The Old Fashion Way! Nikki Tinkered and lost!

Comments from a fellow memo reader. Paris, mon petite, you do not make the cut according to my friend. (See 1 below.)

Missile defense, the wave of the future? Does "The One" understand its significance? (See 2 below.)

Kyle-Anne Shiver prefers McCain as a role model. (See 3 below.)

Israel warns Russia to quit playing with fire and give second thoughts to supplying Iran with its S -300 EW system. If Russia does not heed Israel's warning, Israeli sources claim they will neutralize the S-300, make it ineffective and that, Israel argues, would send a chilling message to Russia, Iran and any future buyers.

In the coming weeks and months, rhetoric over Iran will escalate and no one should rule out action either. (See 4 below.)

A praecis of some comments from Stratfor regarding Russia and Georgia. (See 5 below.)

My father founded a law firm that exists to this day. The letter below is from one of the firm's associates and tells a lot about the kind of person my father was and the kind of people he wanted associated with him. The firm merged some 5 years ago with Senator Howard Baker's firm (Baker,Donelson,Bearman,Caldwell& Berkowitz) and carries on in the tradition my father, who is no longer alive, would have wished.

As in any profession there are the outstanding and the lesser so. My father built a firm that continues to serve their clients the old fashion way. (See 6 below.)

Former Sen. Edwards turns out to be a hypocrite and liar. What's new? Obama is right: "Words Matter." He should have finished the thought because "So does conduct!"

Does Edwards cause more doubts to be raised about Obama, politicians in general, and what does it say about own level of morality(See 7 below.)

Rich Lowry has a problem with Obama's haughtiness. (See 8 below.)

More political ugliness but this time it backfired. Winning is not everything. Nikki "tinkered" and found out. Words and conduct matter!(See 9 below.)

Like the song, it is even happening to Peggy Noonan: " I Feel the earth move under my feet." (See 10 below.)

Steve Huntley gets it. Why don't those who professedly lead? (See 11 below.)

A family member is the camera person for NBC and just sent the following message to her brother: ...just called from Beijing to say the opening ceremonies are beyond belief. She has never seen a production like this. It must be seen (or recorded) tonight. She saw it live. We get to see it taped tonight on NBC (7:30pm EST).



Have a great weekend.

Dick

1) Paris for President!

Now that Paris Hilton has tossed her chapeau into the presidential circus ring, I think it is time we address issues critical to our country. So, here are the issues as I see them:

1. National security: We are engaged in a war of defense against a Jihad bent on our annihilation. We must defend ourselves with absolute resolve. Success in Iraq must be made permanent. The guerilla war in Afghanistan must be won. Iranian inspired terror must be eliminated. We need a competent leader to accomplish these goals. Is Paris up to the task?

2. The economy: We may be in a recession, or on the cusp of a recession. The way out of this mess is to press on with free market solutions, not government panaceas. The basic issue is tax policy. We must cut taxes and eliminate waste. Raising taxes is suicide. Where does Paris stand on this?

3. Public education is not a uniform strength in America. Parents must be given maximum freedom to pursue a sound education for their children. Paris, did you ever go to school?

4. Energy policy must be pragmatic, aggressive, and devoid of ideologic nonsense. Save-the-planet baloney needs to be laughed off the stage of national discourse. Paris, do you get it?

5. Medical insurance should be addressed as an essential service that requires a healthy free market to promote health for individuals . We should press for competition among insurance companies, free choice by individuals, removal of employers from the equation, tax incentives to promote good choices, AND AN APPROPRIATE DEGREE OF GOVERNMENT REGULATION. Regulations must be established to prevent insurance fraud. No one should be denied an opportunity to purchase health insurance at an affordable rate because of a "pre-existing" condition. People should not be penalized because they are diabetic, hypertensive, or otherwise chronically ill. The only "rateable" conditions should be those based on bad individual choices to include tobacco/alcohol/illicit drug use and other high risk behavior. Putting everyone on Medicare is insane. You need to believe this: universal national health insurance would be a medical system with the compassion of the IRS and the efficiency of the Postal Service. They have this in Canada. Ask a Canadian, or a Parisian.

6. Up to three Supreme Court justices will be replaced in the next four years. Who would Paris choose?

7. Israel. One bad war and they are gone. Definitely not funny.

Sorry, Paris, you won't get my vote.

2) Does O Understand Anything About Ballistic Missile Defense?
By James Lewis

If the Middle East -- and the rest of the world -- survives the aggressive rise of Iranian nukes and missiles, it will be thanks to Ballistic Missile Defense -- a completely new technology that is just being put into place. The next ten years will tell the story.

It's already evident that Mr. Obama doesn't understand a lot about oil, coal and natural gas, the three key fuels of the world economy. Senator O doesn't know much about General Petraeus' surge in Iraq -- a fundamental change in warfighting tactics, not just a surge in troop strength, as the media seem to think.

Barack Obama has odd ideas about average Americans, and has a tendency to sneer at the rest of us. Barack and Michelle seem to be totally obsessed with race, the greatest sin of our age according to liberals. In sum, the Obamas seem mentally boxed into a very narrow liberal faith on all those issues. Senator Joe Lieberman recently said, "I'd hesitate to say he's a Marxist, but he's got some positions that are far to the left of me and I think mainstream America."

Still, Obama could still win. Call it fifty-fifty right now.

My biggest question therefore is this: Does Obama understand anything, anything at all, about the most important new defense technology since World War II? I refer to Ballistic Missile Defense, a historic achievement of this administration -- based on decades of high-priority research going back to Ronald Reagan. Forget Iraq, forget everything else President Bush has tried to do. If BMD works, it will be far and away the greatest gift of the last eight years. Future generations will live in safety because George W. Bush insisted on pushing BMD as one of his top priorities.

