There has been a lot of chatter the last 48 hours or so about Obama considering Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. The chatter practically exploded this afternoon with the report that the President-Elect had formally offered the job to her and she was considering the offer.

Most all of the discussion to date as to why Barack Obama might be so motivated has centered on the "Team of Rivals" aspect and the general cache of the Clinton name internationally and diplomatically.

Perhaps the best take in this regard was stated by Ian Welsh at FDL:

Clinton does offer one big advantage as Secretary of State: the Clinton name. The Clintons are loved overseas, and there is no one else in America (other than her husband, who will presumably be by her side in any case) who would demonstrate more clout than having Hilary Clinton arrive in your country. Likewise she already has relationships with many world leaders and doesn’t have to build up that trust from scratch. Clinton can hit the ground running, and assuming Obama makes it clear that he’s backing her, she can speak with more authority than perhaps anyone else could, on his behalf.

Indeed. But what strikes me is that, if Obama really has made the offer to Clinton, he may have in mind not just the obvious skills (and potential detriments) that Hillary Clinton could bring to the job, but also making a bold play for mid-east peace and specifically the Israeli/Palestinian component of it.

George Bush has never paid more than lip service to honest brokerage of real peace and rapprochement between Israel and the Palestinians. Even the supposedly vaunted "Roadmap" was nothing but rhetorical roadkill on delivery, and his efforts have gone downhill since then. Condi Rice has been useless at best on the issue, and Dick Cheney, well, enough said there.

But Bill Clinton came as close as anybody in recent memory, actually decades, to actually getting a deal done. Bill Clinton was actively engaged in trying to foster a "final settlement" to the I/P problem his entire presidency, but took a crippling hit when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. The initial promise of the Oslo Accords went unfulfilled, and the final settlement that had been contemplated, unrealized. President Clinton made one last push for the elusive "final settlement" right before leaving office with the Camp David Summit.

For a variety of reasons, most notably the last second reticence, after initial acquiescence, of Yassar Arafat if reports are to be believed, Camp David went to dust. Perhaps sand. The key here is that, to both sides of the equation, Clinton was seen as an "honest broker". The simple logistical fact is that there will be no I/P peace without the sincere and active participation by the United States Government via its Executive.

If Barack Obama is indeed going to make an early and strong play on the I/P issue, it is hard to imagine who could bring more cache and weight to the attempt than Hillary Clinton. And make no mistake about it, if Obama wants to truly make his "change" global, there is no bigger key than the Palestinian problem. So much really is predicated on it and flows from it. Want to really change the world? Man, is that the prime festering sore to start with. If there is any line of dominoes, that is the initiator.

Halfway through writing this piece, I came across an article from last Monday by Georgie Anne Geyer, that lays out the argument for Clinton on the potential I/P effort by Obama perfectly.

But missed in the avalanche is the fact that we face a moment of unique hope. Where? Strangely enough, in that ever "hopeless" morass of the Middle East. In fact, when you put all the dominant factors in the region together and look carefully at the intersections of interests, we might be on the brink of the best chance for a real Israeli-Palestinian peace since the Jimmy Carter administration.
…
Despite these very real factors, deep changes are occurring inside Israel itself. Little-reported, for some reason, were the outgoing words of former Likudnik Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, long of the Israeli hard right, when he went against all of his past and stated that Israel would eventually have to give up almost all the lands it conquered in 1967, including the Arab parts of Jerusalem.

Also this fall, the Israeli government announced it would cut off funding for illegal settlement outposts and crack down on extremist squatters (thus acknowledging Israel’s complicity in their formation), after its domestic security service director, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin, told a cabinet meeting that he is "very concerned" that Jewish extremists were going to attempt to assassinate moderate Israeli leaders.

Indeed, outgoing Prime Minister Olmert also warned at the meeting, showing the degree of concern that is growing even among former members of the anti-peace right: "There is a group, that is not small, of wild people who behave in a way that threatens proper law and governance. … This is unacceptable and we cannot countenance it."

At the same time, profound changes are taking place within Israel. The fate of Jerusalem, one of the world’s most exquisite cities — and the historic site of the birth and development of the three great religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam — lies in careless hands. Not a single Israeli of national stature has stepped forward to run for mayor of the city, a post that always offered immense stature. The formerly glimmering Near Eastern capital is now the poorest town in Israel, with a third of families and more than half of the children living below the official poverty line.

