Andrew Sullivan makes an excellent point.

In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of "long-time standing" that victims of Bush's torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely "enhanced interrogation."

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

Crazy, huh?

So over at the post announcing the launch of my book, I saw a couple of people freaking out -- freaking out!!!! -- that McCain has the lead in some national polls.

So I sauntered over to Pollster.com to see what all the hoopla was about, and clicked through to their national polls page.  Then I rolled my eyes when I saw that the poll causing such aneurysms was ....

A Zogby poll.

Some people are frackin' hopeless. Really. At the same time, a new Q-poll has Obama up five, Gallup has him up three (after being tied a couple of days ago), Ras has him up two, as does Bloomberg/Times.

Look, the race is tightening at the national level, but it's much less tight when you look at the state-by-state numbers that, you know, actually decide the presidency. So while it's not exactly a cakewalk, freaking out over single polls from shitty, discredited pollsters like Zogby is pretty pathetic.

We've got the veep announcements and the conventions to get through, and then the race will start in earnest. Be zen. Freaking out over crappy pollsters is just lame. Keep your eye on the composite -- Obama still leads that by 1.4 percent -- and maintain perspective -- McCain has never crossed the 45 percent threshold while Obama bobs between 45 and 50.

I'll be officially worried when McCain shows the ability to break that barrier of support. If he suddenly starts hovering in the upper 40s, then we might have trouble. But ultimately, this is a state-by-state battle. And in the electoral college fight, Obama still has a solid lead -- without even taking into account the ground machine Obama is building (pollsters aren't).

What better way to mark the launch of Taking on the System than this great review by Al Giordano?

Kos dedicates Taking on the System to his wife and kids and also “for Saul Alinsky... The tactics may change, but the soul of the radical endures.”

The work also begins with an Alinsky quotation: “Conflict is the essential core of a free and open society.”

The book, purposefully and transparently, is a 21st century update of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971, Random House). Where Alinsky summarized community organizing techniques in phrases quick enough to fit on a bumpersticker (“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules,” and, “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon”), so does Moulitsas (“Bypass the gatekeepers,” “Raise an army,” “Target your villain,” “Craft your hero,” etcetera).

Moulitsas’ distaste for those he calls “gatekeepers” is what got him into the battle:

“I started the site for a simple reason – I felt ill-served by the undemocratic gatekeeping mentality so prevalent in our society. And, at that time, we seemed to be on an inexorable march toward war with no avenue for dissent. There was an assumption by the powers that be that the rest of the citizen body couldn’t think for ourselves. That we needed self-appointed and so-called experts to tell us what to think, what to do, and what we should – or should not – know. For far too long, these gatekeepers controlled the national conversation.”

Kos expands his anti-gatekeeper view of politics to other key sectors of society: the media, the music industry, and Hollywood among them. Don’t presume that this is a book about Democratic Party politics: It is only marginally so. It’s about organizing in any and every field where creative individuals and communities must learn to bypass or to crush the self-appointed wardens (what, a dozen years ago, when confronting the problem in my own profession of journalism, I called “the middlemen”) [...]

There are a couple of things I'm glad Al focused on -- 1) this isn't a book about blogging. It's a book about organizing for change. And 2) this isn't necessarily a book about politics. Sure, the majority of my examples come from the political realm, but I also use non-political examples to make clear that the lessons to be learned are universal. So while my day-to-day writing may be focused on electoral matters, I took advantage of the book format to move beyond that niche. The netroots doesn't have a monopoly

Al's bottom line?

This is the most coherent guide to political organizing – on or off the Internet – penned in a generation.

That is a truly humbling sentence coming from a long-time activist like Al, and one who has previously wrestled with these issues. As I've said before, I am really proud of this book, and I'm glad people are finding it so useful. And not just my (friendly) colleagues in the movement, but non-interested outsiders as well.

Via MyDD, Biden announces it himself:

Hey guys, I'm not the guy. See ya.

He and Richardson can now fight over secretary of state.