The United States now has the first tested, world-wide defensive system against a ballistic missile threats from mad regimes like North Korea and Iran. This is an amazing technology, ranging from Aegis Navy ships that can bring down missiles in mid-flight with SM-3 bullet-on-bullet defenses, to a worldwide radar-and-satellite missile detection system, an emerging Boeing-747-based high-powered laser beam to shoot down multiple missile targets, to regional defense by Patriot-3s, Arrow missiles, and in the foreseeable future, shaped radar beams. An Iranian Shahab-3 attack on Tel Aviv would now have to run a gauntlet of missile defenses from Aegis ships in the Gulf to Arrows, PAC-3s and SM-3s in and near Israel. We can now put such ship, air and land-based regional defenses almost anywhere in the world. The American homeland has its first effective missile defenses against a limited attack.

This is all clearly understood by other threatened nations, like Japan, Israel, and India. They are jumping on BMD technology. They know their necks are on the line; so is ours.

It is crucial to keep pushing those weapon systems as fast as possible over the next decade, as high-powered laser defenses are brought from the lab to the field. In ten years we may finally be safe again, after a 70-year Age of Nuclear Anxiety. Since 1949 a nuclear aggressor has been unstoppable; all we had was the threat of complete nuclear wipeout to counter a possible attack. By 2009 the Iranian martyrdom cult will have its first nuclear bomb. The next decade will therefore see a screaming end-game to the Age of Anxiety -- a nose-to-nose race between mad aggressors finally getting their nukes, and saner nations obtaining nearly fool-proof defenses.

BMD is the only practical answer to the uncontrolled spread of nukes to mad regimes. We can make it all work, if and only if our leaders understand the urgency of the problem and its emerging technical solutions. That is why Obama has to get this one, and get it right --- unlike all the Leftist politicians who've fought against BMD since Ronald Reagan.

So this is not a small question. So far, Barack Obama has blown it on the most important survival issue of the age. In his victory lap in Europe he failed to back the Czech radars that will protect Europe from Iranian missiles. But Mr. O is nothing if not flexible. If he ever gets it about how vital this is, he could quickly switch to a sane position.

Since Senator O is a creature of the Left, the whole world could be in grave danger if he becomes President and the Dems control Congress. They could still kill our last best hope for safety. Or they could just slow and sabotage our defense buildup, as they have consistently tried to do in the past.

Ballistic Missile Defense is the biggest do-or-die question in the next decade. John McCain understands that. So far, Barack Obama doesn't have a clue. That gives us a 50-50 chance of being blackmailed by the likes of Ahmadinejad and his guru, Ayatollah Khamenei. Obama doesn't even have to stand up against the Islamofascists of Tehran; all he has to do is keep our buildup on course. Between the Israelis, who have national survival on the line, the Saudis, who are 50 miles from Iran, and the Europeans, other Arabs, who are finally understanding the threat to their own survival, our allies will keep us focused. But the US is the only country with the technical prowess to win the race against the rogue regimes.

So I come back to the biggest question: Does O understand anything about Ballistic Missile Defense? So far he hasn't shown any sign of it.

3) McCain's Country-First Life Is a Winner
By Kyle-Anne Shiver

If Barack Obama presents a target-rich environment in his inflated balloon of media hype over one non-accomplishment after another, John McCain presents the opposite. No hype. No hot air. No blathering, bloated claims about ethereal change and meaningless hope in government to save us. None of this Hollywood stuff for McCain.

McCain is scrappy. He's a scrounger. He's downright humble. Rather than touting his formidable experience, or the fact that he has had three sons in the military, quietly serving their Country, John McCain presents a true model of decency, self-respect and laudable humility, in the same all-male bundle.

McCain has been a Country-First guy yesterday, today and always.

The more I read about John McCain, the more I realize that he embodies so much of what we Americans regard as our exceptionalism of character, our grit and determination, our willingness to strip down to brass tacks to achieve a worthwhile goal, our utter disdain for royal celebrity accoutrement in our leaders. John McCain is American to the marrow of his bones, going back generations, and evidenced in every sphere of his life.

I sincerely doubt that the word, "quit," is in this guy's vocabulary.

When his political chips were down, McCain created his own surge.

In June 2007, the press were all but writing obituaries on McCain's presidential campaign. The campaign was basically broke, donors were looking elsewhere, and it was a time for reassessment.

On April 19, 2007, Harry Reid, new Senate Majority Leader, had stood upon our Capitol steps and declared for all the world, especially our enemies, that this "war is lost." Congressional Democrats were acting like banshees demanding withdrawal timetables for Iraq, and pronouncing the surge a failure before it ever had a chance to succeed.

When the chips were down, did McCain call his celebrity pals in Hollywood to ask for advice and a quick, fancy prop-up and money, money, money?

Does McCain even have any friends in Hollywood?

John McCain decided to leave the whole mess behind, and embarked on a no-fanfare trip to Iraq to spend the 4th of July with our troops. As one of the most vocal initial backers for the troop surge in Iraq, McCain continued to believe that premature withdrawal would be devastating, not only to the people of Iraq and the Middle East, but to our ability to fight the war on terror around the globe.

John McCain flew to Iraq to celebrate Independence Day in the privileged company of those he has always loved best, his fellow men and women in America's Armed Forces.

A fancy gym? No.

Shopping? No.

A bunch of Berliners to cheer him on? No, no and heck no.