Meron Benvenisti, the respected former deputy mayor and a great historian of the city, was quoted recently as saying, "This city is a conundrum without a solution."

As to the Palestinians, it is surely true that one cannot expect great and mature moves from them — but what has been lost in most of the U.S.-Israeli discussions is that that is essentially unimportant. The United States and Israel are the dominant players in this unfortunate game. They can still do what both have refused to do for at least the last eight years, which is to set up a just and reasonable peace process. If it is imposed and fairly carried through by the two major players, there is every reason to believe that the Palestinians will follow, if only because they would have to."

Now the fascinating thing here is that Geyer had the wrong Clinton; she was suggesting naming Bill Clinton as American Middle East envoy.

I think Barack Obama may be a step ahead of Georgie Anne Geyer, and the rest of us too. Obama may be thinking bigger and bolder than any of us have given him credit for. A real, and audacious, move on "final settlement" of the I/P problem may be up his sleeve, and that may just be a good chunk of his motive in considering Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State; and, if that is the case, Clinton starts to make a whole lot of sense.

UPDATE: One more point I intended to put in the post, but neglected to include before I posted, is the roster of calls that Vice-President Elect Joe Biden made Monday and Tuesday of this week (h/t Marcy). Take a look at the list:

· Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni
· Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak
· Israeli Likud Leader Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu
· Polish President Lech Kaczynski
· British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
· Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair
· Afghan President Hamid Karzai
· King Abdullah of Jordan

Only Karzai and Kaczynski are not directly related to the I/P issue; the former, Karzai, has an abiding interest in it, and the latter, Kaczynski, was a call Biden made to straighten out some confusion on missile defense that exists from Bush/Cheney belligerence on the issue. If one is thinking the incoming Obama Administration has an I/P peace push up its sleeve, this certainly supports the thought.

One of the key grounds for appeal in the Don Siegelman case is that there was evidence of juror misconduct–two jurors plotting how to get a conviction–that the prosecution had the US postal inspectors investigate even while insisting any investigation would taint the jury process.

At issue is a series of e-mails that arose in 2006 suggesting that two jurors had outside influence as they decided Siegelman’s bribery conviction. After he was found guilty, Siegelman sought a new trial over the e-mails, printed copies of which had been mailed to defense attorneys.

U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller denied the motion for a new trial, ruling that the allegations were unsubstantiated. Siegelman has cited the issue as a central point in his ongoing appeal.

Two weeks ago, the head of the Justice Department’s appellate division, Patty Merkamp Stemler, informed Siegelman’s attorneys that the department had discovered undisclosed information about the controversy as attorneys prepared for the appeal. In a July 8 letter, Stemler wrote that while Siegelman’s mistrial proceedings were pending, acting U.S. Attorney Louis Franklin asked U.S. postal inspectors to try to determine who sent the e-mails through the mail.

U.S. Marshals later informed Fuller that the inspectors had concluded the e-mails were fakes. They determined, for example, that one e-mail didn’t match up with the corresponding juror’s e-mail account.

But the information produced for prosecutors and given to the judge was never passed along to Siegelman’s attorneys for cross-examination. [my emphasis]

A letter John Conyers just sent to Michael Mukasey reveals that the prosecution team allegedly knew that one of these jurors was sending flirty messages to the prosecution team during the trial. In other words, when the prosecution team fought any investigation into improper juror conduct, they had reason to believe that there had been improper contact between jurors and the prosecution team.

Those are contacts, of course, that would remain hidden in any investigation the US postal inspectors would do.

The Whistleblower

Conyers explains that Tamarah Grimes, a member of the Siegelman prosecution team, turned over emails reflecting a conversation about juror contacts with the prosecution team.

This email chain is dated June 15, 2006–the day the Siegelman/Scrushy case was submitted to the jury for its decision. The key email in the chain was written by Ms. Patricia Watson, 

[snip]

In this email, Ms. Watson writes: "I just saw Keith in the hall. The jurors kept sending out messages through the marshalls. A couple of them wanted to know if he was married." Apparently, the "Keith" referenced in this email is FBI Special Agent Keith Baker, a member of the Siegelman prosecution team who reportedly sat at or near the prosecution’s counsel table throughout the trial. Ms. Grimes responded to this email, writing "Yeah, that’s what Vallie said. He said one girl was a gymnast and they called her ‘Flipper,’ because she apparently did back flips to entertain the jurors. Flipper was very interested in Keith.

