Full Lineup and other goodies below...

This evening's Rescue Rangers are Patriot Daily, HansScholl, jlms qkw, dadanation, shayera, and srkp23, with watercarrier4diogenes at the Editor's Desk looking smirkingly serious

Tonight's diaries cover a variety of interesting issues not covered by the 'traditional media' (tm Kos) with the kind of research, perspective and analysis we see here every day.

• fedupcitizen, inspired by the CNN documentary Black in America and the poetry of Jon Goode, revisits childhood memories and the importance of neighborhood in mom's gonna show you right from wrong. (Hans Scholl)
• iampunha covers history from 1865 to 2008 in July 26, 1948: I order you to serve with that black man. (jlms qkw)
• D Wreck reports on the chilling news that police conducted 288 hours of undercover surveillance on "terrorists," a.k.a peace activists. (srkp23)
• dday discusses how at least 3 of our candidate class of 2008 will be Putting the "more" in more and better Democrats in our caucus. (Patriot Daily)
• Andrew for Oklahoma informs us that Andrew Rice needs some donations to extend the run of a great TV ad to provide Rice with name ID needed to beat Inhofe in OK-Sen: Oklahoma Heat. (Patriot Daily)
• EuroTrash60's My picture was in the Berliner Zeitung! Obama crowd recaps what it was like to be part of that crowd of 200,000 people and closes with a photograph that surely will make you smile. (dadanation)
• Crashing Vor offers Divertissement: Come Fly with Me (Photos) and shares with the community some wonderful architectural news. (shayera)
• In dishing out a healthy dose of snark, EugeneF elaborates on How Michael Savage Would Have Explained the Bubonic Plague. (dadanation)
• Mother Mags reminds Kossacks that We Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet. (shayera)
• atitlan brings the most crucial and most overlooked P.O.V concerning the U.S. occupation of Iraq, in Iraqis: 'Surge' Is a Catastrophe. (srkp23)
• Silent Spring offers up a thoughtful diary on The Catholic Vote and intersections with Democratic values. (srkp23)

jotter has High Impact Diaries - July 25, 2008 and asimbagirl has Top Comments: Decompressing after Netroots Nation.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread (even if you're the author! Here's where that's actually appreciated). And, of course, since it's an open thread, PLAY NICE, OK? 8^)

Letters, we get letters, we get stacks and stacks of... ok, it might not be piling up in the corners, but the number of emails that show up in the in ye olde email box can be daunting.  While many of the letters are thoughtful and insightful, others are simply chock full of nutty goodness.  This is especially true of the attack waves sent by the fighting keyboardists at the urging of their favorite talking head.

A decade ago, UC Riverside physicist John Baez developed the crackpot index to help when sorting letters sent to universities that promised to revolutionize science.  His index (which was referenced in the Netroots Nation science panel by Ed Brayton) includes such items as 5 points for each mention of "Einstein," and 20 points for comparing yourself to Newton.

To bring the same sort of order to the missives that arrive at this site each day, here's the Daily Kos equivalent.  

The Wingnut Index

5 points
Each use of "Democrat Party."
Each use of "liberal elite."
Each declaration that kos readers should "leave America."

10 points
Each use of the phrase "hate site."
Each mention of Nazis, Commies, Reds, brownshirts or stormtroopers.
Each blind repetition of phrases provided by your close pal Bill, Rush, or Sean.
For contending that liberals are aiding terrorists.
Each time the writer insists that the recipient is "going to burn in hell."
Each physical threat to the recipient.

15 points
Including "San Francisco" in letters that have nothing to do with San Francisco.
Discussion of water / food additives and their feminizing effect on the men of America.
Insisting that liberals "want America to lose."
Each alternate theory for the death of Vincent Foster.
Each alternate theory for the death of Ron Brown.
Each alternate theory posed to replace evolution.
Each explanation for why global warming is a hoax.

20 points
Each use of "DemocRAT Party."
Each time the writer wishes the recipient would burn in hell.
Asserting the recipient belongs in Gitmo.
Each physical threat to the recipient's family & pets.
Each use of the term "Darwinism."
Each use of the term "algore."

25 points
Wishing on the recipient death, cancer, a stray bullet, or a visit from Bill O'Reilly.
Each use of "clearly" or "obviously" appended to any of the above. (i.e. "Since you liberals clearly want America to be defeated by the terrorists, obviously you belong in Gitmo" makes for a 70 point sentence.)