I love this guy!

Iraq. July 4th 2007.

We were still losing the war. Did our armed forces cry in their blankies and protest McCain, begging to go home to their mommies?

Nope. On that day, McCain watched as 588 men and women re-enlisted to serve their Country even more. On that day in Iraq, as Hollywood's celebs and Washington's Democrats practically spat on America's chances, 161 service personnel became naturalized citizens of the United States of America. Especially poignant that day were the two empty chairs among our new citizenry. Two soldiers had been killed just before they were able to receive formal citizenship for their personal fealty and love for America.

John McCain addressed the assembled troops in the plain straight talk for which he has been known throughout his life. And when he finished, more than 2,000 men and women in uniform stood in line just to shake his hand.

When he returned to the States, he told a Chicago Tribune reporter that seeing and being with our troops in the theater of war reinvigorated him for the surge in his own campaign. Even though he shied from saying so, I would speculate that he felt from these men and women, and their families, the same inner strength that brought him through more than 5 years as a P.O.W. in Hanoi, Vietnam.

McCain's Dark Night of the Soul

Few human beings have life experiences that push them to the absolute brink of surrendering their humanity, especially an experience that lasts such a long time. Through more than a thousand sun-ups and sunsets. Through more than a thousand nights of despair and darkness, when the entire world seems to have deserted and gone on its merry way.

In 1988, I purchased a book written by Ernie Brace about his captivity in North Vietnam. Unknown to me at the time was that Mr. Brace had been the longest held civilian, by an enemy in wartime in history. He was also a one-time cellmate of John McCain, and the foreword of his book, A Code to Keep, was written by Senator McCain.

Senator McCain quoted another man, who had endured horrible captivity and inhumane conditions, Victor Frankl, a prisoner of the Nazis. In Frankl's account, Man's Search for Meaning, McCain, Brace, and so many others discovered that under such conditions, "everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

Over the course of five years in a Hanoi prison, two of those years in solitary confinement, John McCain discovered his inner strength, his maverick spirit, and his determined will to never succumb to a loss of what makes us human. Our free will.

Every time I hear John McCain speak now, I am reminded that he has faced this horror. When I see that he walks stiffly, I know it's because his leg was broken in October 1967, and he didn't wind up in an efficient, well-equipped American medical facility. He ended up in a Hanoi prison instead. He was told that if he gave them military information they might fix his leg and his arms. Instead, the "medical treatment" the communists gave him nearly killed him. His body has never properly healed.

Every voter, in my opinion, ought to read Senator McCain's First-Person Account of his captivity, published in May 1973, now available online.

When the North Vietnamese learned they had the son of the naval admiral, who was about to be given command over our entire Forces in the Pacific, they wanted John McCain to accept early release.

When McCain's father took over as CINCPAC, the communists tried to persuade John again to accept this favoritism.

Interrogator: "Our senior wants to know your final answer."

McCain: "My final answer is the same. It's ‘No.""

Interrogator: "That is your final answer?"

McCain: "That is my final answer."

Interrogator: "Now, McCain it will be very bad for you."


Things did indeed get very bad for John McCain, even worse than having panties placed upon his head for photos.

The next day, the guards came for him, took him to another room in the Hanoi Hilton, and asked, "Why are you so disrespectful of guards?" McCain's answer seems not to have been the one for which they were hoping. He cracked in characteristic fashion, "Because the guards treat me like an animal."

When I said that, the guards, who were all in the room -- about 10 of them -- really laid into me. They bounced me from pillar to post, kicking and laughing and scratching. After a few hours of that, ropes were put on me and I sat that night bound with ropes. For the next four days, I was beaten every two to three hours by different guards. My left arm was broken again and my ribs were cracked.


McCain's stiffness is a badge of courage and honor; he did not give them what they wanted. The communists wanted him to disparage his Country and to make statements laudatory of the wonderful treatment he was receiving in captivity.

Having been a college student during those days that John McCain was beaten in a Hanoi prison for my liberties, I remember the heralded press coverage given to the anti-war demonstrators wreaking havoc all over. And I remember how Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, David Dellinger and others took big photo-op trips to Hanoi, sitting in the enemy's anti-aircraft apparatuses, and smiling broadly as they embraced our enemies.

I even thought some of them were very heroic. That was before I understood the meaning of the word. John McCain has lived one of the most genuinely heroic lives imaginable. Yet Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden still disparage him for it; they love Barack Obama's idea of patriotism.

As for me, I don't particularly care for the idea of patriotism that the Democratic Party has been selling nonstop since the Sixties.

I prefer John McCain's idea of patriotism. Love of God and Country first. Before personal gain. Before personal glory. Before personal gravitas. Before politics. There are some things upon which there simply can be no compromise. For John McCain, the non-compromising item appears to be personal integrity.

McCain's Country-First life is a winner. I'm not sure we deserve him, but I sure do hope we get him for our next Commander In Chief.



If national survival matters, that leaves us with only one choice in the fall.

4) Israel warns Russia: sell advance anti-aircraft missile system to Iran and we will develop response that will also strip you of the defense

'We'll neutralize S-300 if sold to Iran'


If Russia goes through with the sale of its most advanced anti-aircraft
missile system to Iran, Israel will use an electronic warfare device now
under development to neutralize it and as a result present Russia as
vulnerable to air infiltrations, a top defense official has told The
Jerusalem Post.

The Russian system, called the S-300, is one of the most advanced
multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in the world today and has a
reported ability to track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up
to 12 at the same time. It has a range of about 200 kilometers and can hit
targets at altitudes of 27,000 meters.

