Times poll showed us yet again that Dems are way more in step than the GOP with American public opinion on the war. Commenting on these numbers, Steve Benen writes:

After all the "cut and run" and "retreat and defeat" smears, all the talk about "waving the white flag," and all the GOP arguments about the merit in "staying the course," a majority of the country still thinks Dems are right and Republicans are wrong about the war.

Rumor has it that the GOP is anxious to use the 2006 elections to talk about which party is more reliable on national security and foreign policy. If Dems run away from the issue, with the public already supporting the party's position on Iraq, they're missing a painfully obvious opportunity.

Dems shouldn't flinch every time they catch sight of Karl Rove's shadow. If they don't shy away from arguments over national security, and even start winning these arguments from time to time, there's no telling what the long term political consequences could be. And yes, these arguments can be won -- no matter what the pundits keep telling us.

--Greg Sargent

ASSOCIATED PRESS LETS BUSH SKATE ON IRAN REMARKS. From the Associated Press:

Bush Cites Iran's Role in Lebanon Conflict

President Bush declined Thursday to criticize Israel's tactics in its continuing offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon, and gave a sharp condemnation of Iran's role in the bloody fighting.

"Hezbollah attacked Israel. I know Hezbollah is connected to Iran," Bush said tersely at the end of Oval Office meetings with Romanian President Traian Basescu. "Now is the time for the world to confront this danger," Bush said.

A quick question: Did Bush actually cite Iran's "role" in the Lebanon fighting in any of his quotes, as the headline and lede said he did? The answer is No. Did he give a sharp condemnation of Iran's "role?" Again, no. All Bush said was that Iran and Hezbollah are "connected." He didn't say a thing about Iran's role in the current fighting -- or if he did, the AP declined to quote it. In fact, without a full transcript of Bush's remarks (which I'm trying to get), it's impossible to know whether Bush really said anything with any meaning at all.

And yet, a time when many on the right are emitting war shrieks designed to turn public opinion against Iran, the AP uncritically put Bush's meaningless bit of innuendo into print. Worse, the AP in a sense actually compensated for the utter meaninglessness of what Bush said, investing his remarks with a coherence and meaning they didn't have. And AP did this without even noting their complete vagueness or the fact that the charge Bush hinted at -- but couldn't bring himself to say outright -- was backed up with exactly zero evidence.

Truly awful reporting.

--Greg Sargent

ANNALS OF WONDERFUL (BUT SLIGHTLY MISLEADING) HEADLINES. Check out this hed on a story from CBS News:

Poll: World Doesn't Respect Bush

Seems to say it all, doesn't it?

Actually, in fairness, the hed's a bit misleading. The story is actually about a poll which shows that Americans think that Bush isn't held in particularly high esteem around the globe. It wasn't a poll of global attitudes. So the hed probably should have been something more like, "Poll: World Doesn't Respect Bush, Americans Say."

Nonetheless, the headline does capture the larger reality of the situation pretty neatly and concisely, wouldn't you say?

--Greg Sargent