30 points
Each loving description of the torture the author would love to inflict.
Letters written IN ALL CAPS.

50 point
Each serious, affirmative use of the term PUMA.
Sending a letter complaining about how kos is censoring you because you can't post thirty seconds after registering.
Sending a letter complaining about how kos is censoring you, when you've been booted by the community for 101 crappy comments.
Sending a letter complaining about how kos is censoring you, when you haven't bothered to register at the site.

100 points
Each use of the word "Bush" in association with "unrecognized genius."

Special awards are given for creative use of grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.  (i.e. "u LIBURrrLLS, R D SuXeS!?!" hits none of the categories above, and yet, still has the toasty zing of nuttery.)

For those people still wondering how they might most curry favor with Bill O'Reilly by telling him about the mean, mean words they sent this way, don't think of these scores as restrictions on your speech -- think of them as a challenge.

His top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, now says that John McCain is an economic whiz (h/t VA Classical Liberal). I would never have guessed that.

Terry Gross: John McCain has said that the economy is not his strong point. That he doesn't know that much about the economy. Is that a fatal flaw for a president? Does it matter?

Douglas Holtz-Eakin: He has a phenomenal grasp of the economy and the remark he made is self-deprecating, that's John McCain in his truest form.

That was broadcast on July 24. On the same day Christopher Beam at Slate quoted Holtz-Eakin saying that McCain's comments on the stump about his own tax policies aren't always entirely accurate. At issue was a new study of McCain's proposals by the Tax Policy Center. It finds that McCain's public promises to voters cost two-thirds more over 10 years than the tax plan his economic advisers are providing to experts.

According to the study, the tax plan McCain’s campaign laid out privately is different from the one he’s selling on the stump. If you include the policies he has advocated publicly—such as repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax, increasing the dependent exemption to $7,000 right away, and reducing the corporate tax rate to 25 percent immediately—then the deficit after 10 years would actually be $2.8 trillion greater than if you go by his private plan. There’s also a rhetorical gap for Obama, but in his case the public version generates more revenue than the private one, thanks to a suggested hike in payroll taxes for people who make $250,000 or more. (Read the full study here [PDF].)

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s chief economic adviser, says the numbers he provided to the TPC aren’t secret—they’re the same ones he provides to anyone who asks. He also disputes the way the study takes suggestions McCain has made on the stump out of context. "This is parsing words out of campaign appearances to an unreasonable degree," Holtz-Eakin said. "He has certainly I’m sure said things in town halls" that don’t jibe perfectly with his written plan. But that doesn’t mean it’s official.

Commenting on Holtz-Eakin's attempt to explain away the gap between the public rhetoric and the private assurances, B. Furnas points out that the details of McCain's tax plan are not in fact publicly available. So who really knows what McCain's tax plan is?

I can believe that voters shouldn't put too much faith in whatever McCain tells them about his own fiscal policies. But how do you square that with the claim that he has "a phenomenal grasp of the economy"? And didn't Holtz-Eakin insist just two weeks ago that McCain's advisers don't speak for him?

Senator McCain made it very clear that Senator McCain speaks for Senator McCain.

Update [2008-7-27 0:27:12 by smintheus]: See also this excellent analysis of the Tax Policy Center's study by Gangster Octopus.

You simply cannot make this stuff up. The video speaks for itself.

Earlier this week, we brought you YouTube video of Nas and Color of Change delivering their 620,000 petition signatures to Fox News, calling it out for its racist behavior:

The event has generated a bit of print media coverage along the way, too:

ROLLING STONE: Nas Delivers Petition to Fox News, Says Network Is "Scared"

MTV: Nas Takes Fox News To Task For What He Calls 'Racist Attacks,' At NYC Rally

THE NATION: Fox News Attacked by Rapper, Blackroots & Colbert

REUTERS: Protesters denounce Fox News as racist

BILLBOARD: Nas Joins Protesters At Fox News In NYC

USA TODAY: Hip-hop artist Nas protests Fox coverage of Obama

EXPRESS INDIA: Over 100 protest 'racist coverage' against Obama in Fox

SEATTLE POST: Hip-hop star Nas protests FOX News 'Obama smears'

And capping the day, an appearance on The Colbert Report:

Think this might break out of the offline world and sink in this time? Kudos to ColorOfChange.org and Nas for giving it their best shot.

Of course, Fox News will be providing all of the inside-the-hall pool coverage of the Democratic National Convention. That can't be bad, can it?

Here's to the day when we're all on the same page, and our work is not undone by our own side. May it soon be here.

