Is Clinton Staying In To Say, "I Told You So"?

Why is Hillary Clinton still in the race?

Ever since she failed to cream Barack Obama in Indiana, pundits and analysts have been chewing this over--and now that the West Virginia primary is done, even though she won by a massive two-to-one margin, the question still hovers. After all, Obama has racked up an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates and has pulled ahead in the superdelegate count, meaning the race is essentially complete. Clinton and her campaign advisers have argued that she can still win the nomination if she does well in the last few primaries and then persuades superdelegates she is the better candidate to do battle with John McCain. But the superdelegates don't seem receptive to her case. And the fact that she has throttled back on the anti-Obama rhetoric in recent days--she barely she criticized her in her not-so-jubilant West Virginia victory speech--is a signal that she may not believe her own spin and is merely halfheartedly trudging toward the last primaries (Montana and South Dakota) on June 3.

Yet there she is--an active and hard-working candidate. And the commentators have come up with several obvious explanations:

* She wants to remain in the hunt just in case something happens. (A video appears of Wright calling for armed revolution? Fox News produces Obama's Secret Muslim Membership card?)

* She is staying in for one last round of fundraising. (Her campaign is $20 million in debt and owes her $11 million.)

* She wants to end her historic campaign with a string of victories: West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico. (Puerto Rico? She is a senator from New York.)

* And the most obvious of them all: she's not yet ready to face the music.

No doubt, a combo of these rationales is fueling Clinton's impossible ride. But let me add one more to the mix: Clinton is setting up the biggest I-told-you-so in recent American political history.

Primary Sources: The WWII Ration Book

Our current issue on energy includes a timeline of energy milestones from 1748 to the present. In researching the tale of our energy use, I came across this website, an archival treasure trove of rationing during World War II. Most basic goods were rationed during the war, and the government and media launched a propaganda campaign to rally Americans to this patriotic cause. Rationed items included tires, cars, bicycles, gasoline, fuel oil and kerosene, solid fuels, stoves, rubber footwear, shoes, sugar, coffee, processed foods, meats, canned fish, cheese, canned milk, fats, and typewriters.

Most of us have made no such sacrifices for the war in Iraq, but we may have to for other reasons: Our energy future will be defined by limited supply of once-unlimited commodities, and already some cities here in the Bay Area are preparing to ration water due to low reserves. As alien as the idea seems, we might do well to revisit those patriotic sacrifices after all.

—Casey Miner

Record Opium Crop Funding Resurgent Taliban

Going on seven years since U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan and sent the Taliban running, opium production in that country—the primary source of funding for Islamist fighters—has grown beyond anyone's imagination. During its reign, the Taliban regulated the heroin trade, strictly enforcing production quotas and making certain that they got a cut of every ounce sold. Oddly enough, the existence of a narco-state kept the size of the crop under control, relatively speaking. Now that the bearded clerics are gone (at least temporarily), market forces have taken over and poppy cultivation has exploded.

According to a report released today by the National Security Network (NSN), Afghanistan's poppy crop, in terms of the acreage of land used for its cultivation, goes beyond anything Colombia's cocaine kings would dare to dream. It's the country's largest export, worth more than $4 billion per year and employing some 3.3 million Afghans. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that last year's harvest was of "unprecedented size in modern times and unseen since the opium boom in China during the nineteenth century." So much for the War on Drugs.

An excerpt from the NSN report:

In plain view of the United States and the international community, the opium trade is overwhelming Afghanistan’s legitimate government. The facts are stunning: in 2001, after a Taliban ban on poppy cultivation, Afghanistan only produced 11 percent of the world’s opium. Today it produces 93 percent of the global crop; the drug trade accounts for half of its GDP; and nearly one in seven Afghans is involved in the opium trade. In Afghanistan, more land is being used for poppy cultivation than for coca cultivation in all of Latin America. The trade strengthens the government’s enemies and – unless its large place in the Afghan economy is permanently curtailed by crop replacements and anti-poverty efforts – poses a potentially fatal obstacle to keeping the country stable and peaceful.