So who's left? Assuming slotted speakers at the DNC are not the Veep, then Kaine is out. He's speaking Thursday night before Gore and Obama. Kerry is speaking Wednesday.

Who's that leave? Daschle, Sebelius, and "dark horse".

Of course, slotted speakers can always be rescheduled...

I'll never understand why this took so damn long.

Just in time for the closing rush of the presidential election, MSNBC is shaking up its prime-time programming lineup, removing the long-time host –- and one-time general manager of the network — Dan Abrams from his 9 p.m. program and replacing him with Rachel Maddow, who has emerged as a favored political commentator for the all-news cable channel.

The moves, which were confirmed by MSNBC executives Tuesday, are expected to be finalized by Wednesday, with Mr. Abrams’s last program on Thursday. After MSNBC’s extensive coverage of the two political conventions during the next two weeks, Ms. Maddow will begin her program on Sept. 8.

Her show will follow Olbermann's, and a HUGE congratulations to one of the smartest voices on cable land. The Olbermann-Maddow 1-2 punch will be potent. Now, if we could get a decent lead-in for Olbermann, we'd have a serious block of programming on our hands.

Rasmussen. 8/14. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (7/9 results)

Landrieu has been up on the air the last several weeks, pounding the crap out of Kennedy, and the results are pretty obvious. Remember, this is the GOP's only chance to pick up a Senate seat this year. And their one and only chance is currently a 16-point deficit. Yup, it's one of those years for those guys.

I mean, this is where this race ranks, per Rasmussen's latest polling:

Rasmussen hasn't polled the Idaho or Oklahoma Senate races, or we probably would've seen both those states tighter than Louisiana. But per Rasmussen polling alone, there are 13 Senate races tighter than the Louisiana one. (South Dakota, their other supposed target, puts Republicans at a 25-point disadvantage against Democratic incumbent Tim Johnson.)

• Bill Donahue has quite the racket -- he creates an organization with the name "Catholic" on it without any sanction from the Vatican, then he claims to speak for all Catholics. And the media gives him attention! But sometimes, he overextends himself.
• Okay, I admit it. I had to read this twice before I got the joke. And then, I laughed and laughed and laughed.
• AK-Sen: Ted Stevens' new defense: he's above the law. I wonder how a judge will treat that claim.
• Everyone has veep scoops! Too bad none of the names match. We've got Kaine, Biden, Sebelius, Reed, Dodd and Daschle.
• Gore will speak Thursday at the convention, at Invesco Field.
• What? You mean he doesn't play Dungeons and Dragons?
• Whatever happened to the party of personal responsibility? With conservatives, it's always someone else's fault.
• Amazon versus traditional book sellers. Writing a book gives you a peek into this industry, and it's a crazy, crazy one. More here. And how about this for being f'd up?

  One smart publisher seems to have devised a way of easing the pain for the millionaire bestseller writer. They have posted an advert on the listing site, Craig's List, inviting a team of part-time workers to fake the signatures and get paid in cash for the privilege.

  The advert says it is looking for 14 people who can do a blitz of false autograph signing on behalf of two unnamed co-authors of a newly released, and equally anonymous, book. "You will need to be able to copy the look and style of both author's signatures," it says.

• So is McCain picking Portman as his veep?

  If it’s true that the venue for this announcement will be Ohio, that in and of itself could be telling. Former Ohio Rep. Rob Portman has often been mentioned in conjunction with McCain’s short list and he would, perhaps, make Ohio a little more competitive for McCain than it’s already going to be. Portman also represented Ohio’s second congressional district — the second most Republican district in Ohio — which is not that far from Dayton. Moreover, the fact that we received the news about McCain’s announcement from the chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party rather than the Montgomery County Republican Party is very telling; Dayton is in Montgomery County, but Rob Portman is in Hamilton County.