Coming Up on Sunday Kos ...

• brownsox will share his thoughts on Netroots Nation, as a first-time attendee.
• Netroots Nation has MissLaura thinking about community.
• Devilstower looks at at the mythology of energy in "Thoroughly Modern Mastodons."
• BarbinMD will look at John McCain's idea of running a respectful campaign.
• SusanG will review Barbara Ehrenreich's This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation.
• DarkSyde will review Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming by two leading lights in climate research, Michael Mann and Lee R. Kump.

File this under "Nice to Have It Official, But ... Duh!"

Via Think Progress, Chris Matthews on Hardball last night got former White House press secretary Scott McClellan to admit that "the nighttime guys" on Fox News routinely used White House talking points:

MATTHEWS: So, you wouldn’t use Brit Hume to sell stuff for them, but you’d use some of the nighttime guys?

MCCLELLAN: Yeah, I would separate that out, and certainly I, you know, they’ll say, that’s because they agree with those views in the White House.

MATTHEWS: Well, they didn’t need a script though, did they?

MCCLELLAN: No, well, probably not.

Keith Olbermann pursued the revelations as well, with McClellan conceding "it was done frequently."

In March 2007, as Democratic presidential candidates considered attending a Fox News-hosted debate (and Dennis Kucinich called the outlet "a legitimate news agency"), kos asked:

The question is, why lend legitimacy to an operation that is trying to actively working in concert with the Republican Party to destroy Democrats and everything progressive?

Are Democrats convinced yet?

(Ongoing discussion in progress in eclecticbrotha's recommended diary as well.)

There has been a lot of attention paid to John McCain’s apparent flip-flop yesterday on timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, and given his frequent attacks on Barack Obama’s call for a 16 month timetable (or if you prefer, horizon), McCain’s words were rather stunning:

BLITZER: So why do you think he said that 16 months is basically a pretty good timetable?

McCAIN: He said it’s a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground. I think it’s a pretty good timetable, as we should — or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions on the ground.

But why don't we just add this to his ever growing list of flip-flops since McCain will dismiss any questions on this about-face and the media will go along with whatever he says because he is the foreign policy expert (despite his confusion or outright lies about his past statements on the war, Sunnis, Shiites, Iran and the Anbar Awakening). But since McCain has spent the past week whining about the press, perhaps the media could oblige him with some primetime coverage and ask him to clarify a couple of other comments he made during yesterday’s interview. None that would call into question his foreign policy expertise, of course. After all, he was a P.O.W. nearly 40 years ago. But just to have him clear up a couple of points he made. For instance, at McCain said:

I can only tell you, I will not discuss hypotheticals and I can’t.

But earlier in the day, McCain went über-hypothetical while imagining a world without the surge:

The Iraqi Army would have collapsed. Civilian casualties would have increased dramatically," he said. "Al Qaeda would have killed the Sunni sheikhs who had begun to cooperate with us, and the "Sunni Awakening" would have been strangled at birth. Al Qaeda fighters would have safe havens, from where they could train Iraqis and foreigners, and turn Iraq into a base for launching attacks on Americans elsewhere. Civil war, genocide and wider conflict would have been likely.

Perhaps the media can ask him why he will not, cannot talk about hypotheticals when it comes to foreign policy questions that concern all Americans, but he can describe a hypothetical scenario of the Middle East engulfed in flames if he thinks it helps him politically. And heck, maybe ask him what "victory" in Iraq means...hypothetically. After all, McCain keeps saying "we’re on the road to victory," so it would be nice to know if he knew where the hell that road is. And while they’re on the subject of Iraq, maybe they could have him clarify that whole birth of the secret surge thing.

And speaking of secrets, what I think all Americans would really be interested in is the secret, guaranteed plan to capture Osama Bin Laden that McCain mentioned to Blitzer yesterday.

BLITZER: You're President of the United States, you vowed that you will capture Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice. Now we know that President Bush, since 9/11, has been doing the best he can. What would you do different?

MCCAIN: Well, I'm not going to telegraph a lot of the things that I'm going to do because then it might compromise our ability to do so. But look, I know the area, I've been there, I know wars, I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so we will capture Osama Bin Laden, or put it this way, bring him to justice. We will do it, I know how to do it.  [...]