While Russia has denied that it sold the system to Iran, Teheran claimed
last year that Moscow was preparing to equip the Islamic Republic with S-300
systems. Iran already has TOR-M1 surface-to-air missiles from Russia.

Mixed media reports have emerged recently regarding the possible delivery of
the system to Iran. Two weeks ago Reuters quoted a senior Israeli official
who said the system would be delivered to Iran by the end of the year. In
response, the Pentagon released a statement rejecting the assessment and
saying that the US did not believe Iran would get it in 2008.

According to the Israeli defense official who spoke to the Post, "no one
really knows yet if and when Iran will get the system."

A top IAF officer also said this week that Israel needed to do "everything
possible" to prevent the S-300 from reaching the region.

"Russia will have to think real hard before delivering this system to Iran,
which is possibly on the brink of conflict with either Israel or the US,
since if the system is delivered, an EW [electronic warfare] system will
likely be developed to neutralize it, and if that happens it would be
catastrophic not only for Iran but also for Russia," the defense official
said.

Neutralization of one of the main components of Russian air defense would be
a blow to Russian national security as well as to defense exports. "No
country will want to buy the system if it is proven to be ineffective," the
official said. "For these reasons, Russia may not deliver it in the end to
Iran."

Also on Thursday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told an Italian paper that a
nuclear Iran would be "dangerous to world order."

Barak emphasized that all options for dealing with threat of a nuclear
Teheran were "open and ready," and stressed the importance of "strengthening
and accelerating economic sanctions against Iran."

"Either way, we need to keep every option open. If they provoke us, or they
attack us, our army is prepared to attack and to succeed uncompromisingly,"
he asserted in an interview with the daily Corriere della Sera . "It's up to
us to find the best way to get the best result with minimum damage," Barak
added.

"Iran confirmed its message when it stood against the whole world: to
deceive and to reject. Their aim is to obtain an atomic bomb," he continued.

The defense minister also spoke of the results of the Second Lebanon War,
telling the Italian paper, "Two years ago, we saw the price that's paid for
a lack of an experienced leadership. Nevertheless, today we're equipped with
a good understanding to prevent this from happening again."

He added that UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that brought an end to the
war was inefficient since Hizbullah, Syria and Iran were doing what they
wanted in Lebanon.


5) Georgian artillery
By VANO SHLAMOv

Georgian troops fire rockets at separatist South Ossetian troops Aug. 8

The following are internal Stratfor documents produced to provide high-level guidance to our analysts. These documents are not forecasts, but rather a series of guidelines for understanding and evaluating events, as well as suggestions on areas for focus.

Given the speed with which the Russians reacted to Georgia’s incursion into South Ossetia, Moscow was clearly ready to intervene. We suspect the Georgians were set up for this in some way, but at this point the buildup to the conflict no longer matters. What matters is the message that Russia is sending to the West.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev summed this message up best: “Historically Russia has been, and will continue to be, a guarantor of security for peoples of the Caucasus.”

Strategically, we said Russia would respond to Kosovo’s independence, and they have. Russia is now declaring the Caucasus to be part of its sphere of influence. We have spoken for months of how Russia would find a window of opportunity to redefine the region. This is happening now.

All too familiar with the sight of Russian tanks, the Baltic countries are terrified of what they face in the long run, and they should be. This is the first major Russian intervention since the fall of the Soviet Union. Yes, Russia has been involved elsewhere. Yes, Russia has fought. But this is on a new order of confidence and indifference to general opinion. We will look at this as a defining moment.

The most important reaction will not be in the United States or Western Europe. It is the reaction in the former Soviet states that matters most right now. That is the real audience for this. Watch the reaction of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Nagorno-Karabakh and the Balts. How will Russia’s moves affect them psychologically?

The Russians hold a trump card with the Americans: Iran. They can flood Iran with weapons at will. The main U.S. counter is in Ukraine and Central Asia, but is not nearly as painful.

Tactically, there is only one issue: Will the Russians attack Georgia on the ground? If they are going to, the Russians have likely made that decision days ago.

Focus on whether Russia invades Georgia proper. Then watch the former Soviet states. The United States and Germany are of secondary interest at this point.

6) Dear Friends,



I sincerely appreciate all of you for your warm words, encouragement and concerned emails and phone calls. I feel blessed to have all of you as co-workers. Happily, all that remains of my procedure is a catheter that prevents me from sitting comfortably upright. As a consolation, for the first time in a while, I have a bit of free time on my hands.

It hasn’t been the easiest year for me. Some highlights include neck-surgery, a car wreck, and numerous kidney-stone procedures; but I am happy to say that it has also been a very memorable year, both for me and for you. This year also marks the fifth-year anniversary of the merger between Berkowitz Lefkovits and Baker Donelson. Over the last few days, I’ve had a chance to think about the substantial role that this firm and its people have played in my life.

Most of you know that I came to the US in 1991 as a political refugee, but I doubt that many people know that my immigration was made possible in part by Berkowitz Lefkovits. When I emigrated from the Soviet Union , it was not because I wanted to, but because I had to. The growing nationalism and xenophobia made me fear for the life of my family, for whom the Holocaust remained a lingering scar (48 members of the ... family were killed during WWII). The decision was made to emigrate, but the Soviet Union had never before allowed its citizens to permanently leave the country. Fortunately, a broad coalition of American Jewish and Christian organizations, non-profits, and socially-conscious businesses had been fighting for the right of Soviet minorities to move to the West since 1989. The mounting political pressure forced the Soviets to change their immigration policy, allowing us to seek asylum in the U.S. In Birmingham , Berkowitz, Lefkovits, Isom, and Kushner was an active member of this campaign. Today, not a lot of people remember the role that BLIK played in bringing Soviet refugees to the U.S. My family, however, will never forget it.