  McCain is hoping to steal some of Obama's convention-related glow with his veep announcement a week from Friday. If he picks a no-name like Portman, that strategy won't be half as effective. I'm certainly rooting for Portman, Bush's choice for McCain's veep:

  Choosing Portman will mean that John McCain has accepted that he is running for President Bush’s third term. Robert Novak reported in February that Portman’s name was floated as running mate material by the Bush political team, effectively making him Bush’s choice of running mate. Portman is irrevocably tied to President Bush’s massive deficit and to the fiasco that has been "free trade" under the Bush administration. A look at Portman’s On the Issues profile demonstrates that he has been in lockstep not merely with the Republican Party in general, but with the Bush administration specifically. (See, for example, his positions on illegal immigration, out of step with most Republicans but perfectly in sync with Bush).

• Cafferty (CNN) on McCain:

  He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens' faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.

  I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.

  (DemFromCT)

• Jonathan Cohn at TNR writes about the Democratic platform on health care... and its implications for an Obama Presidency.

  Most striking of all, perhaps, is the sheer amount of attention--and apparent priority--health care gets in the platform. Health care is the first policy issue the document takes up in depth. No other platform in recent memory dealt with health care so prominently--or in such detail. Even in 1992, the last
  year in which a Democratic nominee seriously proposed universal coverage, the platform relegated health care to lesser status: It appeared ninth in a long list of measures to improve economic security. Priorities like deficit reduction, public investment, and agriculture all came before it.

  (DemFromCT)

A couple of reviews today.

Jonathan Singer:

In the 288 highly readable and very engaging pages of Taking on the System, which is released tomorrow, Markos lays out his eight rules for achieving progressive change within today's digital world. Far from just being a book for a bloggers, about bloggers, by a blogger, this is a book that is relevant far beyond the Netroots, or even the expressly political realm. It is a book that folks who don't spend hours a day on sites like MyDD or Talking Points Memo or Daily Kos can read, understand and thoroughly enjoy. Markos goes to great lengths to relate developments within society -- for instance the new open source ways in which new albums are reaching consumers, overturning some of the notions of unchecked and uncheckable powers of the gatekeepers in the music industry -- to changes within the political system that likewise have the capacity to make the country more democratic.

And then there's pastordan, who originally decided he hated the book before realizing that, well, maybe it wasn't a total mess of a disaster of a calamity.

I've had all of these concerns kicking around in my head over the past week or two as I tried to figure out how to write a critical but basically polite review. Markos has been a very ally, and Taking On The System isn't a bad book.

It wasn't until Rod Parsley's shop went after me that I really got it, though. Because the moment I tried to figure out how to respond to his bullying, I reached for Taking On The System to help me devise a strategy.

That's when the lightbulb went on. Markos didn't write a book on political science; he wrote a damn cookbook. And you don't look to a cookbook for theory. You look to it for recipes.

Taking On The System provides exactly that: recipes for winning political strategies. To push the metaphor just a little too far, the stories Markos sprinkles throughout the book are like illustrations of the many savory - and some sour - tastes to be created in his virtual kitchen.

Book is officially out tomorrow. Exciting!

Update: A reminder for Bay Area readers:

Netroots Nation San Francisco
Join us to celebrate the release of Markos Moulitsas' new book:
Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 7–9 P.M.
HOUSE OF SHIELDS
39 NEW MONTGOMERY STREET
SAN FRANCISCO

Liberal eats+drinks. Stimulating conversation. Progressive camaraderie.

TICKETS
$40 general, $125 host committee*
RSVP at nnsf08.eventbrite.com

Represented by Adam B, myself, Matt Stoller and Duncan Black (aka "Baby Blue Cherub"), the group of us fought (alongside some allies on the Right) to preserve our independence as a medium from federal regulators and campaign finance "reformers" who tried to stifle our free speech.

One of our arguments was that political opponents would file frivolous complaints against websites in order to try and shut them down. While there's nothing that can be done about frivolous complaints, the fact that they're getting shot down so quickly gives less incentive for similar complaints.

The agency said last week it dismissed a complaint by a Hillary Clinton supporter alleging that a pro-Barack Obama blog was actually "a direct arm" of the Obama campaign, and therefore subject to campaign finance restrictions.