It might be a good thing to reveal to the world the enormity of this guy’s crimes and his intentions which are still there and he’s working night and day to destroy everything we stand for and believe in

Leaving aside the fact that besides World War II, John McCain has never seen a war won, can the media ask him why he is keeping his sure-fire plan to capture Osama Bin Laden a secret? And perhaps more importantly, why he hasn’t shared the details with anyone over the past 7 years? He knows that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11, he says Bin Laden is actively seeking to destroy us every single day, and he won’t reveal his plan unless he’s elected? Why, that almost seems like a terrorist threat. And if Bin Laden launches a successful attack against the U.S., can we hold John McCain responsible since he could have captured him but refused to do so? That's a discussion that I'd like to see airing from coast to coast.

John McCain wants more media coverage, so by all means, bring it on.

So how did this overseas trip play? That seems like an odd question, until you start listening to some of the revisionist pundits who have decided the Democratic candidate is arrogant and presumptuous, dares to act Presidential, and should have come home after Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel.

According to this narrative, he should have skipped Germany, France (and the UK, I guess) despite his warm welcome. Why? Because of a vague suspicion that some guy in Wilkes-Barre, PA would resent that Obama said something nice about Paris and was articulate in Berlin. This is the residual of the media's constant harping of whether white voters (what Chris Matthews calls 'regular Amuricans') would actually vote for an articulate black man. But it's not entirely that (although there is an element of that.) Like with Gore, the press has decided on a narrative, and with Obama, they think the campaign is arrogant. Susan Estrich:

"They think they can't lose," one of the smartest people I know said to me this week, describing the attitude he sees on display in the Obama campaign. He isn't the first one to say it.

There was a crop of stories, as the trip was ending, suggesting that the Obama campaign, which used to pride itself on its openess and transparency as compared to the Clinton machine, has now abandoned openess and transparency in favor of tight controls, attacks on reporters who write less-than flattering pieces, and a particularly unattractive form of hardball that people who think they are on the way to the White House, or already there, often adopt. It will not serve him well.

Bruised egos aside, how did it really go? MSNBC's genial in-house GOP hack Joe Scarborough was reduced to making the highly unconvincing case that the Sausage Haus visit was infinitely superior to the Obama images from Berlin. But how did the GOP really see this trip?

GOP analysts concede that Obama showed considerable expertise in manipulating the media to his advantage, dispensing interviews to the network TV anchors and giving a compelling speech in Berlin Thursday that drew positive coverage. McCain insiders aren't sure how they can minimize all that except for trying to shame the media into giving more balanced coverage.

In addition, McCain advisers concede that Obama's team of handlers and policy advisers seem first-rate, deftly blending pageantry with policy pronouncements and making Obama look like a potential commander in chief. "The pictures were great," says an admiring GOP insider. McCain advisers are already working to improve his own visuals and believe they can match Obama in stagecraft eventually.

Finally, Obama and his inner circle showed a deftness in forcing McCain to respond to various Obama statements rather than come up with his own proactive message day after day. "McCain was an hour behind Obama all week," says a GOP strategist.

Hmmmm, sounds like Team Obama did okay on image. How about on substance?

But now the administration’s agreement to consider a "time horizon" for troop withdrawals from Iraq has moved it, at least in the public perception, in the direction of the policies of Senator Barack Obama. That has thrown Mr. McCain on the political defensive in his opposition to a timed withdrawal, Republicans in the party’s foreign party establishment say.

On Friday Mr. McCain went so far as to say that the idea of a 16-month withdrawal, which Mr. Obama supports, was "a pretty good timetable," although he included the caveat that it had to be based on conditions on the ground.

Republicans also say the administration’s decision to authorize high-level talks with Iran and North Korea has undercut Mr. McCain’s skepticism about engagement with those countries, leaving the perception that he is more conservative than Mr. Bush on the issue.

Essentially, as the administration has taken a more pragmatic approach to foreign policy, the decision of Mr. McCain to adhere to his more hawkish positions illustrates the continuing influence of neoconservatives on his thinking even as they are losing clout within the administration.

Did he use the word "timetable"?

McCain Offers Praise for Obama’s Troop Withdrawal Timetable

Why, yes, he did. On Fox, no less. That makes it unanimous, and a major point scored for Obama.

When Obama gets back to the U.S., we'll get to have a nice discussion about Bush's McOnomy, Phil Gramm, the price of gas and McCain's likelihood of continuing Bush policy on deregulation and screwing the consumer.

Until then, this really has been a good week for Obama, as the tracking polls show. That's because where Obama goes, McCain, kicking and screaming, follows. One might call it leadership, but that would be arrogant and presumptuous. And as Bob Cesca at HuffPost points out, the media heathers have been given their talking points, and reserve that description for Obama.

