One last night for the candidates to make their case. Hillary will be on Letterman tonight. She taped it in Cedar Rapids. She then went to her Des Moines campaign office to give a pep talk to staffers.

John Edwards made 11 stops today and is finishing with a big event in Des Moines with John Mellencamp -- that's where Jane and I will be.

The media has taken over this town. Sean Hannity's crew is at the bar/restaurant next door to our hotel -- he'll be broadcasting H&C from there. The Fox News people are staying at our hotel, as are the Clintons.

The drive to Cedar Rapids today to see Hillary was long -- 2 hours -- and then another hour to Coralville for the Obama event. And of course, more than 2 hours back. It's the flattest state I've ever seen. You go miles without seeing anything, maybe a scattered barnhouse -- not even any livestock.

It's still freezing cold here. On the local news, they are interviewing new caucus goers in the skywalks. You can register to vote at the caucus door.

They are predicting a big turnout, maybe 165,000 Democrats and 95,000 Republicans. That would be huge, compared to 2004.

Also on the local news: Hillary has 5,000 volunteers on hand just to help people get to their caucus. By comparison, in 2004, John Kerry had 400.

There are 2,500 credentialed media in Des Moines -- there is heavy security at the Convention Center. They say no one gets in without a credential. I'll be there tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow night, following the results live on the big board.

Hillary's event was packed with hundreds of Iowans -- there were a lot of middle aged and elderly people. They were very enthusiastic and cheered a lot, particularly on health care. It started almost an hour late, which meant we were late getting to Obama's event at the Marriott in Coralville. We got there just as the doors opened and people started leaving. There were a lot of people -- they were predominantly young and younger. There were a lot of junior and high school age kids who obviously were too young to vote. We waited and watched everyone come out. Towards the end there were a few middle aged people, but just a few. It was also a very white crowd. We only saw a handful of minorities. Conclusion: If the college kids come out for Obama, he's in good shape. If the elderly come out for Clinton, she's in good shape. It's all about the turnout at this point. I'll have some video later I hope. My last computer battery is dying and we have an hour or more drive back to Des Moines. More when I can get near a power outlet. I've got to go get ready for the Edwards event, I'll be back later. I did get a firewire cord so I can download my videos of Romney and Hillary to my laptop, edit them and then get them up on you tube. So much to do, so little time.

My New Year’s resolution? To have a year such that I can belt this out on 12/31/08 and damn well mean it.

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There's a big difference between Hillary's spot on Letterman and Huckabee's appearance on Leno. Letterman owns his production company and has signed a deal with the WGA and Leno's producers--NBC--has not; so Huck is crossing the picket line...

Mr. Huckabee on Wednesday professed his support for the striking television writers union just a few hours before he was expected to board a plane for a taping of the “Tonight Show” with Jay Leno where he will face a vocal picket line of striking writers.

Mr. Leno’s program is returning to the air for the first time since the strike began on Nov. 5. Speaking to reporters, Mr. Huckabee said he was unaware that he would be crossing a picket line and believed that the program had reached a special agreement with the union.

Typical Mike Huckabee. He is totally clueless on so many issues. Will Leno ask him if Pakistan is still under martial law?

It’s likely my standards are low, but I’ve been relatively pleased that the presidential race has featured very little talk about the Lewinsky scandal. Going into the race, I was a little worried the media would be preoccupied with this nonsense, and Republican candidates, anxious to score cheap points, would make hay of the decade-old controversy.

By and large, that hasn’t happened. But leave it to Mitt Romney to take the low road.

“We’ll try and represent ourselves and our nation well also to our kids because I think, I think kids watch the White House and there have been failures in the past in the White House — if you go back to the Clinton years and recognize that — that I think had an enormous impact on the culture of our country,” Romney said. “And we’ll do our very best, our whole family will to — well, if we can’t be perfect, we’ll do our best to uphold and to be a good example for the kinds of values I think people expect from our leaders.”

Wow, that sure is dumb. The Lewinsky scandal had an “enormous impact” undermining American culture? Seriously?

I can appreciate the fact that Romney is in a tough spot right now, but gratuitous references to Clinton scandals in the 1990s only make him look desperate and classless.

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Privacy Groups Rank World's Top Surveillance Societies

WIRED blog:

Privacy International, a UK privacy group, and the U.S.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center have put together a world map of surveillance societies, rating various nations for their civil liberties records.

Both the U.S. and the UK are colored black for "endemic surveillance," as are Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, Russia, China and Malaysia.

Among the trends that the two organizations have tracked:

* The 2007 rankings indicate an overall worsening of privacy protection across the world, reflecting an increase in surveillance and a declining performance on privacy safeguards. ... (read on)

"There's more to the picture --Than meets the eye. -- Hey hey, my my."