In its ruling, the FEC reiterated that whatever costs are incurred by running a political blog need not be disclosed as a campaign contribution. "Political blogging is exactly the type of Internet activity that the Commission exempted from the definition of 'contribution' and 'expenditure,'" the FEC stated.

The complaint was brought last October by Clinton supporter Kirk Tofte, who alleged that the blog Iowa True Blue, operated by former Iowa Democratic Party chairman Gordon Fischer, had coordinated with Obama's campaign. Tofte alleged that Fischer endorsed Obama in September, after which he began posting critical items about Clinton.

"Gordon Fischer's Web site has ceased being just another political blog," Tofte wrote in the complaint. "Since 9/24/07 it has been one hundred percent negative against Hillary Clinton."

The FEC rejected the contention that Fischer had coordinated efforts with Obama. But the agency also held that even had he done so, it would not have triggered campaign finance restrictions.

"Any coordination would have been permissible ... because the activity was specifically exempted from the definition of 'public communication,'" the FEC stated.

The author of this piece at Online Media Daily adds this line:

Still, the new rules have left room for argument.

Actually, the new rules are so crystal clear, there is zero room for argument. They are so clear, in fact, that the FEC shot down a similar complaint filed against Daily Kos last year in a shockingly fast one week from the date they received our filing (see our filing here (PDF), and the decision here (PDF)).

Anyone who knows how adjudication agencies work in the federal government can tell you that a one-week decision can only take place because there was absolutely no gray area in the new rules. They are about as crystal clear as is ever possible in the law. The fact that wankers file bullshit complaints doesn't point to uncertainty in the regulations, it just proves that wankers roam the earth.

Josh Marshall says:

On the other hand, wholly separate from the cosmetics and electioneering calculus, I think he'd be a good choice. On substance, maybe a really good choice. Most senators grasp of foreign policy is fairly thin -- and it tends to be heavily influenced by whatever lobbyists or power players are in their orbit. But Biden has a pretty deep knowledge of pretty much every big foreign policy question. And his ideas and judgment strike me as fundamentally sane.

Judgment? Biden voted for the Iraq war. But beyond that, even if we stipulate that he has foreign policy chops, how does that make him a good veep choice? It strikes me that any pick designed to cover up a "flaw" in Obama (i.e. "lack of foreign policy credentials") only accentuates those flaws. Make him secretary of state.

Sure, compared to Bayh and Kaine, Biden looks almost passable, but that's a low hurdle to pass. I'd rather not have to choose my poison. I'd rather have candy.

I'm already assuming disappointment on Obama's pick, so I won't belabor one bad choice or another. But I'd love to see him pick a fresh face in politics who reinforces Obama's message of change. Biden doesn't. Clinton doesn't. Bayh certainly doesn't. If holding out for Sebelius is too much to ask for, and if Obama is going to pick a guy that has been around for decades, then pick Kerry. Or even Daschle.

But the senator from MBNA? That choice would be exciting to perhaps two audiences -- the Broderites and the credit card industry.

Ivan Moore for the Anchorage Press and KTUU. 8/9-12. Likely voters. MoE 4.4% for overall sample, ~6.2 for primary samples. (7/30-31 results)

Stevens is surging back! Kidding. Begich has locked in support, while Stevens rebounds slightly (or maybe it's just float in the MoE).

In the House:

The good news is that Berkowitz is competitive with Parnell, but the really good news we're all hoping for is a Young victory in the GOP primary next Tuesday. Luckily, with the fragmented multi-candidate field, Young doesn't have to reach 50 percent. But with the massive MoE for these primary sub-samples, the GOP House primary is scary tight.

But the overall picture looks fantastic for Alaska Democrats, and with scandal depressing GOP fundraising in the state, the future is only slated to get better.

On the web:
Orange to Blue ActBlue page
Mark Begich for Senate
Ethan Berkowitz for Congress

Check out the numbers in Miami-Dade this year alone, from January to August:

January 1, 2008:

August 1, 2008 (PDF):

Of 85,532 new registered voters in the south Florida county, 56,175 were Democrats, only 9,313 were Republican. That is, 66 percent of new registration were Democratic, only 11 percent were Republican (the rest were third party and "no party affiliation").