"Presumptuous" must really be a popular word. Odd that it's being used so often by people who want Senator Obama to win.

AP: "In a speech that risked being seen as presumptuous..."

TIME Magazine: "capable to become the Commander in Chief of a superpower -- without seeming presumptuous..."

The National Journal: "He is well aware voters here at home might see that as presumptuous..."

Washington Post: "Whether by the end of this week he will be seen as presumptuous or overly cocky..."

Chicago Tribune: "That means walking the fine line between looking presidential and appearing arrogant and presumptuous..."

Boston Globe: "plus the growing sense in some quarters that the presumptive Democratic nominee is getting a little presumptuous..."

Remarkable that they can't think of other words to use. Competent comes to mind, for example, along with able, adept, effective, efficient, smart and qualified. But if they're pissed off at the Obama campaign for slights real and imagined, they're likely to leave their thesaurus in the suitcase a while longer.

Not that Obama is unaware.

"How do I avoid looking presumptuous?" Mr. Obama said in the interview. "I’m very much looking forward over the next three months to going back to Iowa, literally and figuratively, and spending a lot of time in town hall meetings, talking to voters and listening to voters."

And for those who worry about the coverage, there's this:

[Leslie] Stahl used an expose she conducted about then-President Ronald Reagan during the 1984 election as an example. She said the four-minute piece ran hard-hitting commentary over images of Reagan on the campaign trail.

Reagan advisers later thanked her for the publicity, saying, "Nobody heard what you said in that piece."

She later aired the piece for a focus group, and less than one-fourth of them heard what she said. Most believed the piece was a campaign ad for Reagan or a positive news story about him.

In any case, the reporting is what it is, and most of it has been positive. But as in the famous example of Leslie Stahl, it's the images that count. And for images, you don't need a thesaurus.

^{REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz}

• Jeff Lindemyer over at The Nukes of Hazard points us to a great article by John Isaacs, who is the executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Isaacs' article discusses the successful dismantling of the North Korean nuclear program, and the resulting wingnut meltdown. Just to get you hooked, here's an excerpt:

  The same neoconservatives who dominated the Bush administration for almost eight years are now screaming like stuck pigs over the administration’s latest moves on North Korea. You would have thought that the heathens had been let into the temple—or, even worse, that W. had appointed Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) or Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) to Cabinet positions.

  President George W. Bush announced on June 26 that the United States would take steps to remove the last remaining Stalinist regime from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. This step was in return for North Korea submitting a long-delayed official declaration about its nuclear program.

• Amazing:

  In a new report [pdf], the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reveals that the real similarity between Iraq and Vietnam is in the price of staying. In constant FY2008 dollars, the Vietnam war cost the U.S. $686 billion. The Iraq war, at just over five years old, is priced at $648 billion...

• The NYT describes how the Iraq war has been sanitized in the US media by the suppression of images of violence. It quotes Zoriah Miller, an embedded photographer whom the Marines sent packing after he posted a photo of bodies at the site of a recent suicide bombing:

  "The fact that the images I took of the suicide bombing —which are just photographs of something that happens every day all across the country — the fact that these photos have been so incredibly shocking to people, says that whatever they are doing to limit this type of photo getting out, it is working."

  - smintheus

• Tom S over at Rustbelt Intellectual has a moving and thoughtful essay about nostalgia, the racial divide and growing up in Detroit.

  -- SusanG

• Matt Browner Hamlin offers the definitive smackdown to the Ted "Tubes" Stevens campaign, which once again publicized ignorance of the internet when it sent out a fundraising letter with this tidbit of a "scoop" against Democrat Mark Begich:

  Just last quarter, the mayor raised more than $37,000 from just one liberal Lower 48 Internet campaign known as ActBlue

  -- SusanG

• Interesting stuff for poll nerds, compliments of DemFromCT:

  Rasmussen: the modest bounce continues

  For the first five weeks after clinching the Democratic Presidential Nomination, Obama consistently led McCain by five or six points. Then, in the two weeks leading up to Obama’s overseas trip, support for the Democrat softened and the race got a bit tighter (see recent daily results). So far, the impact of Obama’s trip has been to restore the five or six point lead he enjoyed after capturing the nomination.

  Gallup: Yo, tambien.