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Robert Kuttner, author of "The Squandering of America", has been an advocate for "fair market" controls rather than the "free market" laissez-faire approach on The American Prospect for quite some time. At a book fair, he discusses his issues with former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's policies on market control:

What was so striking about that book [Greenspan's The Age of Turbulence], was that half of it is a screed against the need for government regulation—you know, free markets are self-regulating—government doesn’t need to mess with free markets. They’ll correct themselves. And the other half of it is Greenspan’s memoir about all of the times he used the Federal Reserve to bail out failed bets by free markets. Now, how can you have it both ways? Well, if you rule the roost, you can have it any way you want. Fine. But there’s a hypocrisy and there’s a lack of intellectual consistency. Either free markets regulate themselves and the government really shouldn’t do anything—yes, Alan, the Fed is part of the government—or, if you think the markets run the risk of going haywire, you have a duty to regulate on the front end and not just bail them out on the back end. So, I think citizens can raise hell about this and elect people who believe in a managed form of capitalism rather than a predatory form of capitalism.

Kuttner's article on The Solvency Crisis referenced in the video is here. And Bonddad at HuffPo sees the credit crisis continuing into 2008, as well as inflation of commodities, like oil (now $100/barrel) and gold.

Here's another reason to like Chris Dodd. Andrea Mitchell wanted to know who Chris Dodd would support for the presidential nomination because she said there were reports that other candidates who are not considered to be in the top tier are cutting deals. He would have none of that talk and said it was irresponsible for any candidate to cut deals or endorse another candidate because his supporters are---you know---supporting him. She kept pressing the issue, but he didn't back down. It's nice to know he won't be auctioning off his supporters.

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Dodd: Yea, I'm totally opposed to that and let me take advantage of the interview Andrea saying don't make any calls to my office, any campaigns...I didn't come here and spend a year campaigning in Iowa...working and expect the people who committed themselves to me at my behest and support someone else. They made a decision to be for me and I'm grateful to them.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Bill W) Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: You know, it's interesting. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seem to be making the same point in criticizing you. They suggested yesterday -- Hillary Clinton said it's not something you have to do by yelling and screaming. They are talking about your being supposedly one angry man. Barack Obama saying change doesn't come by hollering.

What do you say to their criticisms that you are just running over around the state screaming and hollering and making a lot of noise, but you're not ready to really get things done to work to get things done?

EDWARDS: Well, I would respectfully say that the reason both of them are attacking me is that they know from what they are seeing and their campaigns are seeing is that we are moving up every single day. All the polling shows it, I see it on the ground. And -- but the mistake that is being made in the criticism, of course, is I'm not the normal politician doing political talk. Instead, I'm speaking from my heart and soul and my gut about what I believe needs to be done in this country to stop corporate greed and to strengthen the middle class. And they are seeing the response, and they are trying to figure out some way to blunt it.

Is John Edwards this election cycle's Howard Dean? Because now, on the eve of first state primary, the meme being pushed by both the media and his Democratic nominee rivals is that John Edwards' rhetoric is a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Continue reading »

CNN's Ed Henry talks about the Keane/Hamilton op-ed and Jeffrey Toobin discusses the new criminal probe of the destroyed CIA tapes led by John Durham.

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Toobin: It's a big deal because particularly when you assign one prosecutor to investigate one case, it takes a long time....but the Bush administration is certainly in for the remainder of its tenure dealing with subpoenas, grand jury testimony about a very difficult subject.

OK, who thinks David Addington has more to do with this than has been previously reported? I'm just saying that because he's been behind so much garbage as Cheney's right hand man....Here's a little more on Durham.

OK, let's see what happens now...

The U.S. Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said Wednesday that he appointed an outside prosecutor to oversee the case.

The CIA acknowledged last month that it destroyed videos of officers using tough interrogation methods while questioning two al-Qaida suspects. The acknowledgment sparked a congressional inquiry and a preliminary investigation by Justice.

"The Department's National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation," Mukasey said in a statement released Wednesday.

Mukasey named John Durham, a federal prosecutor, to oversee the case. Durham has a reputation as one of the most relentless U.S. prosecutors...read on

And we know how much Republicans like "outside prosecutors." Or is that special prosecutors? I mean this in the Patrick Fitzgerald kinda way. We'll be talking about this a whole lot more as time goes on...

UPDATED: CNN's Jeffrey Toobin just said that this case is going to take a fairly long time to complete and there will be tons of subpoenas being thrown around

Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton wrote an op-ed for the NY Times: "Stonewalled by the C.I.A."

MORE than five years ago, Congress and President Bush created the 9/11 commission. The goal was to provide the American people with the fullest possible account of the “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001” — and to offer recommendations to prevent future attacks. Soon after its creation, the president’s chief of staff directed all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the commission.

The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation...read on