When we actually arrived in America , our worldly possessions amounted to two suitcases. We didn’t have much to start a new life, but we had help. Hundreds of volunteers aided us in finding work, getting a place to live, learning English, and generally adapting to our new homeland. Although I didn’t know it at the time, some of my future co-workers were among these volunteers: Chervis Isom, Steven Corenblum, Richard Pizitz, Ed Meyerson, Henry Frohsin, to name a few. It wasn’t until I began working at BLIK, however, did I find out about Abe Berkowitz and his legacy of positive social activism, which he had instilled in the practice years before. A generation earlier, Mr. Berkowitz invested tremendous personal resources towards establishing the independent state of Israel and helping Holocaust survivors move there to begin new lives. I believe that his spirit lives on in Baker Donelson.

I felt that spirit personally the day I became a U.S. citizen, which for me will remain among my most cherished memories at this office. Many of those who worked with me at the time, as well as several of our clients, accompanied me to Federal Court for my swearing-in. When the judge saw all of us, he remarked that he had seldom seen that many lawyers in the court at the same time and asked whether they were there for a client. When we came back to the office after the ceremony, a flag-shaped strawberry cake awaited us in the break room. For my son, who was with me that day, it was a lesson in character and humanity. I remember feeling deeply proud to be part of such a caring community.

It has been five years since our merger, and it is wonderful to see that Baker Donelson continues to preserve the spirit that this office has embodied for so many years. Those of us who were with BLIK back then are proud to be a part of Baker Donelson today. I know that I am. I feel privileged to be able to work in a place where people genuinely care about fellow co-workers and the larger community of which they are a part.



Thank you for making this a terrific place to work.

7) Edwards admits to affair, denies fathering child
By PETE YOST

WASHINGTON - Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on Friday admitted to an extramarital affair while his wife was battling cancer. He denied fathering the woman's daughter. Edwards told ABC News that he lied repeatedly about the affair with 42-year-old Rielle Hunter but said that he didn't love her.


He said he has not taken a paternity test but knows he isn't the father because of the timing of the affair and the birth.

ABC said a former Edwards campaign staffer claims he is the father, not Edwards.

Hunter's daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, was born on Feb. 27, 2008, and no father's name is given on the birth certificate filed in California.

Three weeks ago, the National Enquirer said its reporters caught Edwards visiting Hunter at a California hotel. In the interview, scheduled to air on ABC News' "Nightline," Edwards said the tabloid was correct when it reported on his meeting with Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hotel last month.

Edwards was a top contender for the Democratic nomination for president, pursuing his party's nod even after announcing that his wife, Elizabeth, had a deadly form of cancer.

He placed second in the Iowa caucuses last January but dropped out of the race a few weeks later. He has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential choice for Barack Obama. The former North Carolina senator was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004.

David Bonior, Edwards' campaign manager for his 2008 presidential bid, said Friday he was disappointed and angry after hearing about Edwards' confession.

"Thousands of friends of the senators and his supporters have put their faith and confidence in him and he's let him down," said Bonior, a former congressman from Michigan. "They've been betrayed by his action."

Asked whether the affair would damage Edwards' future aspirations in public service, Bonior replied: "You can't lie in politics and expect to have people's confidence."

In 2006, Edwards' political action committee paid $100,000 in a four-month span to a newly formed firm run by Rielle Hunter, who directed the production of just four Web videos, one a mere 2 1/2 minutes long.

The payments from Edwards' One America Committee to Midline Groove Productions LLC started on July 5, 2006, five days after Hunter incorporated the firm in Delaware.

Midline provided "Website/Internet services," according to reports that Edwards' PAC filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Midline's work product consists of four YouTube videos showing Edwards in informal settings as he prepares to make speeches in Storm Lake, Iowa, and Pittsburgh, as he prepares for an appearance on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" and travels in Uganda in 2006.

Edwards' PAC following the six-figure payment with two smaller payments totaling $14,461, the last on April 1, 2007.

At the time Hunter was compiling the videos in mid-2006, Edwards was preparing a run for president.

Hunter's name appears on credits in the four videos as director and cameraman.

Episode One of the four videos captures a conversation between Edwards and an unseen woman as the two chat aboard a plane about an upcoming speech in Storm Lake, Iowa.

Cutting between clips of the speech and the conversation with the woman, Edwards touches on his standard political themes, declaring that government must do a better job of addressing the great issues of the day, from poverty and education to jobs and the war in Iraq.

"I want to see our party lead on the great moral issues — yes, me a Democrat using that word — the great moral issues that face our country," Edwards tells the crowd. "If we want to live in a moral, honest just America and if we want to live in a moral and just world, we can't wait for somebody else to do it. We have to do it."

8) Watch the Ego, O
By Rich Lowry

It's almost as if they take pride in being ignorant," Barack Obama mused the other day, blasting Republicans for ridiculing his exhortation to the nation to make sure its tires are properly inflated.

Ah, behold the open-mindedness and cross-partisan understanding. Remember two years ago, when Obama was only a media darling and not yet The Anointed One?

Back then, his appeal was the extraordinary sensitivity he had for the views of others. His best-selling campaign book, "The Audacity of Hope," was carefully unaudacious in its on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand weighing of the issues of the day, giving the impression that nothing pained him so much as not being able to agree with the other side, though he thoroughly understood and respected its arguments.