Afghanistan is caught in a vicious cycle. The fall of the Taliban brought the end of their highly coercive crop reduction program. A combination of U.S. inattention and widespread insecurity and poverty allowed poppy cultivation to explode. As the opium economy expanded, it spread corruption and empowered anti-government forces, undermining the Afghan state, leading to more poverty and instability, which in turn only served to further entrench the drug trade. Meanwhile the illicit activity has been a boon to the Taliban insurgency, which has traditionally used poppy cultivation as a lever to improve its own position. Today, the Taliban relies on opium revenues to purchase weapons, train its members, and buy support.

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from laughlin.

Adelson Questioned by Israeli Detectives As Part of Olmert Bribery Probe

Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson was questioned today by Israeli fraud squad detectives in connection with their fast moving probe of possibly illegal payments from an American businessman to Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports:

Fraud squad detectives on Tuesday questioned American real estate mogul Sheldon Adelson in connection to the new corruption investigation into Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Adelson, 73, earned his fortune developing huge hotel, convention and gambling properties in Las Vegas and, recently, in China.

The billionaire was asked whether Olmert had requested he acquire for his hotels mini-bars marketed the key witness in the probe, American Jewish businessman Morris Talansky, from whom the prime minister is suspected of illicitly accepting large sums of cash.

Adelson is one of the owners of the free Israeli daily Israel Hayom paper and is considered a close associate of opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli media report that a second American businessman, Daniel Abrams, has also been questioned by Israeli fraud police as part of the same investigation. "Daniel Abrams is suspected of transferring money from New York financier Morris Talansky to Olmert," the Jerusalem Post reported. "Abrams, a broadcast executive and former news correspondent, is also allegedly involved in two other scandals involving the prime minister - the Bank Leumi affair and the case of Olmert's Jerusalem home purchase."

World leaders including President Bush are descending on Israel these days for events to mark the country's 60th anniversary, including a conference slated to feature Bush and Olmert hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres.

(Photograph of Adelson via Ha'aretz).

McCain Confuses Voters (and Himself?) on Spending Cuts

John McCain either (1) has gotten himself so confused about earmarks that he no longer has a coherent plan to cut spending, or (2) has intentionally been uttering obfuscations on the subject that make voters falsely think that his anti-earmark jihad is going to balance the budget. Either way, this discussion of McCain's plans (that word is too generous) to cut spending needs to be read.

For Mother Jones on earmarks, see here and here.

Brent Scowcroft on the Cuba Embargo: "It Doesn't Do Anything"

Brent Scowcroft, the dean of George H. W. Bush's foreign policy brain trust, was, as you likely know by now, in favor of the first Gulf War and the war in Afganistan but was opposed to the Iraq War from before it began. Though a Republican, he has shown the flexibility and disdain for ideology that comes from being a true adherent of the realist approach to foreign policy.

That doesn't just apply to the Middle East. Here he is talking to Steve Clemons about the long-standing Cuba embargo:

If you couldn't hear the soft-spoken Mr. Scowcroft, here's what he said: "My answer on Cuba is Cuba is not a foreign policy question. Cuba is a domestic issue. In foreign policy, the embargo makes no sense. It doesn't do anything. It's quite clear we can not starve Cuba to death. We learned that when the Soviet stopped subsidizing Cuba and they didn't collapse. It's a domestic issue."

What he's saying is that domestic politics, embodied in this case by the powerful and hard-line Cuban exile lobby in Florida that no politician with national ambitions can alienate, is keeping the embargo in place. Common sense, on the other hand, suggests that decades of the embargo have not produced any results in the island nation, other than a less prosperous and less healthy Cuban people. After all, Castro is leaving on his own terms and has hand-picked his successor.

You never know. With Scowcroft and Obama on board for reform, common sense may pull off a come from behind victory.

Which Dictators Are Too Awful?

We blogged the other day about how two McCain staffers, including one who was supposed to run the Republican convention in Minneapolis, were booted from the campaign because they had lobbied for the repressive military junta in Burma.