Now, Conyers goes on to talk about how inappropriate the contact itself was. But to me, it raises much more important questions about why Larry Franklin–the prosecutor in the case–made such an effort to shunt off the investigation into improper conduct of jurors to a secret investigation conducted by the US postal inspectors. Apparently, at least three members of the prosecution team knew that one of the jurors alleged to have been plotting a Siegelman conviction had reached out to contact prosecutors. According to Grimes’ whistleblower complaint, Franklin said of this juror that another member of the prosecution team, "talked to her. She is just scared and afraid she is going to get in trouble." And allegedly knowing this about the juror–knowing that she was "afraid she [was] going to get in trouble," Franklin secretly pursued an investigation not into her potential misconduct itself, but into who sent emails bearing her name.

DOJ’s Crappy Investigation of the Allegations

And then there’s the question of what the DOJ did after the Office of Special Counsel conducted an investigation into them. 

 …we have recently learned that this issue and others raised by Ms. Grimes was referred by the Office of Special Counsel to your office for evaluation. In response, an initial report has been prepared by two Assistant United States Attorneys which essentially concludes that, despite the plain statement to the contrary in this email chain, no messages were actually sent by any members of the jury to the prosecution through the US Marshals.

[snip]

We are troubled, however, that the investigators appear to have reached this conclusion without interviewing the US Marshals who supervised the Siegelman jury and who are described in the email as having been the conduit for jury messages to the prosecution. Nor do the investigators appear to have interviewed any member of the jury.

In other words, after the prosecutor in the case had launched a secret investigation into the allegations guaranteed to shield any actual misconduct, DOJ conducted a second investigation, once again designed to shield any misconduct. It appears that no one has yet interviewed "Flipper" about all the things she was alleged to have done during the prosecution (she was interviewed by the US Postal Inspectors, but presumably not about these contacts). 

Conyers goes on to describes the proof that Leura Canary–who purportedly recused from the case–was receiving campaign emails from Siegelman and forwarding them onto the prosecution team with strategy suggestions on how to use them against him–suggestions they used.

The real message Conyers appears to be sending, though, is that he holds the Mukasey DOJ directly responsible for ignoring all whistleblower evidence. In a footnote to this statement appearing in his final paragraph…

We appreciate Ms. Grimes providing this information, which she apparently has previously presented to several executive branch offices.

…He cites 5 USC 2302(b)(8)(A)(I)&(ii):

Any employee who has the authority to take, direct others to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action, shall not, with respect to such authority–take or failr to take … a personnel action with respect to any employee … because of any disclosure of information … which the employee … reasonably believes evidences a violation of any law…

For some reason, Conyers suggests, Mukasey’s own DOJ seems to be sitting on an awful lot of damning information from Tamarah Grimes.

Some of you have undoubtedly already seen news that an eight year old boy in Arizona is suspected of killing his father and another man renting a room in their home last Wednesday, November 5, 2008.

By all accounts, he was a good boy. No problems in school. No disruptions in his religious education classes at St. Johns Catholic Church, where he was to mark his First Communion this year.

So the police and neighbors in the 8-year-old’s small eastern Arizona community are at a loss to explain why he would have used a .22-caliber rifle to kill his father and another man at their home.

"That child, I don’t think he knows what he did, and it was brutal," said the family priest, the Very Reverend John Paul Sauter.

The police said the boy killed his father, Vincent Romero, 29, and another man, Timothy Romans, 39, on Wednesday. The men worked together, and Romans had been renting a room at the house, prosecutors said.

While not unheard of in criminal justice, this type of homicide by children, especially those under age 14, is pretty rare. Which makes the following the real story in this case.

