[Guest post by DRJ]

The Democratic Convention 2008 has announced its headline speakers:

“Monday August 25th’s headline prime-time speaker will be Michelle Obama.

Senator Hillary Clinton, who is a champion for working families and one of the most effective and empathetic voices in the country today, will be the headline prime-time speaker on Tuesday August 26th.

The headline prime-time speaker on Wednesday August 27th will be Barack Obama’s Vice Presidential nominee.

On Thursday, August 28th, the DNCC will throw open the doors of the Convention and move to INVESCO Field at Mile High so that more Americans can take part in the fourth night of the Convention as Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination.”

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet notes that former President Bill Clinton is scheduled but not confirmed for Wednesday night.

The New York Daily News adds that Hillary Clinton wants to be introduced by her daughter Chelsea. An unnamed official said that having Chelsea and Hillary speak would help Obama placate “Hillary’s more fanatical women supporters.”

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Here’s a timeline for anyone interested in the John Edwards – Rielle Hunter story.

(more…)

A website called “Web of Deception” has the following interesting observation, complete with links supporting the allegations:

Fred Baron provided money to Hunter and Young because he stated he liked them and during that exact period of time he was given $389,698.45 from the “John Edwards for President” campaign and received another $57,428.00 the month Hunter went into the hospital to give birth.

Interesting.

P.S. Is this possibly just a payment for Edwards’s use of Baron’s plane? I have sent Baron an e-mail to ask for an explanation.

That could be legitimate — or a nice way to launder hush money. Only The Shadow knows.

UPDATE: Baron responds to my inquiry:

The payments you reference were made to an aviation company that I control to reimburse travel expense from the campaign — the FEC mandates these charges to be paid by the campaign and they have been reported in our FEC public filings — I hope this answers your question.

I have sent Mr. Baron a few follow-up questions. Hopefully he will respond.

[posted by Justin Levine]

Many news sources report that John Edwards is claiming that his affair with Hunter ended in 2006.

Even Fox News states: “Edwards said he told his wife everything about the affair after it ended in 2006.”

But has anyone bothered to watch Edwards’ Nightline interview (or read the transcript)?

Edwards claims that he first told his wife about the affair in 2006, and that the affair has “been over for a long time”.

But when Edwards is specifically asked how long the affair lasted, we get the usual obfuscations that politicians have in their standard playbook –

BOB WOODRUFF: Is this affair completely over?

JOHN EDWARDS: Oh yes, it’s been over for a long time.

WOODRUFF: How long did it last and when exactly did it end?

JOHN EDWARDS: Well, here’s the way I feel about this Bob. I think that my family is entitled to every detail. They’ve been told every detail. Elizabeth knows absolutely everything. I think beyond the basics, the fact that I made this mistake and I’m responsible for it and no one else. I think that’s where it stops in terms of the public because I think everything else is within my family and those privacy boundaries ought to be respected.

Has he specifically claimed that it ended in 2006 in some other media outlet that I’m not aware of? Not some vague, lawyerly implication mind you – but a direct, unambiguous assertion of it completely ending in 2006?

If he hasn’t, then news outlets should stop with the “2006” claim and instead report the truth – Edwards refuses to state when his affair ended.

[Update]: Numerous people have pointed to Edwards’ own statement that he released after he taped the ABC interview where he states: “With my family, I took responsibility for my actions in 2006 and today I take full responsibility publicly. But that misconduct took place for a short period in 2006. It ended then.”

Fair enough. But if he is willing to say that in his statement, am I the only one who finds it strange that he chose not to answer the question when asked by ABC? Do we need to ask him what he means by ‘misconduct’? Is he trying to pull a ‘Clinton’ here?

– Justin Levine

Fun reading here.

– Justin Levine

[Guest post by DRJ]

Today’s Politico includes excerpts from Joshua Green’s upcoming article in The Atlantic regarding leaked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Green has written in the past about Hillaryland, the Clinton campaign, and the firing of Patti Solis Doyle.