That iteration of Obama was tossed under the bus long ago (no word on whether the tires were adequately inflated). It's been replaced by an Obama who - between pauses gazing regally into the middle-distance during his orations - betrays a dismissive contempt for all differences of opinion.

"Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face," he said, responding to a John McCain attack ad.

Nobody does? Are all those people who vote Republican simply delusional? Or are they pretending to believe things that they really don't to conceal unseemly motivations - power-hunger, bitterness, racism?

The most elemental act of political civility is to concede the good motives of your opposition. Obama lately can't even muster that.

Of course, sharp elbows will inevitably be thrown in a hotly contested election, but it's no accident that Obama's comments reading his opposition out of polite company (or almost entirely out of existence) came in response to mockery.

Obama is now such a puffed-up figure that he's vulnerable to the pinprick of ridicule.

The most devastating hits against him in the Democratic primaries were made by "Saturday Night Live," which made fun of him as an earnest empty suit propped up by a fawning media. Having failed to get much traction against Obama heretofore, the McCain campaign scored recently with a pointed but lighthearted ad comparing him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and the distribution of tire gauges to mock his tire-pressure comments.

"They're making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent," Obama said of the tire gauges, suggesting that the making-fun particularly bothered him. Of the Spears/Hilton ad, Obama complained: "They got me in an ad with Paris Hilton. You know, [I] never met the woman."

As if the McCain campaign were literally suggesting that he and Paris coordinate on their Sidekicks about what clubs they're going to frequent after a long day of campaigning. (Hilton, in contrast, got the joke and went up with a Web ad lampooning McCain that was defter and more effective than Obama's earnest plaint.)

It has to be hard for Obama to maintain a sense of proportion. First, it's become Democratic dogma that, in reply to any Republican attack, a Democratic candidate has to hit back twice as hard. This makes it impossible to calibrate a response - the only option becomes the nuclear option. Second, given the idolatry of the press and his most fervent supporters, Obama would need prodigious reserves of humility to keep from taking himself too seriously.

On the question of tire pressure, he was wrong when he said that properly inflating tires would save enough gas to make up for whatever oil we might get from more offshore drilling. Only an estimated 27 percent of cars have underinflated tires, and having properly inflated tires saves at most only 3 percent on gas consumption, so the number gets quite small.

Obama's estimate of an overall savings of 3 percent to 4 percent on gas consumption is wildly optimistic. But it's his critics who are ignorant (and proud of it!).

The new Obama is displaying the audacity of haughty.

9) When Identity Politics Backfire
By Adam Serwer

Nikki Tinker's resounding defeat in her primary challenge to Rep. Stephen Cohen may suggest that identity politics don't work quite as well as they used to.


This week the Democratic primary in the mostly African-American 9th Congressional District in Memphis, Tennessee made national headlines. Much of the coverage was focused on the aggressive ads African American challenger Nikki Tinker ran against incumbent Steve Cohen. One of the ads associated Cohen, who is white and Jewish, with the Ku Klux Klan; the other expressed indignation that Cohen was in “our churches, clapping his hands and tapping his feet” while voting against school prayer. But Tinker's gambit failed, and in last night's election, Cohen trounced her with nearly 80 percent of the vote.

Media coverage of Tinker's identity-based ads showed how people across the country were shocked by one candidate's attempt to cast the other as an outsider not by tying him to Hamas or Fidel Castro but to the Ku Klux Klan. But the novelty of a black politician using wedge identity politics against a white Jewish opponent obscures the fact that this kind of politics is extremely common. There exists a bizarre idea that somehow, because of racism, black people should be immune to the kind of petty clannishness that afflicts other human beings, and it is therefore even more reprehensible when they aren’t. But there really isn't much difference between what Tinker did in Tennessee's 9th District and what Republicans do every year. The Tinker campaign’s attempt to argue that only a black candidate could represent a majority-black district isn’t so different from John McCain’s invocation of himself as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

But while left-leaning voices have been calling out the identity politics of the McCain campaign, people on both the left and the right were outraged by Tinker's identity-based ads. Josh Marshall accurately described Tinker’s statements as “Jew-baiting,” while conservatives used the race as an opportunity to argue that the Democratic Party was itself racist, and to demand Barack Obama (who is bearing a lot of weight these days, between being a presidential candidate and fielding requests that he respond to all foolishness perpetuated by any black person in America) intervene. Erick Ericson at Redstate said the race exposed “the deep, deep racial divisions within the party of Jim Crow.” On Fox News, Hannity and Colmes asked whether presidential candidate Barack Obama was “ignoring a race war” in the Democratic Party. Even though painting one’s opponent as a frightening cultural outsider is a common Republican tactic, the right was nonetheless outraged when such an approach was applied by a black candidate toward a white one. Folks on the left have been less selective in their condemnation of dog-whistle politics.

Fox's Hannity and Colmes invited the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson onto the show to say what white right-wing pundits would feel less comfortable saying. Peterson blamed the entire black community of the 9th District, declaring that “most blacks” in Memphis are “so racist that they don't even realize that white Americans have moved on, and so whenever there is a campaign like this, such as this, they always use racism in order to intimidate white Americans.” Hours later, the virulently racist black community of Memphis strapped on their black berets and, clutching copies of Soul on Ice, handed Cohen a landslide win with 79 percent of the vote to Tinker’s 19 percent. She got a larger share of the vote in 2006, running against 13 other people.

What made Tinker’s second ad, denouncing Cohen for being in “our” churches, particularly absurd was the idea that Cohen shouldn't be there. Not only should Cohen be in churches in his district, he should be hanging out in barbershops, patronizing restaurants, visiting schools, and basically doing what he can to get to know his constituents better. If Cohen wasn't visible in his district, he would be a poor representative.