The boy, who faces two counts of premeditated murder, did not act on the spur of the moment, St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick said … He just doesn’t decide one day that he’s going to shoot his father and shoot his father’s friend for no reason. Something led up to this." … On Friday, a judge ordered a psychological evaluation of the boy. Under Arizona law, charges can be filed against anyone 8 or older.
…
In a sign of the emotional and legal complexities of the case, the police are pushing to have the boy tried as an adult even as they investigate possible abuse, Melnick said. If convicted as a minor, the boy could be sent to juvenile detention until he turns 18.

The reason that there exists in US criminal justice a bifurcated system with minors handled in the juvenile system and adults in the traditional system is the time honored belief that minors do not possess the brain development, both physical and psychological, to allow them to form the requisite intent and properly understand the consequences of their actions. Thus minors charged with crimes, even serious and violent felonies, have traditionally been tried and processed as juveniles, which provides the ability to incarcerate and rehabilitate the defendant up until they reach the age of majority, 18 years old.

Part of the rationale is moral, we just don’t as a society want to see ourselves as treating children with the harshness of the full criminal justice system and we want to believe that, even bad juvenile malefactors can be rehabilitated. And part of the rationale is practical. Conviction and sentencing as an adult also means incarceration in prisons and jails designed and run for not particularly savory hardened and violent adults; these are no place for children. It would be unconscionable to put them in the general population, and the segregated population is most often even worse, and where the sex offenders usually are. Where juveniles under the age of 14-16 are sentenced to big boys prison, there is standardly set up a completely separate structure and process for them; an incredibly expensive and inefficient use of scarce corrections funding. There are no available rehabilitation programs. Basically, if the minor survives at all, you have done nothing but create a hardened, institutionalized, indoctrinated career criminal, and a very violent one at that.

The county attorney, who is not mentioned in the linked article, nor others I looked at, but who makes the charging decisions on felonies in their jurisdiction, is the one who has decided not only to charge this 8 year old kid, but, most significantly, to charge him as an adult. The foregoing concerns are exactly why the eight year old Romero boy in St. Johns Arizona almost certainly should not be tried as an adult. I have some experience with the Apache County County Attorney, Chris Candelaria, that has jurisdiction of the St. Johns area of Arizona. He is a good and decent chap, but this decision does not appear sound.

There is a group known as "The 2009 Criminal Justice Transition Coalition" that has promulgated a comprehensive set of reform proposals for the American criminal justice system designed as a template for the new Obama Administration. It is, as said, quite comprehensive, and is also, on the whole, quite good. The report in entitled Smart on Crime: Recommendations for the Next Administration and Congress and is worth some time reading and evaluating by one and all.

One thing the transition proposal/report does not specifically address is the increasingly alarming frequency with which state prosecutors are charging and convicting juveniles, even very young ones, as full adults. I would suggest that maybe this is a topic that should be added to the mix.

No silly, not those Raiders, Al Davis died years ago, he just forgot to advise his still ambulatory carcass. I’m talking about the Texas Tech Red Raiders baby! Yes, Mrs. Randiego’s team is playing another huge game today, this week against the Oklahoma State Cowboys. OSU is the best team in Oklahoma according to Texas Radio (the one with the big beat).

Tech will get its first test as a top team with the Cowboys not far behind in statistics ad personnel. The Cowboys and Red Raiders rank in the top 10 nationally in total offense and scoring. They are fighting not only for a share of the lead in the Big 12 South, but also for the opportunity to stay alive in the BCS national championship picture. What may be the most interesting match-up is Tech’s No. 10 rushing defense against the Cowboys’ No. 5 rushing offense. Tech’s defensive line was by far the winning factor in controlling not only Colt McCoy — four sacks, one interception, one fumble — but also down in the trenches. Tech has allowed 349 yards per game this season and gave up less than 400 against Texas. The difference in the Longhorns and Cowboys are three talented running backs in Kendall Hunter (1,220 rushing yards) and Keith Totson (565 rushing yards). Add in quarterback Zac Robinson and the ability to run or throw, and suddenly a play-action pass to receiver Dez Bryant can turn the whole game around in a heartbeat. Robinson and Bryant have connected 60 times for 1,054 yards and 15 touchdowns this season. Another one could come down to the wire in Lubbock.

FAST FACTS: Cowboys — This is the third game in five weeks against a top 5 opponent on the road … OSU is trying to win two games in one season against top 10 opponents for the first time since 1976 … OSU hasn’t won in Lubbock since 1944. Red Raiders — Own the nation’s longest winning streak at 11 games, dating back to last season … Raiders have won eight of the last 11 in the series … Tech is 9-0 for the first time in 70 years.