Even more incredible is the shift in the Latino voter away from the GOP. Of the 45,881 new Hispanic voters, only 7,236, or 16 percent, registered Republican. 25,907, or 56 percent, registered Democratic. The ranks of registered African American has grown by over 10 percent. And sure, Republicans picked up 80 of them, but another 22,035 of them slotted in with the Democrats.

Want to see how far Democrats have come? Let's go back to January 2000:

In 2000, Democrats had a roughly 60,000-vote advantage in the region. Today, it's 146,000. In 2000, 57 percent of Latinos (mostly Cuban Americans) registered Republican, while only 24 percent registered Democratic. That gap has closed significantly today, to 48 percent Republican, 28 percent Democratic. I'd bet quite a bit that the swelling ranks of Latino "no party affiliation" are full of closeted Democrats too ashamed to tell their hard-core Republican parents of their true party sympathies.

This obviously has huge repercussions in several races this fall. At the top of the ticket, Obama will obviously benefit from the increased Democratic performance in the region, and his continued voter registration efforts in Miami-Dade are epic. The campaign plans to squeeze out every last Democrat possible. But lower on the ballot, these numbers have benefits to our three South Florida Democratic challengers in FL-18, FL-21, and FL-25. None of these districts reside entirely within the boundaries of Miami-Dade, but the bulk of their voters do live in that county. Let's see how those district have changed from January 2008 to August 2008 (PDF):

In FL-18, O2B Democrat Annette Taddeo is taking on Illeana Ros-Lehtinen in an R+4.3 district (Bush won it 54-46 in 2004):

In FL-21, Democrat Raul Martinez is taking on Lincoln Diaz-Balart in the toughest district of the lot -- R+6.2 (Bush won it 57-43 in 2004).

And in FL-25, O2B Democrat Joe Garcia is taking on Mario Diaz-Balart in a R+4.4 district (Bush won it 56-44 in 2004).

In a series of elections were every vote will count, the GOP's rapidly eroding voter registration numbers are a telling harbinger of what's to come. All three of these House elections will be close, as will Florida's presidential contest. Every voter registration gets us one step closer to victories that would be game-changing, truly epic.  

On the web:

Orange to Blue ActBlue page
Annette Taddeo for Congress
Raul Martinez for Congress
Joe Garcia for Congress

These were announced over the weekend, but here they are again for those of you who missed them:

These are rounded off numbers provided by the campaigns and party committees in press releases. We'll have the exact numbers once the reports are filed on Wednesday. Note that McCain has to essentially spend all his money by the end of this month, because he can't use primary funds once the general election starts, and for him, that's the first week of September.

• Christian Broadcast Network's David Brody:

  The fact that Barack Obama would show up at an Evangelical Church and take the tough questions is a credit to him. I mean he knew he was the visiting team so to speak yet he handled these questions like he has in the past: with relative ease [...]

  Overall the night was a success for Obama. He didn’t get put on the spot too much with the abortion questions. He handled the "Jesus" question about his faith with ease and maybe most important he looked comfortable up there.

  This wasn't a night for Obama to "win", but to remind people that he's not a Muslim Manchurian candidate, and in that regards, he had great success.

• Obama raised $7.8 million in San Francisco for his campaign and the DNC Sunday night in scaaaary San Francisco, where gay people live! Hopefully the trip reinforced some San Francisco values, like entrepreneurship, innovation, and tolerance. Those are good values.
• Poor Kristol, being forced to flack for a lying McCain campaign. Tom Tomorrow catches some creative rewriting:

  Kristol's latest column in the dead tree NY Times:

  NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported on "Meet the Press" that "the Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context. ... What they’re putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama."

  That’s pretty astonishing, since there seems to be absolutely no basis for the charge. But the fact that Obama’s people made this suggestion means they know McCain outperformed him.