It was clear that Tinker didn’t really have much to run on against Cohen, other than black anxiety about disenfranchisement. That's a feeling that shouldn't be dismissed -- black folks have fought hard for the right to represent themselves, and we shouldn’t pretend that races where a black candidate can deploy such techniques are common. The issue is whether Tinker's race had anything to do with her ability to represent black interests. The answer would appear to be no. So she took a page out of the Republican playbook and appealed to the worst of human instincts -- attempting to paint her opponent as a dangerous cultural outsider because of his association with whiteness.

This identity-based tactic isn't only used when a black and a white candidate are locked in a heated race -- it can be deployed even when there's no difference in the racial background of the candidates. If you're not convinced just Mayor Corey Booker of Newark, New Jersey about his experience running against incumbent Sharpe James, who told Booker, “You have to learn to be an African-American, and we don’t have time to teach you.” And in Louisiana and Mississippi the GOP recently tried its best to tie white candidates Don Cazayoux and Travis Childers to Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright in order to paint them as cultural outsiders (as with Booker, the races of the candidates themselves were less important than their racial "associations"). In that case, it made national news because it had implications for congressional races this fall should Obama be at the top of the ticket. In the case of Tennessee's 9th District, it's mostly national news because Americans aren't really used to seeing a cultural association with whiteness as an electoral liability. It's usually the other way around.

What's really remarkable about Nikki Tinker's racist campaign is that it's not remarkable at all. It's the typical culture-war stuff -- just from a black perspective. But black or white, the story is always the same. This kind of politics is a hustle, wherein politicians use their cultural currency to distract from issues of substance. These identity-exploiting candidates use whatever connection to a community they have to appeal to voters' sense of cultural familiarity, which serves to obscure the candidates' competence or fitness for office. And as the success of the Republican Party has shown, it can be a remarkably effective campaign tactic.

But this time, it didn’t work. On Thursday night Tinker was cooling her heels at Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero Blues Club in downtown Memphis while, across town, Cohen addressed a cheering victory party. The residents of the 9th District resoundingly rejected one candidate’s attempt to paint the other as a cultural outsider and went with the one that best represented their interests.

It just might be that kind of year.

10) Political Cycles
By Peggy Noonan

You're in a plane and you're flying over the campaign at a level of about 10,000 feet, and you look down and see: Not much has changed. Battle lines fixed, topography the same, troops pretty much where they were.

But land the plane, walk around and talk to people, and you realize: This thing is moving. Things are shifting around a bit. That's what I see looking back at the past four weeks.


For the first time the idea began to take hold that John McCain can win this thing. You saw the USA Today-Gallup poll this week, with Mr. McCain gaining six points since late June among those Gallup dubbed likely voters. Mr. McCain took the lead, 49% to 45%. Among registered voters, it's still Barack Obama, 47% to 44%. A poll came out saying people are tired of hearing about Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain took the lead in YouTube hits. Small stuff, and there will be a lot of twists and turns before this is over, but there's movement down there beneath the crust of the Earth.

Mr. Obama got tagged the past month as something new, not the candidate from Men's Vogue but arrogant, aloof and somehow ethereal. There is no there there. Everyone I know plays the game of "This election is just like 1932," or '52, or whatever. "It's 1960—the youthful charismatic JFK versus the boring and so Republican Nixon." "No, it's '92 and the youthful charismatic Clinton versus the tired old Bush." This election is, in fact, exactly like the 2008 election. But the other day a friend said something I hadn't heard before: "This is 1948, and Obama is Tom Dewey"—the sleek, well-groomed, inevitable one who lost. I pondered this and said maybe he's Dewey, but Mr. McCain's not Truman, not so far. He is still, on the trail, his scattered self, not "Give 'Em Hell Harry." But the point is, even the clichés have begun to shift.

The daring and exciting European trip was probably a wash, and possibly a mistake in the bridge-too-far sense. During the coverage, pundits were always saying the trip leveled the playing field on foreign affairs between Sens. Obama and McCain. But Mr. McCain isn't Mr. Obama's problem in foreign affairs. Mr. McCain early on positioned himself, reasonably or unreasonably, depending on your view, as the candidate of possible new wars. I don't think people want new wars. Mr. Obama's problem on foreign affairs is his own youth and inexperience. In a time of high stakes, do we want Mr. Untried and Untested?

What Mr. Obama has been doing, and this started before the European trip and continued throughout, is making people see him as president. He's doing this when he ambles back to the back of the plane and leans over the reporters, in his shirtsleeves, speaking affably into their held-up mics and recorders, at the end of the victorious tour. That's what presidents do. He speaks to rapturous crowds in foreign capitals. That's what presidents do.

He isn't doing this to show he's inevitable and invincible. He's doing it to give voters the impression that they've already seen President Obama. That he's kind of already been president, he's done and can do all the things presidents do, to the point that by the middle of October a certain portion of the country is going to think he already is president.

And he needs to give them this impression because he's a young black man from nowhere who's been well-known for less than a year. And he knows one of his biggest problems with older white voters is they just can't imagine a young black man from nowhere as president. He's helping them imagine.

It's not vanity, it's strategy.