  By the way, for tracking poll addicts, read Alan Abramowitz:

  Here's what I found. Since the beginning of May, over 74 days of polling, the Gallup tracking poll has shown Barack Obama with an average lead of 1.6 percentage points over John McCain. During the same time period, the Rasmussen tracking poll, over 76 days of polling, has shown Obama with an average lead of 1.8 percentage points. But during the exact same time period, 38 other national polls have shown Obama with an average lead of 5.2 percentage points.

  It's not a huge difference. But given the numbers of respondents interviewed in these polls-about 60 thousand in the Gallup tracking poll, 75 thousand in the Rasmussen tracking poll, and 40 thousand in the other national polls-it
  is certainly a statistically significant difference. More importantly, the Gallup and Rasmussen results give a different impression of the state of the presidential race from other national polls. A lead of less than two points suggests a much tighter race than a lead of between five and six points.

  And for the best damn discussion of polling sites, see Open Left (and the comment by Charles Franklin, who doesn't get enough credit for his charts at pollster.com.)

  Check out Hotline TV for the poop on the battlegrounds and McCain's huge, huge electoral college bounce.
  

• A recent study shows that poor people are more likely to play the lottery. In other news, hungry people were more likely to eat.

  -- Scout Finch

• The FCC has finally approved the XM and Sirius merger, some 18 months after the deal was announced. Stay tuned satellite radio subscribers.....it is going to get interesting now.
  --Scout Finch

John McCain in his radio address today:

With all the breathless coverage from abroad, and with Senator Obama now addressing his speeches to (quote) 'the people of the world,' (unquote) I'm starting to feel a little left out. Maybe you are, too.

Now if only the American people voted based on who sounds more like a pouting, jilted high schooler stood up for the prom, John McCain would have a lock on the presidency.

FiveThirtyEight suggests that "placing more emphasis on foreign policy may not be a winner for Barack Obama -- even if he closes the gap with McCain on the issue" because "You're still giving McCain a sort of home-court advantage by fighting every day over foreign policy, even if you're winning some of the skirmishes."

The jury is still very much out on whether and how much Obama's trip abroad will help him. While Poblano's analysis focuses on the possible effects of Obama polling better, and voters focusing more, on foreign policy, there's another possible long-term effect -- on the media narrative. To this point, Obama has had to endlessly answer media concern about his supposed lack of experience and expertise on foreign policy issues (even as they endlessly give John McCain a pass for apparently boundless ignorance on what's supposed to be his signature issue). What happens if Obama stops having to answer quite so many of those questions? If his foreign policy knowledge and vision are accepted by the media and he doesn't have to spend the next 3 1/2 months playing defense on that issue?

Not to sound like too much of an optimist about the US media, but could Obama's clear success on the world stage change the media narrative just enough to allow him to go on the offense more on energy and economic and environmental issues? Those are issues he should own, but hasn't been able to devote sufficient attention to yet as he, appallingly, is forced to defend himself against the view that he doesn't know as much about foreign policy as someone who doesn't know Sunni from Shiite.

We won't know if Obama's trip effects a lasting change in the media narrative, and that kind of shift is not something that will show up directly in polling. But if, having established his authority on foreign policy and ability to stand on a world stage, Obama could simply move on to the other issues he needs to win, it could represent a real change in the ground on which this election is fought.

It's a familiar story these days. Science and common sense be damned--if a Bush or Cheney crony wants it, they get it.

The east entrance to Yellowstone National Park is about 53 miles west of Cody, Wyoming, on a road running through the steep-sided Sylvan Pass, an avalanche waiting to happen most winters, given that thare are 20 or so avalanche chutes in the pass. The National Park service has been having an ongoing dispute for years with Cody recreational business owners over keeping that pass open during high avalanche season, December through February.

Last November, the Park Service had been set to issue a final decision, based on a variety of impact studies including environmental and occupational safety and risk management, to keep the pass closed three months out of the year. Then an all too familiar thing happened.

But in November, just as a crucial ruling was to come out, an official in the Park Service's Washington headquarters called Yellowstone and asked that key sections of the document be faxed for review by nine White House officials, including policy advisers to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, said two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals. Cheney is a former Wyoming congressman.

The episode fits a pattern of complaints by government scientists and experts who contend the administration frequently has overruled their work and imposed politically driven policies that benefit powerful economic interests, on issues from global warming to endangered species. For example, the administration rejected scientific advice in loosening air quality standards for ground-level ozone and soot, and ignored advice to control greenhouse gas emissions.