  Now the online version of that column:

  NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported on "Meet the Press" that "the Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context. ... What they’re putting out privately is that McCain ... may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama."

  There’s no evidence that McCain had any such advantage. But the fact that Obama’s people made this suggestion means they know McCain outperformed him.

  So he essentially went from, "no way did McCain overhear" to "McCain didn't get any advantages from overhearing". Nice. The online version doesn't even catalog the changes from the print version, and the NY Times abets this dishonesty since in the era of Google, it's the online version that will endure.

• Was McCain's "cross in the dirt" story stolen/plagiarized from Alexander Solzhenitsyn? The evidence sure points in that direction.
• MN-Sen: Norm Coleman

  "If the convention wasn't in St. Paul, I wouldn't be at the convention."

• Poblano/Nate notes (with graphs!) that Clinton fared poorly against McCain while being attacked, but rose only after the RNC and Obama campaign ceased attacking her. Remember, in February of this year, the Obama campaign had pretty much won this thing, and stopped attacking Clinton to 1) focus its fire on McCain, and 2) stop needlessly antagonizing Clinton supporters. The RNC, for its own part, stopped attacking Clinton because it didn't want to further damager her. They wanted a competitive Democratic primary as long as possible.

  It's a point I made often at the time when people claimed Clinton was doing better against McCain than Obama -- it was easy for Clinton to look better when no one was dragging her name through the mud while Obama was getting the full Wright treatment.

  I have come around on Clinton. I think she would at least be a decent VP choice for Obama, and possibly an excellent choice.

  But let's not get into revisionist history. She remains a candidate with significant negatives and, when those negatives were being leaned upon, her electoral position was vulnerable.

  Personally, I still think those "significant negatives" would make her a terrible pick. Unfortunately, I'm resigned to Obama making a terrible pick with someone else anyway (Biden? Bayh? Kaine?), so if it's between one of those three terrible picks or Clinton, I throw my hands up in the air.

• Speaking of Nate, he has his latest list of "battleground states", ordered from tightest to widest gaps. These are pretty much the states Nate considers tossups: Ohio, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Montana, Michigan, New Hampshire, Missouri, Florida, New Mexico, Iowa, and North Carolina.
• Gallup sez:

  Regardless of the exact timing, the voter is going to get two vice presidential nominations, and two sequences of four nights of party conventions -- all within the time period from now through Sept. 4.

  A few days after that, say about the weekend of Sept. 5-7, we'll know where things stand as a baseline and starting point for the sure-to-be-hyperactive fall campaign. Meanwhile, our Gallup Poll Daily tracking will monitor the ups and downs of the candidates as each day's new events unfold.

  And not until then will we know where we are starting from. (DemFromCT)

• Obama helps downticket, downticket helps Obama.

  While Mr. Obama could prove beneficial to House candidates by increasing turnout in urban communities and raising enthusiasm among young voters in college towns, party officials believe an association with known Democratic candidates down the ticket could pay off for Mr. Obama among people who frequent Wal-Mart and passed up college to work.

  "It is a two-way street," said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "There are going to be many districts where the Obama campaign helps our candidates, but our candidates are going to bring out people and we want to be sure they vote for Obama as well."

  After success with the program in special Congressional elections this year, the party is putting more money into what strategists call early voter persuasion, getting a jump on previous years in their push to identify Democratic voters and nail down their allegiance by providing background information and other material. It is distinct from voter turnout drives that will begin closer to the election.

  Planning began last November, and the committee has already spent $9 million, as much as was invested in the entire previous campaign season. Seven staff members oversee the national operation, compared with one in the 2006 cycle. The Democrats hope to record at least 13 million personal contacts with voters in 50 House districts before they are through.

• ID-Sen: The first debate of the general election for Idaho Senate is tonight, making Idaho (and U-Stream) history by being the first debate broadcast live, online. It's also significant because Republican candidate Jim Risch, as usual, has refused to participate. But Democrat Larry LaRocco and Independent Rex Rammell will be there. You can watch, and ask your questions, making it an interactive, online forum. Watch it tonight at 7:30 MT (109:30 ET) at LaRocco for Senate. [mcjoan]

Doctors: Lawsuits help guarantee drug safety.

