memeorandum: Your Electorate, Folks — ABC News and the Washington Post … (Marc Ambinder)

11:45 AM ET, June 17, 2008

Top Items:

McCain Camp Pounces on Obama Comments From ABC News Interview — The campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., tonight pounced on comments Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., made in an interview today with ABC News. — This was the exchange in question. — TAPPER: Speaking of the Supreme Court …

Discussion: TownHall Blog, JustOneMinute, Althouse, Liberal Values, Sister Toldjah and National Review

George F. Will / Washington Post:

Contempt Of Courts — The day after the Supreme Court ruled that detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo are entitled to seek habeas corpus hearings, John McCain called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” Well. — Does it rank with Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) …

Discussion: Power Line, The Seminal, The Opinionator, DownWithTyranny!, Los Angeles Times, PoliBlog (TM), War in Context, Cato-at-liberty and The Corner

John Yoo / Wall Street Journal:

The Supreme Court Goes to War — Last week's Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush has been painted as a stinging rebuke of the administration's antiterrorism policies. From the celebrations on most U.S. editorial pages, one might think that the court had stopped a dictator from trampling civil liberties.

Discussion: Think Progress, New York Times, Althouse, FP Passport, michellemalkin.com, BeldarBlog, Comments from Left Field, Macsmind, Sadly, No! and RADAMISTO

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

John Yoo's ongoing falsehoods in service of limitless government power — One of the most reliable methods for knowing that a position is unsustainable is that its advocates must employ outright falsehoods in order to support it. In a Wall St. Journal Op-Ed today, John Yoo defends the right …

Discussion: Blue Girl, Red State and Happy Furry Puppy Story …

Washington Post:

Poll Finds Independent Voters Split Between McCain, Obama — Buoyed by a public mood favoring Democrats, Sen. Barack Obama begins the general-election campaign holding a narrow advantage over Sen. John McCain, with independent voters emerging as a constituency critical to the Republican's hopes of winning the presidency in November.

Discussion: Real Clear Politics, Liberal Values, Matthew Yglesias, The Carpetbagger Report, Daily Kos, The Moderate Voice, MyDD, Swampland, MSNBC, TalkLeft, TIME.com and Pollster.com

Washington Post:

McCain Seeks to End Offshore Drilling Ban — Sen. John McCain called yesterday for an end to the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, offering an aggressive response to high gasoline prices and immediately drawing the ire of environmental groups that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has courted for months.

Discussion: Capitol Briefing, Houston Chronicle, Think Progress, Hot Air, Jihad Watch, The Seminal, Fausta's blog, MSNBC, Right Wing News, TIME.com, PoliPundit.com and michellemalkin.com

Rasmussen Reports:
67% Support Offshore Drilling, 64% Expect it Will Lower Prices

Discussion: TownHall Blog and Below The Beltway

Elisabeth Bumiller / New York Times:
How Close McCain Is to Bush Depends on the Issue

Discussion: The Swamp, Media Blog, Gristmill, Electoral-vote.com, Swampland, ImmigrationProf Blog and Big Brass Blog

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Put Your Right Wing In, Take Your Left Wing Out

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report and NewsBusters.org

Gary Langer / ABCNEWS:
Close Race: McCain Stays in Range Amid Challenges for Obama

Discussion: Political Radar and Political Punch

Carrie Budoff Brown / The Politico:
Are Dems talking about McCain's age in ‘code’?

Discussion: Wonkette

Jeffrey Klein / The Huffington Post:

McCain's Secret, Questionable Record — “At a meeting in his Pentagon office in early 1981, Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman told Capt. John S. McCain III that he was about to attain his life ambition: becoming an admiral.... Mr. McCain declined the prospect of his first admiral's star …

Discussion: JammieWearingFool, Hoffmania!, The RBC and Democracy Project

Martin Kady II / The Politico:

GOP member calls for mortgage inquiry — A leading House Republican called Monday for hearings to determine which lawmakers received discount mortgage deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., but his colleagues in the House and the Senate don't seem particularly eager to start turning over rocks.

Discussion: The Swamp and NPR

Washington Post: A Friend in Need — Angelo Mozilo's loans to the well-connected raise some questions.

Amanda Carpenter / TownHall Blog: And I Thought the Washington Post Was Being Sarcastic...

Joe Gandelman / The Moderate Voice:

Obama Gets “The” Endorsement: The Lousy Timing of Al Gore — Perhaps one day someone will write a chapter about Al Gore in a new book titled “Profiles In Uncourage.” — Democratic presumptive Presidential nominee Barack Obama finally got what he and former rival Senator Hillary Clinton …

Discussion: Top of the Ticket, New York Times and Below The Beltway

CNN:
Al Gore Endorses Barack Obama

Discussion: Ross Douthat, Commentary and Extreme Mortman

Joby Warrick / Washington Post:

Report Questions Pentagon Accounts — Officials Looked Into Interrogation Methods Early On — A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay …

Discussion: Emptywheel, Prairie Weather, Salon and Swampland

Fredric U. Dicker / New York Post:

TELL THE TRUTH, GOV — ABSOLUTELY NO DENYING YOU CALLED MIKE LIAR — The laughable nature of Gov. Paterson's half-hearted denials that he called Mayor Bloomberg a tantrum-prone liar wouldn't be significant if New York's accidental governor hadn't vowed from the start to be different …

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blogs, Taegan Goddard's …, Spin Cycle, TIME.com and JammieWearingFool

James Risen / New York Times:

Lost Army Job Tied to Doubts on Contractor — WASHINGTON — The Army official who managed the Pentagon's largest contract in Iraq says he was ousted from his job when he refused to approve paying more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR, the Houston-based company that has provided food …

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report, Buck Naked Politics, Brilliant at Breakfast, Empire Burlesque, Blue Girl, Red State, Obsidian Wings, Angry Bear, The Huffington Post and Shakesville

Marc Ambinder:

Your Electorate, Folks — ABC News and the Washington Post are out with their first post-primary poll, and, as should not be surprising, it is fairly identical to the results found by CNN, Fox, USA Today, Gallup, CBS News, NBC News. (These polls are the gold standard; with Gallup tracking daily …

Discussion: The Corner and The Strata-Sphere

Wall Street Journal:

Obama Plans Spending Boost, Possible Cut in Business Tax — FLINT, Mich. — Sen. Barack Obama shed new light on his economic plans for the country, saying he would rely on a heavy dose of government spending to spur growth, use the tax code to narrow the widening gap between winners and losers …

Discussion: Commentary, The Caucus, TIME.com and TPM Election Central

David Keene / The Hill:

Many a child left behind — The news that the District's representative in Congress has joined with organized labor and liberals within the Democratic Party to demand an end to Washington's successful voucher experiment shouldn't come as much of a shock. — Voucher programs …

Discussion: Betsy's Page