The other huge game is Alabama and Liar Liar Nick Saban returning to a Saban-hate filled Baton Rouge and it’s LSU Cats. This could be ugly. The Tide can clinch the SEC West Championship with a win Saturday afternoon against LSU, and would appear to have clear sailing to a championship game against Florida in Atlanta. I don’t think so; am picking LSU to pull off the upset.

Elsewhere around the NCAA, it is not the most fascinating week. Utah already beat TCU in a curiously important, but sloppy game. That leaves Utah and Boise State left alive in the all important "mid-major that’s gonna get screwed by the BCS" category. Cal at USC is a big game, but won’t be a good one. The Trojans will wax the Bears badly. How the hell USC is rated #7 in BCS behind some of those other one loss teams is baffling. They did this to USC the last two years in a row at the end of the season, and, at least last year, they were probably the best team in the country and absolutely should have been playing in the title game instead of that pathetic Ohio State excuse. Who didn’t see that shellacking coming in the finale. Nobody; everyone knew, but there it was. Go figure.

In the National Favre League, there are actually, as opposed to the NCAA, several good matchups. Gosh bmaz, tell us about the mighty Bretts versus the Rams, you say. Okay, that is not the game of the week, but the Jets better watch out, the Rams show up to play at the damndest times. Steven Jackson is likely out though, so i will stick with the Favres at home.

The two best games look to be the Gents at Iggles and masaccio’s Titans at Da Bears. Both are wonderful matchups. Popular pundit wisdom seems to be that McNabb is going to rally the iggies over Eli. Yeah, I dunno about that. I think Good Eli comes to play and that the Giants are too consistent and solid for the Eagles, and the Philly fans get a little, um, you know, displeased. Again, go figure. And again, I am going to take the opponent of the Titans (they are not the Pats of Tom Brady and last year fer chrissakes, they gots to lose sooner or later). Plus it gives masaccio something to club me over the head with, and everybody enjoys that spectacle.

Other good games are the Bills at the Pats, I’ll take the Pats, the Cheeseheads at Vikings, where I’ll take the Pack, and the Colts at the Stillers. Don’t know about the last one; no clue. But I know this, Big Ben is hurting (although Byron Leftwich looked awesome last week) and Willie Parker looks to be doubtful again. Plus, the Colts just flat out need the win more and are starting to come together now that Bob Sanders is back. Colts pull out a narrow win, maybe by a Vinateri field goal. The Monday Night game is right here in Phoenix. 49ers are in town. This is just about as unfathomable a concept as is imaginable, but look for the Cards to whup the Niners and raise their record to 6-3. On a related note, look for the world to end.

Get to hootin n hollerin, a whoopin and a whompin. Trash it up!

There’s a detail in the NYT story on the Wasilla Wonder that explains something that confused me on election night.

As late as Tuesday night, a McCain adviser said, Ms. Palin was pushing to deliver her own speech just before Mr. McCain’s concession speech, even though vice-presidential nominees do not traditionally speak on election night. But Ms. Palin met up with Mr. McCain with text in hand. She was told no by Mark Salter, one of Mr. McCain’s closest advisers, and Steve Schmidt, Mr. McCain’s top strategist.

Around 10:30 on Tuesday night, Fox announced that McCain and Palin were going to speak shortly.

McCain. And Palin.

For a while, I thought maybe Palin spoke while the networks were showing the festival of joy in Grant Park. But then I realized that Fox had announced Palin would speak, but that she didn’t.

So not only did Palin show up before McCain with her text in hand. But someone told Fox news that she would get to speak as well as McCain. I guess it didn’t work out that way, huh?

The election is nigh 24 hours in the bank, and the rumor wires and scuttlebutt are exploding with discussion of the makeup of President-elect Barack Obama’s cabinet and staff to be. Attorney General is a critical post in any administration; but perhaps at no time in the history of the United States as important as at this moment.