Turns out, the staffer who was supposed to run the convention, Doug Goodyear, was actually McCain's second choice. His first choice was Paul Manafort (naturally, a lobbyist), who had to be removed from consideration because he too had lobbied for authoritarian figures, specifically Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and former Ukrainian prime minister Viktor Yanukovich.

Okay, it's a bit odd that McCain can only seem to find shills for dictators to run his campaign. But what's even more odd is that Charlie Black, one of McCain's most senior and most loyal aides, also worked for Ferdinand Marcos, as we reported yesterday. In fact, he's worked for Marcos, Zaire dictator Mobuto Sese Seko, Somalia's Mohamed Siad Barre, and Nigeria’s Ibrahim Babangida.

Either there is something particularly objectionable about Viktor Yanukovich, or John McCain is willing to selectively punish moral outrage. If you lobby for dictators and are easily replaceable, you're out the door. If you lobby for dictators but you are McCain's right hand man, you get to stay.

Obama Goes General

In every interview he does, Barack Obama insists that the primary is not over and that Senator Clinton is still a formidable opponent.

But his actions suggest he is moving on to the general election. He's already launched a 50-state voter registration drive. Today he's campaigning in the general election battleground of Missouri. Tomorrow, Michigan. Next week, Florida. His general election tour effectively starts this week.

Hillary Clinton is going to win West Virginia today by 25-35 points. She'll likely win Kentucky one week from today by the same margin. In his speech tonight and his speech next Tuesday, look for Barack Obama to make only a perfunctory recognition of the results and then use the spotlight to make his general election pitch.

He won't say that the primary is over. The media will say that for him.

Update: Oh, and they're staffing up.

Clinton Campaign Keeps On Pushing Bogus Rationale

On Fox News Sunday, Howard Wolfson, the communications director for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, dismissed talk of Clinton quitting the race and declared, "The voters are going to decide this."

But that's not the true stance of the Clinton campaign. Its plan, as the campaign acknowledged last week, is to persuade the superdelegates that Clinton would be the best candidate in the fall against John McCain. That is, its position is that the superdelegates ought to vote for Clinton no matter what the voters in the Democratic primaries and caucuses decide. And given that it's essentially a mathematical certainty that Obama will end up with more voter-determined delegates, this means that the Clinton camp is actually insisting that superdelegates, not voters, determine the winner.

With Clinton campaigning fiercely in West Virginia, which holds a primary on Tuesday, she has not yet given up. That may happen in the coming weeks or when the primaries end on June 3. But while she remains in the race, she has only one path to the nomination: superdelegates voting against the results of the primaries and caucuses. And her odds are diminishing. Each day, Obama picks up one or more superdelegates, and he now leads among these delegates. So it seems Clinton really has one hope: something happens. (Divine intervention?) All this--staying in the race, targeting superdelegates, waiting for Obama to crash--is within Democratic Party rules. But let's not confuse such a strategy with empowering voters. The Clinton campaign is hoping to draw enough voter support in the final primaries so it can have the opportunity to overturn the will of the voters.

More on McCain's Climate Change Speech Today

We've already used McCain's record to throw some cold water on his big climate change speech in Oregon. Visit the Wonk Room to see why the location, the North American headquarters of the Danish wind-turbine company Vestas, is so hypocritical. The short version: Republicans in Congress, McCain included, have slashed the United States budget for wind energy since Carter was president, which is why McCain has to speak at a Danish turbine manufacturer instead of an American one.

China Outlaws Pringles and Fanta

China has banned the import of several food products citing poison and bugs as contaminants. The list includes Coca-Cola's berry-flavored Fanta soda, which apparently contains levels of benzoic acid dangerous to the liver and kidneys (so I guess stick with the bright orange stuff if you want to be kind to your kidneys). Also listed are two varieties of Proctor & Gamble’s Pringles, banned for carcinogens, and one Nestle's coffee flavor found to be infested with beetles. All in all, China's quality control found 593 products unfit for consumption.

These bans follow last year's recalls of Chinese-produced toxic toothpaste and lead paint-coated toys, as well as the FDA's ban on Chinese seafood contaminated with traces of illegal veterinary drugs.