One theme identified by the Politico seems to be Hillary’s indecision about attacking Obama as someone foreign to average Americans and American values. The limited excerpts depict strategist Mark Penn as repeatedly urging Hillary to portray herself as American and Obama as foreign, diverse and multicultural — a candidate for 2050, not 2008.

The Politico preview includes other examples that argue Hillary failed to act on good advice from her advisers:

“A key take-away from the article is that Clinton received a lot of accurate advice, including from Penn. He wrote a remarkably prescient memo in March 2007 about the importance of appealing to what he called “the Invisible Americans,” specifically “WOMEN, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS” — exactly the groups that helped Clinton beat Obama in key states nearly a year later.”

Hillary Clinton is also portrayed as a weak, indecisive executive:

“The anger and toxic obsessions overwhelmed even the most reserved Beltway wise men,” Green writes. “[H]er advisers couldn’t execute strategy; they routinely attacked and undermined each other, and Clinton never forced a resolution. … [S]he never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel.

“What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make.”

Furthermore, Bill is listed as the decision-maker who approved the 3AM ad (proving we always get 2-for-1 with the Clintons):

“The famous 3 a.m. ad, written by Penn and approved by Clinton, almost didn’t run: “In the days leading up to Ohio and Texas, the campaign kept arguing over whether to air the [3 a.m.] ad. With the deadline looming, Bill Clinton, speaking from a cell phone as his plane sat on a runway, led a conference call on Thursday, Feb. 28, in which he had both sides present their case. As his plane was about to lift off, it was Bill Clinton — not Hillary — who issued the decisive order: ‘Let’s go with it.’ ”

The article and leaks hurt Hillary and the timing of the release, right before the Democratic Convention, is especially damaging. It helps Obama to portray Hillary in the worst light possible, so one possibility for the leaker is Patti Solis Doyle. Doyle, a long-time Clinton loyalist, was ousted by Hillary in February 2008 and joined the Obama team in June. Doyle must have been hurt when she was dumped as the weak link in Hillary’s organization, and maybe she found a way to prove to the Obama campaign she is a reliable convert.

On the other hand, Green hasn’t had much good to say about Doyle in the past and there are a lot of big egos and hurt feelings in politics, so we may never learn the leaker(s) identity. The larger questions are “Are these emails accurate?” and, if so, “Are they representative?”

— DRJ

On Friday morning, funeral services were held for another lawman:

Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Juan Escalante, 27, was killed Saturday morning [August 2] in front of his family’s home in Cypress Park.

He had been a sheriff’s deputy for two-and-a-half years and guarded dangerous prisoners, including members of the Mexican Mafia, at the county’s Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles. Authorities are investigating whether his job may have led to his death.

I’d say that’s a pretty good guess, given that 1) Escalante had regular contact with Mexican Mafia members, and 2) the killing occurred in a neighborhood with well-documented ties to Eme, otherwise known as the Mexican Mafia.

The article says that at the time of the shooting, Escalante and his family (he left behind a wife and three children) were living with Escalante’s parents “at his childhood home in a gang-infested neighborhood in Cypress Park, but were about to buy a home in Pomona.” According to the article, the area of the shooting is in the territory of the Cypress Park and Avenues street gangs.

What the article does not say is that the Avenues in particular have very close ties to Eme. Recent years have seen state and federal prosecutions arising out of numerous orchestrated assassinations of people on the Mexican Mafia’s “greenlight list.” The Avenues have been involved in several of these killings.

Whether Escalante was on such a “greenlight” list remains to be seen. Previous articles suggest that he got along well with the prisoners he guarded. I have zero inside knowledge of Eme involvement, one way or the other.

But in my opinion, it’s the way to bet.

UPDATE: I’m hearing that the Mexican Mafia angle is thought unlikely. L.A. Times reporter Richard Winton told Pattt Morrison on KPCC that authorities don’t see an obvious connection.