The thankless task of recreating the once shining star that was the Department of Justice will take a special skill set from the person chosen to be the next AG. DOJ Main is a festering mess; stocked with Cheney/Bush political lackeys and consiglieri, unqualified and inexperienced Regent plants, and literal criminals that have aided and abetted the evisceration of our Constitution and commission of torture and other war crimes.

A department of expediency over honesty and integrity was grown by the Bushies. From DOJ Main down through the line level career prosecutors in the various District US Attorney Offices, credibility and trust have been felled. The once shining continuity of impartiality, justice and rule of law is in dysfunctional chaos.

Janet Napolitano is the right person, the best qualified and most suited, by far, to meet the daunting challenge ahead at Attorney General.

Napolitano is well versed and experienced with constitutional law and civil rights, having been mentored as the hand picked protege of one of the country’s great Constitutional scholars and authorities, John P. Frank, one of the two legal fathers of the Miranda decision. She has sizable long term experience not only as the Arizona Attorney General (a huge office), but also as chief executive of an entire state government as Arizona Governor. Of critical significance, she was the US Attorney for the District of Arizona for six years under President Clinton, prior to her terms in state office as Arizona’s AG and Governor.

The job ahead is going to, in addition to the legal skills, require someone with Federal experience and the established ability to manage a giant bureaucracy. Janet Napolitano has a very rare combination of background and experience to fit that bill. The attention to bureaucratic detail, not just in Washington DC, but in all of the 93 US Attorney district offices is going to have to be immense. Wholesale institutional change needs to be implemented, and malefactors rooted out.

Janet Napolitano has this ability in droves over any other candidate discussed for AG. She is spectacularly good at bureaucratic detail and getting big entities working as an efficient team. Janet has an incredibly feel good aura around her, and it is contagious to those working with and for her. She is a master team builder, both in terms of efficiency and competence as well as morale and attitude. Janet has already exhibited her turnaround skills in her transformation of the Arizona Executive branch, which was in shambles when she took over. These are exactly the skills that will demanded from the new AG.

As Sara commented:

Whoever takes the AG’s job will be faced quickly with dealing with a host of major fraud cases stemming from the economic melt-down. Congress itself will certainly be doing the hearings and pointing to potential targets. We’ve got one that is just emerging now in Minnesota — Hedge Fund Operator charged with Three Billion in Fraud, taking down a whole group of industries, including Sun Country Airlines which was forced into bankruptcy. Apparently cases like this are scattered everywhere. And yes, they will be handled by the USA for the most part, but many of these are international cases and Main Justice will have to engage. My own sense of what will return DoJ to health is a new focus on cases where large segments of the public have been harmed — properly preparing and winning some of these, and then with a new slate of personnel evolving a better culture. What’s hurt them has been fake cases — emphasis on voter fraud (which hardly exists) over emphasis on slightly potential over hyped terrorism cases, not having bright lines regarding politics and the policy of DoJ, and all those light weights from Regents University. I think Obama will be very sensitive to significant improvements at DoJ.

Janet Napolitano has tackled massive business fraud cases as Arizona AG, including the Arizona Baptist Foundation case, at the time one of the largest mass fraud cases in US history, which she personally shepherded through initial investigation and criminal prosecution. Napolitano has the guile, skill and determination to take on any entity and see that justice is administered, something to keep in mind in light of the economic collapse caused by financial and energy concerns.

Terrorism experience? Janet Napolitano has that in spades too. Janet, as US Attorney for the District of Arizona, was one of the leaders on the Oklahoma City Bombing Case, and shepherded the case against Michael Fortier, who was not only convicted, but was turned and made the critical witness against Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Napolitano is so strong in terrorism/security that she is also being considered for head of the Department of Homeland Security.

If there is a nationwide functioning nerve center of any Presidential administration, it is the justice system and Department of Justice, if for no other reason than the fact that the FBI and US Attorneys are everywhere, in every jurisdiction across the United States. Trust, competence, morale and efficiency must be restored in the heart of the nation’s justice system.

These institutions have historically propagated and renewed themselves from within, with each generation training and mentoring the next generation. That has been blown up under George Bush and his lackeys Ashcroft, Gonzales and Mukasey. There is now effectively a two generation gap missing and/or devoid of competence in the career ranks at DOJ. The good people, that were there before, either left in disgust or were marginalized out of relevance, and the successor generations are incompetents and Regent Law type plants. The very substrate we will need to turn around the Department of Justice is missing from it.