—Caroline Winter

The Weird McCain-Dictator Connection

When you have advisers who are interested in international conflict resolution, you get into one kind of trouble. When you have advisers who are lobbyists, you get into another.

John McCain has been forced to cut ties with two campaign staffers recently because of their ties to the military junta in Burma. The first, Doug Goodyear, was the man McCain had selected to run the 2008 Republican convention. Goodyear is the chief executive of DCI Group, a lobbying firm that was paid $348,000 in 2002 to improve the junta's image in America and to push the federal government to improve relations with the notorious human rights abusers. The second, Doug Davenport, was a regional campaign manager for McCain who helped found DCI Group and served as head of its lobbying practice, where he also worked for the junta.

This is a great example of (1) why lobbying is so freaking toxic, and (2) how, if you build your campaign machinery with lobbyists in dozens of key positions, you run into problems.

But the problem isn't just Dougs Goodyear and Davenport. The watchdog group Campaign Money Watch is now calling for three more McCain staffers to resign because of connections to distasteful foreign regimes:

Bob Barr Throws Down Gauntlet to Ron Paul

Former Republican Congressman Bob Barr is declaring his bid for the Libertarian Party's nomination for president today. Barr, who is perhaps most well-known for his high-profile role in the Clinton impeachment proceedings, left the Republican Party in 2006 and says that his run for the presidency will provide voters with a "genuinely conservative" alternative to John McCain. A recent Zogby poll had Barr taking three percent of the vote in a general election match-up between Obama and McCain. As you might expect, Republicans are trying to convince Barr not to run.

This creates an interesting drama on the libertarian right. While Ron Paul is the country's preeminent libertarian, he has repeatedly declined to run for president as anything other than a Republican. But he has refused to endorse John McCain (and even gone so far as to praise Barack Obama's approach to foreign policy), leaving the door open for a run as a third-party candidate.

So here are the key questions. Will Ron Paul run as a candidate in the Libertarian Party? (I know it's unlikely, but he did run for president as the Libertarian Party's nominee in 1988 while maintaining his Republican affiliation.) If he doesn't run, will he endorse Bob Barr and cede his status as America's big dog libertarian? After John McCain secures the Republican nomination in early September and Ron Paul drops out, will his supporters shift their support to Barr, Obama, or no one? We considered this question before here; what say you?

Obama-McCain Could Create Some Fun Moments

Because they're both open to traveling the campaign trail together.

Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday that if he were to become the Democratic nominee, holding joint town hall-style campaign events with Republican Sen. John McCain would be a "great idea."

"Obviously, we would have to think through the logistics on that," Obama continued. "But … if I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that's something that I am going to welcome."

Recently, advisors to the all-but-certain GOP nominee have said the Arizona senator is open to the idea, and his campaign has touted the fact that he and Democrat Bill Bradley held joint campaign events when the two ran for the presidential nomination in 1999.

Obama is better when he commands a room by himself — he is, as everyone knows by now, an impressive speaker. McCain is not, and these joint town halls would definitely play to his strengths. One gets the feeling that David Alexrod might pull Obama aside sometime soon and put the kibosh on this idea.

Update: Noam Scheiber agrees, and adds that joint town halls would give the cash-strapped McCain lots of free media.

McCain Portrays Himself as Environmental Champion, but Record Undercuts Credibility

McCain is touting his passion for the environment this week. He has an ad up that portrays his approach to fighting climate change as "a better way" — that is, a moderate third option that doesn't embrace the supposed taxation and regulations of the left, nor the dangerous denialism of the right. He's following that with a speech on climate change today in Oregon. "The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington," he plans to say. "Good stewardship, prudence, and simple common sense demand that we act to meet the challenge, and act quickly."

In truth, John McCain is a phony when it comes to the environment. He managed to miss every vote important to environmentalists in 2007, including some where he could have been the deciding vote on important issues. His lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters is just 24 percent; Clinton and Obama's are 87 and 86 by comparison.