Top doctors who run one of the most influential U.S. medical journals are giving the U.S. Supreme Court some unsolicited legal advice about a major case.

Lawsuits can serve as "a vital deterrent" and protect consumers if drug companies do not disclose risks to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration before it approves medicines for use, the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine said in a friend-of-the-court brief. The FDA "is in no position" to guarantee drug safety, the brief said.

In essence, the drug companies are arguing that since the FDA approves their drugs, they are shielded from lawsuits. They want to distribute their products with impunity, even if they are proven to be harmful or dangerous to the public.

The journal's editor, Dr. Jeffrey M. [Drazen], said in an interview that he hoped arguments over legal distinctions would not obscure the reality that the FDA is overwhelmed trying to keep up with drug safety problems, which can range from rare but serious side effects, to shortcomings in manufacturing plants as far away as China.

"Even if the FDA is doing the best it can, it simply can't see the future clearly enough to pre-empt manufacturers from litigation," he said. "The (court) system represents one of the key defense mechanisms that individuals have if a manufacturer has not made the risks of a product clear to the public."

47 state attorney generals, of both parties, have also joined the New England Journal of Medicine in supporting the use of lawsuits to keep drug makers accountable. Makes sense -- attorney generals are tasked with protecting the public, and they need every tool at their disposal to successfully carry out their mission.

But then there's the Bush Administration. Guess who they are supporting in this case...

With Obama crushing McCain in fundraising, with the DCCC and DSCC absolutely destroying their GOP counterparts, the lone fundraising bright spot for Republicans has been the RNC. Well, now that Obama is helping direct contributions to the national party, that advantage is gone.

From an email press release on the July numbers:

This morning the DNC announced July fundraising numbers.  For the first time since October 2004, the DNC has outraised the RNC.   The strong fundraising numbers are a testament to Barack Obama's message of change and hope and his vision for America's future.
July 2008 Fundraising

Raised: $27.7 M
COH:   $28.5 M

NOTE: Totals include: DNC, Obama Victory Fund (DNC/Obama joint fund), and Democratic White House Victory Fund (Joint DNC, Obama and Hillary Fund)

The RNC reported $26 million in June, and still leads in cash in the bank, with $75 million. But if the DNC raised this much, expect monster numbers from Obama. McCain, for his part, raised just $27 million with $21 million in the bank. While that haul was a record for McCain, it was barely half what Obama raised in June -- $52 million. His July numbers should be released any day now.

The RNC also announced it had passed 1 million individual donors, while the McCain campaign claims 600,000. The Obama campaign has already blown by the 2 million mark.

Update: Obama's numbers for July are in--$51 million. (mcjoan)

So Barack recharged his batteries, spent some time with his foreign Hawaiian family in the exotic country of Hawai`i, and despite spending a whole week out of the country, his campaign didn't collapse.

When he left for vacation in his birth state a week ago, ahead of the convention season, the Illinois senator had a three-point edge over McCain in the Gallup Daily tracking poll.

By Thursday, as Obama packed his bags to fly back to the US mainland, his Gallup lead was still three points -- 46 percent to 43.

The moving average failed to budge despite a rhetorical onslaught by McCain on the crisis in Georgia, as the Republican's campaign scented an opportunity to hammer Obama on his perceived weak spot of foreign policy.

By the way, Obama has now travelled to 49 states. All that is left is the exotic country of Alaska. He visits the Final Frontier at his own peril. Cokie might have another aneurysm.

I'm impressed that Bush can say this sort of thing with a straight face.

"Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century," the president said. "Only Russia can decide whether it will now put itself back on the path of responsible nations or continue to pursue a policy that promises only confrontation and isolation.

Bush certainly knows about acting as an irresponsible nation, pursuing policies that promise only confrontation and isolation.

Boy, it sure would be nice to have our moral authority back...