If it was a normal situation, a normal Presidential turnover, the situation would not be so critical. But things at DOJ are not normal. Just having someone that is good on the issues, or thinks like we do, or that we admire, is not nearly enough right now. It is going to take both that and the ability to institute it top to bottom in a huge bureaucracy, as well as the people skills to quietly inspire their subordinates to get it done. Just a popular name or a vision isn’t going to cut it; the complete package is required.

The other names that have been bandied about – Eric Holder, Sheldon Whitehouse, Artur Davis, Pat Fitzgerald, and others – all have either legal acumen or leadership acumen in differing amounts; but none have the vast amounts of both that Janet Napolitano does. Then you have to figure in her inherent ability to make people around her feel positive and motivated, even in dire circumstances.

Janet Napolitano is the complete package. President Obama, make her your Attorney General. It will be one of the smartest decisions you ever make.

George Allen race-mongers. And loses.

McCain’s campaign fear-mongers. And loses.

The vote plugs along all across the nation. My wife and I have cancelled out John and Cindy McCain’s votes, so we got that going for us. Take that Grumpy John.

I have talked to Marcy a couple of times and things are good where she was stationed. One of the calls was literally because she was bored, so there are certainly no shenanigans afoot. Turnout heavy there too, and she reports noticeably elevated levels of youth turnout.

That is what I am hearing from friends around the greater Phoenix valley as well. High turnout; elevated youth and minority turnout. You gotta love it. Win, lose or draw, seeing participatory democracy in action is awe inspiring. I honestly, I swear, can see in the eyes of every bit of the public i have encountered today an expression and look of hope and excitement. A look that has been largely absent since 9/11.

And that is what it, and today, is all about. The President, and whatever man holds that job, really has limited powers in many regards. Can sure screw things up royally, we have seen that power, but as far as the affirmative power to transform our society, that physical capability is fairly limited. But, put the right guy, at the right time, in the job; a guy that has the power to lead, to inspire, to motivate – well then you have something special. We, hopefully, are on the cusp of just that.

Barack Obama, irrespective of the policy specifics that we may each agree or disagree with, is a leader. He is a motivator. He brings hope. And there lies the real power; the power to get people moving and believing again. And that is what we need. The Republicans are right, America is exceptional when it is motivated and joined in the battle at hand. George Bush and the Republicans have sapped so much of that out of us at this point that we are in dire straits.

Today that changes. Today the switch is flipped. Get fired up! Get ready to go! Let’s rock and roll folks!

Obama Wins Dixville Notch!!!

Barack Obama – 15
John McCain – 6

Big upset, GOP always wins Dixville (except for Bartlett being Bartlett)

UPDATE FROM HOWIE: Dixville Notch, New Hampshire has 75 residents and 21 registered voters. They just voted at midnight– and the winner is… Barack Obama, a huge break with tradition for an overwhelmingly Republican bastion. The last Democrat to win there was Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Obama took 15 votes, McCain 6 and Nader 0. Jeanne Shaheen also won. And the other hamlet that votes at midnight, Hart’s Location, population 42, also gave Obama a win– 17-10.

McCain & Keating Bahama Boondoggle

Teddy at the Campaign Silo pointed out yesterday, citing a damning new article in The New Republic, that John McCain was almost certainly the source for a set of illegal leaks during the Keating Five investigation — leaks that, if proven, would have been cause for his expulsion from the United States Senate for perjury, not to mention the underlying corruption and malfeasance from his relationship with Charlie Keating.

As The New Republic related:

One day in early March 1986, John McCain, an Arizona congressman, sat down to write a letter. McCain had heard that a long-time friend and donor, Charles Keating, was upset for being listed as a member of McCain’s campaign finance committee when a more prominent position would seem more appropriate. So McCain apologized. Needlessly it turned out, for "Charlie," as he signed his letter, would reply a few days later: "John, don’t be silly. You can call me anything…I’m yours until death do us part."

The entire article is a must read; it is a brutally clear exhibition of John McCain’s deeply ingrained, pathological, self serving dishonesty and soulless backstabbing lack of honor.