And what happened this week? You got it, the initial Park service decision was reversed and the pass is to remain open, although, as the National Parks Traveler notes, a key amendment might save the day--it specifies that the "pass will only be open between December 22 and March 1 and then only if weather allows, if safety can be maintained, if equipment is available to groom the route, and if the Park Service can afford to maintain the pass."

The safety and affordability are the keys here. The route will be kept open the way avalanche corridors usually are, with explosive charges dropped from helicopters or fired from howitzers to dislodge threatening snow. One of the problems posed by this is little landmines sometimes left around the park--not all of the munitions explode on impact. Then there's the fact that crews manning the howitzers actually have to figure out how to navigate those 20 avalanche chutes to get in place to fire them. It's a risky business.

Then there's the cost, and this is where we get in to the total surreality of what the Bush administration has imposed here. In order to keep this pass open and to do it with the maximum safety provided to Park workers and visitors, it will cost nearly $4 million in initial costs (that's four times the Park's FY2008 budget increase over FY2007) and $456K in annual operating expenses.

The National Parks Traveler does some more math: "Last winter 463 people traveled over Sylvan Pass from Cody. At that rate, based on the nearly $4 million Yellowstone soon could find itself spending to keep Sylvan Pass safe, the cost would equate to $8,470.76 per person."

You read that right: $8,470.76 per single tourist visit into the Park via Sylvan Pass. That's an expensive day pass--picked up, I might add, not by the visitor. Not by the Cody company providing the guide service in. By us. You and me. The taxpayer. So much for the "smaller government, fiscally responsible" Bush administration.

Just out of curiosity, and because I'm a bleeding heart liberal, I spent a little time Googling what $8,500 could buy one, either in public or private dollars. (I rounded up. So sue me.)

• About 2.5 months Five months salary for a mid-level mid-career federal employee.
• 37 months of combat pay for soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.
• 134 high school introductory biology textbooks.
• Roughly 8.5 months of health insurance for a family of four.
• A month of food assistance to 242 children living with hunger in the U.S.
• A backyard windmill.
• An Oscar de la Renta gown (in 2006 dollars) to wear to the White House Christmas party.

Or you could look at it this way, it's the majority of the 2008 federal tax bill for a married couple, filing jointly, earning $65,101-$131,450. A year's taxes for one joy ride through avalanche territory. Priceless.

Or you could think about it just in terms of the national park system itself:

And yet, 560 miles to the south there's another unit of the National Park System, Dinosaur National Monument, that obviously doesn't have the political cache of a Yellowstone. You'd think it might, as part of the monument is in Utah, which, politically, is the reddest state in the nation. But it doesn't. No, Dinosaur's superintendent was forced to eliminate two of the three staff positions in her paleontological division because she couldn't find the $200,000 or so in salaries and benefits for those two positions....

Look around the park system and you quickly can spot staff reductions forced on park managers because the dollars supposedly don't exist. At Acadia National Park there are 20 vacancies on the 100-person staff. At Blue Ridge Parkway there are 45 or more vacancies. At Gettsyburg National Military Park more than two dozen full-time employees have been let go the past two decades due to insufficient funding. Canyonlands National Park did away with a deputy superintendent's position when the incumbent retired to save $122,000. Rocky Mountain National Park filled a deputy superintendent's job with a division chief, and then left that position vacant to make ends meet.

Does that count as starving Peter to pay Cheney's home state buddies? It's enough to make one wonder if Halliburton isn't invested in the Wyoming tourist business.

The National Parks Conservation Association has filed federal suit on the whole snowmobiles in the Park issue, and as part of the case, requested the documents relating to the rule-making for the Sylvan Pass decision. Not surprisingly, when the 40,000-page record was released hundreds of documents, including the faxes from Yellowstone to the White House, were withheld. Executive privilege, don't you know. Whether it's over the outing of a covert CIA operative, the railroading of a political foe, the rampant politicization of the justice department, illegal spying on Americans, or just a ridiculous and blatant waste of taxpayer dollars in Wyoming, this administration holds itself above accountability.

Crossposted from New West.

The House is not in session today. It returns for a pro forma session on Monday, and for votes on Tuesday.

In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

Convenes: 9:00am

Proceed to the consideration of the House Message with respect to H.R.3221, Housing Reform.

11:00am roll call vote on the motion to concur with respect to the Housing Reform bill.

Upon disposition of Housing Reform, immediately proceed to cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S.3186, LIHEAP [Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program].

