Monday Morning Must-Reads

POSTED BY Raleigh-Elizabeth Smith, 29 October 2007

Rudy a Lefty?  Yeah, Right.  [WaPo]    It starts out like this: "If you like President Bush, you'll love a President Giuliani."  And it's worth reading on - namely because half the people I know who have spent the last eight years viciously complaining have actually said they wouldn't mind a President Giuliani.  As a New Yorker, the whole idea of it makes me shiver.  And this strange split is just what David Greenberg picked up on.  "You wouldn't know it from reading the papers, but the favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination is a confirmed right-winger. On issues such as free speech and religion, secrecy and due process, civil rights and civil liberties, pornography and democracy, this moralist and self-styled lawman has exhibited all the key hallmarks of Bush-era conservatism.  That candidate is Rudolph W. Giuliani."  Uh-oh.

Huck Under Fire  [Time-Swampland]     Who hearts Huckabee?   Not Mitt Romney, that's for sure.  If you are looking for signs that a dark horse is moving up in the presidential field, there is a more telling indicator to watch than poll numbers. It's when the opposition decides he is becoming enough of a threat to take a shot at him. That's why there was special signficance, an arrival of sorts, to Mitt Romney's seemingly offhand observation Friday in an Iowa Public Television interview that Mike Huckabee had supported "special tuition breaks to the children of illegal immigrants." It marked the first time that the GOP frontrunner in Iowa had ever singled out Huckabee for an attack.

Krugman: Fearing Fear Itself  [NYT]   There isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.  Hello, Iran. 

Huckabee on Bombing Iran, WMDs and Jimmy Hoffa  [C+L]    Huckabee, behind in the polls and not wanting to be outdone by the “we must go to war with Iran” Giuliani campaign, went on Late Edition this Sunday morning and tried his best to prove he’s just as capable of starting an unnecessary war based on bad intelligence as any other Republican candidate. Repeating the lie that Ahmadinejad said he wants to destroy Israel, Huckabee swears he will do “whatever it takes,” and will not even rule out using tactical nukes in doing so. 

MoDo: WMDs in Iran?  Q.E.D. [NYT]   Ahh, mornings with MoDo.  Today's engagement: A Cheney-Russert debate on going to Iran.  RUSSERT: How will you even know where to bomb, given that all the experts say the Iranians have hidden their real nuclear facilities underground?  CHENEY: Can you say magic carpet bombing, Tim? We didn’t build those bunker busters just to stack ’em up in a warehouse in North Dakota.   RUSSERT: It’s so close to the next election, Mr. Vice President, shouldn’t you just keep on the diplomatic track and let the next president make this decision?  CHENEY: You really want Rudy Giuliani playing with the nuclear button, Tim? Now, that’s insane.  Scary because it's true. 

Rummy on the Run!  [FDL]   On Friday Donald Rumsfeld arrived in France to give a speech – but he had to leave via a back door that went directly into the US Embassy and then quickly scampered out of the country. Why? He was afraid French prosecutors would act on an indictment brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the International Federation for Human Rights and several other NGOs.