Now the thing that most, if not all, have overlooked here is the timing of Charlie Keating’s retort; it is not just that it was before McCain was sworn in as a United States Senator, it was right as Keating was pumping big money into McCain’s general election campaign for his first run at Barry Goldwater’s old Senate seat.

Charlie Keating wasn’t helping a friend, he was buying what he considered to be a future President. And they both knew it.

As Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Tom Fitzpatrick, who knew McCain intimately, both socially and professionally, presciently said back in 1989:

You’re John McCain, a fallen hero who wanted to become president so desperately that you sold yourself to Charlie Keating, the wealthy con man who bears such an incredible resemblance to The Joker. Obviously, Keating thought you could make it to the White House, too.

He poured $112,000 [amount later shown to be far greater] into your political campaigns. He became your friend. He threw fund raisers in your honor. He even made a sweet shopping-center investment deal for your wife, Cindy. Your father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was cut in on the deal, too.

Nothing was too good for you. Why not? Keating saw you as a prime investment that would pay off in the future.

So he flew you and your family around the country in his private jets. Time after time, he put you up for serene, private vacations at his vast, palatial spa in the Bahamas. All of this was so grand. You were protected from what Thomas Hardy refers to as "the madding crowd." It was almost as though you were already staying at a presidential retreat.

Twenty years later and Fitzpatrick’s words still drill right into the dishonorable heart of John Sidney McCain III.

What kind of man was Charlie Keating buying? A man just like himself; a man who was all ambition and no conscience. A man completely self centered and who had no compunction bleeding senior citizens dry, bullying and berating adversaries and corrupting the process of government. A man like John McCain.

It was a Faustian bargain. It was also a bad joke on the rest of us and a disaster for many old people who lost their life’s savings to Keating.

The money was never really Keating’s to give. But he never would have got his hands on it if you and the rest of the Keating Five didn’t halt the government takeover for two long years while Keating’s people continued their looting.

And now, the tab for the Savings and Loan heist must be paid from taxpayer pockets.

But the most telling part about John McCain is not that he was centrally involved in the Keating Savings & Loan scandal, many politicians get involved in political corruption scandals. Four others, although to a far lesser extent, were indeed involved alongside McCain in the Keating scandal. As bad as that was, the worse, and telling part about John McCain, was the lying and backstabbing of his friends and associates for the sole reason of saving his own pitiful skin. John Sidney McCain did not hesitate for one split second to plant and twist the shiv in the back of everybody around him, from Charlie Keating himself to his fellow Senators.

It was, and is to this date, classic John McCain. More from the late, great Tom Fitzpatrick in 1989:

Since Keating’s collapse, you find yourself doing obscene things to save yourself from the Senate Ethics Committee’s investigation. As a matter of course, you engage in backbiting behavior that will turn you into an outcast in the Senate if you do survive.
…
Those who survive will be the sociopaths who can tell a lie with the most sincere, straight face. You are especially adept at this.
…
You sought out a master criminal like Keating and became his friend. Now you’ve discarded him. It shouldn’t be surprising that you are now in the process of selling out your senatorial accomplices.

You’re John McCain, clearly the guiltiest, most culpable and reprehensible of the Keating Five. (emphasis added)

Pat Murphy, the former editor and publisher of McCain’s hometown newspaper, The Arizona Republic, is another man who knew McCain well, as both a close friend and professional subject. Murphy had these words of wisdom and caution on the eve of McCain’s last Presidential run in 2000:

Those of us who’ve known John McCain since he began his Arizona political career made two mistakes.

First, overestimating the Washington media’s willingness to look beyond a politician’s self-serving façade.

Second, underestimating McCain’s skill in camouflaging his bullyboy ways and reincarnating himself as a lovable maverick glowing with political virtue.

If McCain becomes President, America will have more than a prickly president with a low boiling point. He carries grudges, fibs rather than admits mistakes, cannot endure criticism, threatens revenge, controls by fear, is consumed with self-importance.

My friends, this is the once and future John Sidney McCain III. It is an angry, unattractive and dishonorable picture, but it is the real deal. The real McCain. The singularly self serving, erratic, say and do anything dishonesty and perfidy exhibited in his campaign against Barack Obama are proof positive that he is indeed the same old McCain.

John McCain hasn’t changed, he never will. And he is not fit to serve as President of the United States.