The Senate is in session this weekend because the Republicans are insane obstructionists. That's just the way it is. That doesn't stop them from making equally insane claims about who's at fault, of course. But let's face it, the only reason you end up in a weekend session is because someone's not allowing work to go forward during the week, and with 120+ cloture motions filed during the 110th Congress, and an entire package of bills headed to the floor next week comprised solely of legislation blocked by Crossword Tommy Coburn (who made a heart-related trip to the hospital the other day), it's not hard to see where the problem lies. (Hint: Republicans.)

The Energy Speculation bill (S.3268) had to be set aside yesterday after a failed cloture vote, so today we'll see them finish up the housing bill (which is a trip through the sausage factory if I've ever seen one -- we'll have to take a look back at it shortly), and LIHEAP rarely presents much difficulty.

One other reminder for those interested: taking a look back at the Senate calendar is often more revealing about what the Senate has done than is looking forward at what's to come. That's because the nature of procedure in the Senate is such that it's often difficult to predict with any certainty whether they'll get to some particular vote or not. So every once in a while, take a look at the notes for the past few days on the calendar. You'll get a much fuller picture of what they do with their time than you can get by looking forward.

When members of Energize America panel went on stage with Gov. Bill Richardson at Las Vegas two years ago, we brought with us an ambitious twenty point plan to revise America's energy policy. Swinging for the fences, we called for policies that would create two million new "green collar" jobs and increase conservation. We also called for moves as radical as:

• 25% of Electrical Production from Renewables
• Reduce Greenhouse Gases by 50%
• Increase average fuel economy to 33mpg

And all of this was supposed to happen by the astonishing date of 2020.  

It seemed like a solid, even aggressive, plan at the time. It certainly asked for more to be done than most other proposals on the table. In particular, that 25% of electrical production from renewables within fourteen years seemed like a lofty goal.

That was then.  With the recent challenge set out by Vice President Gore, many things about that 2006 plan suddenly seem timid.  Gore's proposal would have us power 100% of electrical grid from carbon neutral sources by 2018.  Many voices have already been raised in support of Gore's plan, but predictably the defenders of the status quo are legion. It's funny how some of the same voices who are quick to point to the transition from whale oil to petroleum as a sign that technology will always be there to save us, are now screaming "not yet!"

Let's get this straight from the start.  There's no question that Gore's plan is possible.

But the biggest advance of Gore's plan might be more psychological than physical.  By setting such a lofty and laudable target, Gore draws both the screams of the naysayers and the minds of the general public in a way that a more timid plan would never achieve.  The result is exactly what the first paragraphs of this post already show -- to make plans that previously seemed at the cutting edge, look like the dull side of the knife.  In one speech, Al Gore has pushed the Overton Window of energy policy to the wall.  Everything that's proposed now will be measured not against half-measures, but against that 100% goalpost at the end of the field.

That change is important, and it's made even more important because the GOP, after decades of giving tax breaks to oil companies "for exploration" are determined to blame Democrats for high gas prices. You know, because oil companies somehow couldn't do any exploration.

For Energize America, the combination means that we can (gleefully, joyfully) throw away some of those goals set in 2006. In their place we need steps that recognize both the new space that Gore's plan provides, and the constraints that still need to be shifted. Some new proposals were already presented at Netroots Nation for the rest we're going to need the kind of passion and involvement from our fellow Kossacks that created Energize America in the first place.  

For candidates this fall, there is no way they can be less than fully engaged in this fight. 2008 is going to be a campaign that focuses on the economy, but in 2008 the economy is all about energy.

It's Saturday. In July. Go outside.

Charles Blow: mainstream thinking is all the rage. With graphic. Sounds like us, too.

Bob Herbert: Don't know Obama? The guy you really don't know is McCain.

If the McCain gaffes seem endless, so do the tales about his angry, profanity-laced eruptions. Senator Thad Cochran, a Mississippi Republican, said of Mr. McCain: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine."

Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, told Newsweek in 2000: "I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger."

Robert Novak: Romney's useful to McCain. Private polls running him as VP vs. Hannibal Lecter for Obama show McCain taking Michigan. With any other candidate including Mother Theresa, McCain loses.

Noam Scheiber: Romney? Hahahaha!

Richard Reeves: I don't know if Obama is the future. He doesn't know, either. But Europe thinks he is.

Robert Schleschinger: You kids are too hasty, making snap judgments about things like young Obama's Berlin speech. Ask me in 100 years and I'll tell you how he did. Don't worry. I'll still be here writing for US News. Signed: Treebeard the Ent