We're written a lot about this at Mother Jones. Now even the mainstream media is catching on. Here's the Washington Post today:

"Sacking" of Washington Mid East Hand Points Up Growing Rift Between D.C. Ideology and Israeli Pragmatism

Former Clinton administration Middle East peace negotiator Rob Malley now heads the Middle East program of the International Crisis Group, an international conflict resolution nongovernmental organization. He has also been one of many informal advisers to Barack Obama's campaign.

Through his work at ICG, Malley has talked with Hamas officials, according to a report in Sunday's Times of London. Which is not so surprising given ICG's conflict resolution mission. But because of that revelation, the paper reports, Malley has been officially "sacked" as an informal adviser to the Obama campaign:

One of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed yesterday that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas – prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.

Robert Malley told The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza and is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think-tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama’s Middle East advisory council.

“I’ve never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people,” he added.

Harry Reid Promises Hearings on Pentagon Puppets

Harry Reid is at Firedoglake promoting his (well-received) new book — it's a real sign of the seriousness with which Washington's political establishment takes the blogosphere, by the way, when the Senate Majority Leader does an online book salon with a blog — and he was asked this question by a reader:

Lish: Senator, are you planning to hold hearings on the illegality of the Pentagon's propaganda training program of retired military officers that was recently exposed by the New York Times and Glenn Greenwald?

Reid's response:

Reid: The answer is yes. I have personally spoken to Chairman Levin and he is tremendously concerned as I. And we are proceeding accordingly.

That's good news. Lawmakers have been clamoring over the Pentagon puppets scandal, but the news media has largely been silent. If there are hearings, that will have to change.

McCain's Surrogates Get Confused

Think Progress has a great catch. Mitt Romney on CNN earlier today:

BLITZER: Does John McCain want to continue what Obama called the failed policies of the Bush administration?

ROMNEY: Well I think you’re going to hear that time and again, Wolf, throughout the campaign season. And I just don’t think it’s going to stick.

McCain surrogate Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) in the same program:

BLITZER: So it would be in effect a third Bush term when it came to pro-growth tax policies?

BLUNT: It would be. I think it would be. And I think that’s a good thing.

Good work out there, fellas. Here's video. Blunt is pretty adamant about that same-as-Bush thing.

In the Shadow of Mother's Day

Below is a guest blog entry in honor of Mother's Day by obstetrician-gynecologist Nancy Stanwood:

I am fortunate to have met many wonderful mothers. These women understand what it means to raise a child well. They make daily sacrifices to keep their children physically and emotionally healthy and happy. As a new mother myself, I find their commitment inspiring.

What I know about these mothers, though, won’t be celebrated on Mother’s Day. They came to me to have abortions.

I am an obstetrician-gynecologist, and in my 13 years of delivering babies and providing abortions, I have ended pregnancies for many women with children at home. These mothers account for the majority of U.S. abortions. Six out of every ten women who have abortions in this country each year already have at least one child.

In my experience, these mothers have abortions to meet their responsibilities for their children at home.

At Least One Conservative Says McCain Should Renounce Rev. Parsley

At least one conservative Republican has come out and said that John McCain ought to denounce the Reverend Rod Parsley for his extreme anti-Islam rhetoric, and that's James Pinkerton, with whom I regularly appear on Bloggingheads.tv. Pinkerton, who was a domestic policy adviser for the first President Bush and who advised Mike Huckabee during his recent GOP presidential primary contest, says that McCain should reject the endorsement he's accepted from Parsley, a pastor at an Ohio megachurch who has said that it is the historic mission of the United States to see the "false religion" of Islam "destroyed."

For more on Parsley's anti-Islam ranting and to see the reverend in his full anti-Islam glory, click here for the video of Parsley's attack on Islam that was produced by Mother Jones and Brave New Films.

Up to now, McCain has steadfastly refused to renounce Parsley, an influential political force in the swing state of Ohio. Doing so could seriously hurt McCain's chances in the Buckeye State. So Pinkerton shouldn't expect McCain to heed his advice. Here's Pinkerton and I discussing the matter: