Say hello to our newest adverstiser--Democrat Doug Haines, runnng for Congress in Georgia--the 12th Congressional District (home of Savannah, Augusta and Athens). Also advertising on TalkLeft is John Barrow, running for the same seat.

On the Senate side, Tony Knowles is running in Alaska.

Please go give these folks some contributions. We can take back Congress in '04, but they need some help from us.

President Bush released hundreds of pages of his military records, including medical records today, to put to rest allegations that he didn't completely fulfill his National Guard service.

We just got to Scottsdale, AZ where we will be at a legal conference all weekend. We haven't read enough yet to comment, and we've got a function to attend in a little while, but we'll be back later tonight and throughout the weekend--the hotel has high speed internet access and we feel like blogging.

Speaking on the Don Imus show this morning, John Kerry said he's ready for whatever the Republicans throw at him:

Front-runner John Kerry said Friday he is prepared for an onslaught of criticism from the Republican Party and is ready to fight back as he moves closer to the Democratic nomination for president.

"We've seen evidence. We know exactly where these guys are gonna go, and I'm ready for it," Kerry told radio broadcaster Don Imus. "I've been at this for a while, Don, and I've been through some tough races. I've been pretty well, you know, vetted and examined from one side to the other. And I think that they're in for a surprise. I'm going to fight back. I am a fighter, and I'm ready to fight back."

Say hello to Ralph Don't Run. It is a grassroots campaign that depends on recipients forwarding the message to supportive friends. Once you see the site, if you're so inclined, please pass it along as broadly as possible.

Drudge is reporting that Kerry is preparing a response to the allegations he posted earlier on his website that Kerry had an extramarital affair with an intern (see our earlier post here.)

Daily Kos says the allegations pertain to relationship Kerry had with another lawmaker's intern while he was between marriages. In other words, sex as a single guy. Drudge alleges the relationship was in 2001.

The U.S. papers are not, as yet, covering the allegation. The U.K., Scottish and Irish papers are reporting it, but have no details other than a regurgitation of Drudge. (check Google news)

A reporter on CNN tonight said that Howard Dean said today he will go back to Vermont and consider what to do next if he doesn't win Wisdonsin--which is different than his earlier statements first that he would drop out if he lost Wisconsin and later that he would stay in if he lost Wisconsin. If this new statement is accurate, we think it unlikely that the Kerry story is driving his decision.

Our prediction: The Kerry story is going to fizzle.

Update: Joe Conasen on Drudge's smear campaign.

Is American politics suddenly returning to the bad old days, when Washington journalism became frenzied with sheet sniffing and keyhole peeping? That seems to be the default program of the right-wing media machine whenever Republican poll numbers sink into the red zone.

Late Thursday morning -- with George W. Bush's credibility damaged on several fronts as reporters demanded answers to questions about his National Guard service that should have been asked years ago -- the Drudge Report defamed his leading Democratic challenger with a "world exclusive" smudge of personal dirt.

Law Professor and contributing Nation editor Joel Rogers, writing in the Madison Capital Times, provides a list of reasons why John Edwards is more progressive than John Kerry. First he lists the candidates' similarities, and then he distinguishes Edwards:

Where Edwards diverges from Kerry is in addressing a series of issues of distinctive concern to progressives - inequalities of race and class, abusive corporate power, neoliberal globalization, ghetto poverty and prisons, the importance of worker and community organization outside the state. And what makes him distinctive is not just that he regularly touches these third-rail issues, but is effectively running on them.

He is unabashedly pro-union. He regularly challenges white audiences to confront the white problem of continued racial injustice. His "two Americas" stump speech is all about class. He appreciates and notes the sheer pervasiveness of corporate crime - from tax evasion to union avoidance, predatory lending to environmental degradation, unsafe working conditions to subsidy abuse.

He is sharply critical of the "Washington consensus" on international trade and finance. He talks about the growth of poverty and dead-end poverty jobs. And he's the only candidate who does this in language that ordinary voters understand and are moved by. Better still, Edwards is relentlessly upbeat about America's ability to solve these problems. He's not another Clintonesque "I feel your pain, now let me tell you why I can't do anything about it" sort of guy. He has a real program of democratic renewal. And it is largely ours.

...He wants to raise labor and environmental standards, invest heavily in worker training and continuing education, and build the public infrastructure needed to achieve a shared prosperity. He also wants to get beyond the free trade/protectionism frame for international economic policy and commit the United States clearly to both defending living standards here and enabling sustainable growth in the Third World.

The best news to us:

He also would have us shrink our bloated prison population and return its present members more successfully to society by better distinguishing non-violent drug crimes from other offenses; restoring abandoned treatment and training options; and re-enfranchising those who have done their time.

Wesley Clark is going to endorse John Kerry. So maybe there is less to the Kerry rumors than Drudge reported. (See post below this one.)

Update: 2/16/04, The rumor is false.

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Original Post

Ok, the source is Drudge, but since three reporters have credited an off the record comment by Gen. Clark saying Kerry's campaign would implode over an intern issue, we're reporting it. We caution, however, that just because it's going to be talked about doesn't make it true.

We also note that the report says that the intern issue is the reason Dean is staying in the race. If Kerry does implode, then Dean likely is back in the race, which makes our post yesterday saying it's over for Dean and he should get out, no longer true. Although, we think any decline by Kerry will give a greater bump to Edwards than Dean.

Here's Drudge:

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THU FEB 12, 2004 11:45:28 ET XXXXX

CAMPAIGN DRAMA ROCKS DEMOCRATS: KERRY FIGHTS OFF MEDIA PROBE OF RECENT ALLEGED INFIDELITY, RIVALS PREDICT RUIN

World Exclusive Must Credit the DRUDGE REPORT

A frantic behind-the-scenes drama is unfolding around Sen. John Kerry and his quest to lockup the Democratic nomination for president, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal. Intrigue surrounds a woman who recently fled the country, reportedly at the prodding of Kerry, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

A serious investigation of the woman and the nature of her relationship with Sen. John Kerry has been underway at TIME magazine, ABC NEWS, the WASHINGTON POST, THE HILL and the ASSOCIATED PRESS, where the woman in question once worked. A close friend of the woman first approached a reporter late last year claiming fantastic stories -- stories that now threaten to turn the race for the presidency on its head!

In an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week, General Wesley Clark plainly stated: "Kerry will implode over an intern issue." [Three reporters in attendance confirm Clark made the startling comments.]

The Kerry commotion is why Howard Dean has turned increasingly aggressive against Kerry in recent days, and is the key reason why Dean reversed his decision to drop out of the race after Wisconsin, top campaign sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

It's great when bloggers turn into journalists. The Bush military records flap has produced two first hand reports:

Oliver Willis located and interviewed Bush's "flight buddy" Bill Campenni:

I got in contact with Bill Campenni, known as the witness (possibly) to George W Bush's missing year. I asked him why he chose just now to finally come forth with his story and his reply was that "The stupidity reached a critical mass". He also says that he doesn't know why it's been so difficult for the national media to get in contact with him to verify his story (honestly, it was pretty easy to track him down), though he believes that stupidity has something to do with it.

When I asked him about being stationed in Pittsburgh, not Alabama and the fact that his story leads one to believe he was in grad school from '71-72 (the same years as the hole in Bush's record) and thus incapable of vouching for where the president was, his reply? An evasive "Nice Try".

Kevin Drum of Calpundit tracked down Bill Burkett and had a two hour conversation with him.

Basically, he confirmed his account and answered several of my questions about it. He says he accidentally overheard the conversation in General James' office about cleaning up George Bush's National Guard record and then discussed it with a friend who subsequently led him to the building where he saw 30 or 40 Bush documents lying in a trash can. He agrees that his "clarification" in 2000 went too far and says that he got scared by all the attention and backed off more than he should have. And he's quite frank about his run-ins with Dan Bartlett and the medical problems that he blames on retaliation by Bush's staff.

Kevin will be writing more tomorrow after he recovers from his cortisone shot, something we definitely can identify with--we hope it's not from overusing the computer.

We've only done one interview for TalkLeft--it was of Gary Hart, while he was considering running for President--you can read it The National Journal's rendition of it here.

It's a lot harder to interview a person than it is to be interviewed. We've been interviewed by journalists seeking legal analysis for the past 8 years on various topics, so we know first-hand how much tougher their job is. We'd be glad to try a stint at being an interviewer for a major publication, but, on the other hand, we're not sitting home scheming on how to make that happen.

All the more reason praise is due to Oliver and Kevin, who took it upon themselves to track down an interviewee, convince him to speak with them, and end up with a finished product we can all read about.

In our book, Oliver and Kevin have been raised to "way cool".

John Kerry has a corps of volunteer lawyers from prestigious D.C. law firms acting as a shadow Justice Department, helping him shape policy positions on justice issues.

The group, headed by Nicholas Gess, of counsel at the D.C. office of Bingham McCutchen, is one of several clusters of well-connected lawyers and policy experts, many of them Clinton administration veterans, relied on by Kerry to brainstorm key issues. ....All of them report to Sarah Bianchi, the campaign's policy director and a former domestic policy adviser to former Vice President Al Gore.

Among the questions before it: How would a Kerry administration handle criminal sentencing? What kind of federal judges would it appoint? How would it strike the balance between civil liberties and national security? What stance would it take on gay marriage and civil unions?

The group includes plenty of Washington insiders who helped run the DOJ the last time the Democrats were in power. And often, when a new president is making key appointments, he looks to people who have helped him in the campaign.

Actually, there are lawyers in all fields helping out the Kerry campaign:

Other groups, larded with lawyers from the D.C. offices of such firms as Arnold & Porter; Latham & Watkins; Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, focus on issues like economics or foreign policy.

Then there's the lawyer-helpers on trade, regulatory, environmental, foreign policy and national security issues. Take the national security team--it set up a mini-National Security Council:

"We have a weekly conference call, write position papers, and do opposition research on the Bush administration."

We haven't heard of any other candidate having such a broad base of policy experts. And, of course, there's a reason for it--employment opportunities in the new Kerry Administration. As one lawyer, Jeffrey Liss, says, he's been running something of a Kerry job referral service lately:

Lately I've had a bunch of people, former Clinton administration types, approach me and say, 'Can you plug me in?' Liss says. "That happens all the time in D.C., and I've done that for them. But the pace of it has certainly picked up in the past several weeks."

President Bush's military records are creating such a stir, we thought we'd try and find a concise summary of what happened and what the issue is. MSNBC has this version:

George W. Bush was sworn into the Texas Air National Guard on May 27, 1968 during the height of the Vietnam War. He went through all of the basic and advanced flight training and received a commission as a second lieutenant. He then went about his business as a private citizen attending monthly and any other special "camps" for training.

In 1972, then-citizen Bush got a job working on a U.S. Senate campaign in Alabama and he looked into attending Guard meetings with a unit in Montgomery, Ala. A Lt. Colonel Lott sent Bush a letter informing him when the meetings were scheduled for the Alabama unit in October and November.

The controversy: Was Bush was absent without leave or AWOL from the Alabama Air National Guard during those 2 months in 1972?

If Bush attended a meeting in Alabama, the paymaster there would have noted it and sent the information onto Texas on an "IBM 105" card where it would be recorded and sent onto payroll in Colorado. Bush has released payroll records showing he received credit for attending meetings during the 2 months in 1972. But, they don't show where he attended meetings. He was living in Alabama at the time, but there are no Alabama records to show he attended meetings there.

Here's the timeline, from the same article:

It's time for Howard Dean to pick up his marbles and go home. The last thing that's going to help him get back in the presidential race is an attack on John Kerry and in what must be a last, desperate move, that's just what he's doing, charging that Kerry is part of "the corrupt political culture in Washington."

We don't pretend to know why Dean bombed in Iowa or why the media attacked him afterwards, but the fact is, he's been out of it ever since. If he wants to stay in national politics, he'd do much better to get behind whomever the Dems choose and campaign like crazy for the candidate to beat Bush.

We're starting to feel sorry for Dean. It's so over and he just won't admit it.