However. Mr. Obama consistently shows that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. It's a theme with his talented, confident staff. They don't know what they don't know either. Because they're young and they've never been in power and it takes time to know what you don't know. The presidential-type seal with OBAMA on it, the sometimes over-the-top rhetoric about healing the earth and parting the seas. They pick the biggest, showiest venue for the Berlin speech, the Brandenburg Gate, just like a president, not realizing people would think: Ya gotta earn that one, kid. Going to Europe was fine, but they should have gone in modestly, with a modest venue, quietly spread word that his speech was open to the public, and then left the watching world awed by the hordes that showed up. For they would have. "We couldn't help it, they love him!" It would have looked as if Europe was coming to him, and let that sink in back home.

Anyone can carp like this in retrospect, but when you know what you don't know, you can plan like this in advance.

* * *

Two weeks ago a journalist, a moderate liberal, spoke to me of what he called Mr. Obama's arrogance. I said I didn't think it was arrogance but high self-regard. He said there's no difference. I said no, arrogance has an air about it of pushing people around, insisting on your way. Mr. Obama doesn't seem like that. He took down a machine without raising his voice. Extremely high self-regard, though, can itself be a problem.

"What's wrong with that?" my friend said. "You want a self-confident president."

I said yes, but it brings up the Churchill question. Churchill had been scored by an acquaintance for his own very high self-regard, and responded with what was for him a certain sheepishness. "We're all worms," he said, "but I do believe I am a glowworm." He believed he was great, and he was. Is Mr. Obama a glowworm? Does he have real greatness in him? Or is he, say, a product of the self-esteem campaign, that movement within the schools and homes of our country the past 25 years that says the way to get a winner is to tell the kid he's a winner every day? You can get some true people of achievement that way, because some people need a lot of reinforcement to rise. But you can also get, not to put too fine a point of it, empty suits that take on a normal shape only because they're so puffed up with ego.

Is Mr. Obama's self-conception in line with his gifts, depth, wisdom and character? That's the big question, I suspect, on a number of minds.

As for Mr. McCain, I think he had the best moment of the month this week at the big motorcycle convention in Sturgis, S.D., when he was greeted with that mighty roar. And his great line: "As you may know, not long ago a couple hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I'll take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day." Oh, that was good.

There's a thing that's out there and it's big, and latent, and somehow always taken into account and always ignored, and political professionals always assume they understand it. It has been called many things the past 50 years, "the silent center," "the silent majority," "the coalition," "the base." The idea of it has evolved as its composition has evolved, but the fact that it's big, and relatively silent, and somehow always latent, maintains. And watching that McCain event—vroom vroom—one got the sense it is perhaps beginning to pay attention to the campaign. I see it as the old America, and if and when it reasserts itself, the campaign will shift indeed, and in ways you can even see from 10,000 feet.


11) World will have do something about Iran
By STEVE HUNTLEY

It's hard to escape the conclusion the world is sleepwalking toward a dangerous crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions. No great leap of imagination is needed to envision waking up one morning to headlines reporting that Iran tested a nuclear weapon or Israel bombed Iran's nuclear facilities. Only a determined, united international front can prevent such calamities, but where is the evidence of that kind of commitment?

Over the weekend, Iran responded evasively to the latest round of incentives from the six-nation group leading negotiations with Tehran. And those incentives represented a backing off from previous demands Iran end its nuclear program -- calling only that it freeze development of its atomic project at its current stage.

The equivocating mullahs probably weren't surprised, or discouraged, by the reaction from the P5+1 group -- the five permanent U.N. Security Council members: the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia plus Germany. Washington, London and Paris threatened another round -- it would be the fourth -- of economic sanctions. But Russia said Tehran should be given more time. China hasn't said anything, but no one expects Beijing to take a strong stand against Tehran. It's not surprising Iran believes time is on its side.

A nuclear-armed Iran ruled by Islamist fanatics unfazed by the notion of mutually assured destruction poses an existential threat to Israel. The Jewish state is locked in a leadership struggle now that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced he's stepping down, and Iran is a leading, if not the leading, issue. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz are contending in a Kadima party primary next month to succeed him. Should the winner fail to organize a governing coalition, a general election would be called.

Mofaz was blamed for helping send oil prices soaring to record highs in June when he said an Israeli attack is unavoidable if Iran continues its nuclear program. In remarks last week, he said he wanted peace, but Israel "will not let the second Holocaust happen to the Jewish people once again." Livni, the favorite in the contest, puts the Iran issue starkly as a "choice between bad options."

Iran says it would respond to any attack by closing the Strait of Hormuz, a choke-point in the world's oil supply line. Fearing what that would do to gas prices and the economy, Washington is said to be pressing Israel not to attack. Such concerns are why there's little credibility given to protests from President Bush and his would-be successors Barack Obama and John McCain that the military option is on the table if Iran remains recalcitrant. Obama favors unconditional talks with Tehran, while McCain backs tougher sanctions.

As formidable as the political objections to an Israeli strike are, the military challenges are great also. Two countries -- Jordan and Iraq -- separate Israel from its distant targets. And targets is the right word, since Iran has dispersed the work over several locations. And this project is also thought to be going on in heavily protected bunkers difficult to damage with conventional bombs.

The prominent Israeli historian Benny Morris recently raised, in a New York Times op-ed, the possibility that Israel might use a nuclear bomb to penetrate such defenses. Morris offered his nightmarish vision as an argument for tougher sanctions on the part of P5+1 group and a hope, albeit a faint one, that Iran will realize the potential catastrophic result of its nuclear ambitions.

Iran insists it is engaged in a peaceful project for electrical generation, but virtually no one believes that. Iran amasses ever more of the cylinders and high-tech equipment required to enrich uranium to weapons grade. Israeli intelligence estimates Iran could have an operational bomb next year. Time is running out for the world to wake up.