While continuing to avoid stories on Climategate, the AP is focused on creating “news” where none exists.

In an article on Sunday, the AP attempts to be the first to announce that Sarah Palin is running for the Republican nomination for President.  They conflate Palin’s book tour appearance in Iowa with a confirmation that she is running for the nomination.  They do this on one simple argument; because Iowa is the first State to have a caucus for the nominations and Sarah Paling is in Iowa, she must be running for President. 

The AP tries to bolster their assertion that Palin is running for President by getting a comment from a “Veteran Republican activist” to chime in.  Says Tim Albrecht:

politicians don’t just happen to stop in Iowa and Palin must know that her visit is seen as a signal she is considering a run.

Mr. Albrecht was previously National Director of Communications for the American Future Fund which does fine work on conservative issues.  However, Mr. Albrecht does live in Iowa.  Not that living in Iowa is bad, Mrs. Shoe and I lived there ourselves for a couple of years.  My point is that when living in a state, people have a way of thinking that that state is the center of the universe especially if it happens to have a claim to fame that is coincidental to the topic being discussed.  To conclude that Sarah Palin is running for President because she has a book tour stop in Iowa would be like Sarah Palin being at her book signing in Minnesota wearing a plaid, flannel shirt and when asked what I thought she was going to do next, I answer “she’s going ice fishing!”

Hey, AP, while the obvious eludes you, it’s apparent that jumping to conclusions doesn’t!  How about this line of reasoning:  Sarah Palin is trying to sell books.  To do this, she is on a book tour to meet, greet and sell her books.  Her publicist has chosen several states and sites that they believe Sarah’s appearance would have a large impact on awareness for the book.  While Palin will sell books in all states, there is no secret that her appeal is higher in red states or states who lean towards small government ideals.  Believe it or not, Iowa fits that description.

The AP could use a bit of sage advice that I heard years ago:  If you hear clip clop, clip clop behind you, it would be silly to assume that if you turn, you will see a zebra.  It’s much more likely that it will just be a horse!

(H/T – Karl, who uses my term to describe it)

Politico reports that the Washington Post is circulating flyers to lobbyists offering access to its reporters, members of Congress, and Obama administration officials, for between $25,000 and $250,000 per meeting. Politico reposts the text of the flyer that a health care lobbyist received from the Post:

“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” says the one-page flier. “Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. … Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders …

“Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it. What is guaranteed is a collegial evening, with Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds typically on the guest list of 20 or less. …

“Offered at $25,000 per sponsor, per Salon. Maximum of two sponsors per Salon. Underwriters’ CEO or Executive Director participates in the discussion. Underwriters appreciatively acknowledged in printed invitations and at the dinner. Annual series sponsorship of 11 Salons offered at $250,000 … Hosts and Discussion Leaders … Health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post … An exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done. … A Washington Post Salon … July 21, 2009 6:30 p.m.”

As mhking would say, “Just Damn!” Somehow, I doubt that the WaPo either has registered as a lobbyist, or the money spent on this lobbying effort will get reported.

Revisions/extensions (10:04 am 7/2/2009) – The Post sent this trial lead balloon to Politico:

The flier circulated this morning came out of a business division for conferences and events, and the newsroom was unaware of such communication. It went out before it was properly vetted, and this draft does not represent what the company’s vision for these dinners are, which is meant to be an independent, policy-oriented event for newsmakers. As written, the newsroom could not participate in an event like this.

We do believe there is an opportunity to have a conferences and events business, and that The Post should be leading these conversations in Washington, big or small, while maintaining journalistic integrity.

The newsroom will participate where appropriate.

I believe my bullshit meter just pegged.

R&E part 2 (10:17 am 7/2/2009) – Sister Toldjah has the killer headline on this one – “The WaPo or the WaHO”.

Meanwhile, the commenters over at HotAir dug up an interesting January 2001 WaPo editorial:

Gone from any of this is the notion that people give money to candidates or parties for reasons of governing philosophy or positions on issues. The big-money folks give to those who have won or might win. Those in power threaten the contributors in plain language: Give to us or you’ll be squeezed out of the game; give too much to the other guys and you’ll be sorry. It’s the kind of sordid operation that a Mafia don would understand, and both parties play with equal vigor. “We’re a hot ticket these days,” one Democratic fundraiser boasted to The Post. “The fifty-fifty split [in the Senate] means something. People want to play, for sure.”

Plenty of members of Congress dislike what they have become, which is one factor that gives reform this year at least a ghost of a chance. They’d rather be legislating than extorting. But as Arizona Sen. John McCain’s battle for change an uphill one. But the sickening spectacle of a speaker-for-rent as a commonplace of Washington politics makes reform as urgent as it is difficult.

Why do I get the feeling this was an intended, rather than an unintended, consequence of McCain-Feingold?

R&E part 3 (10:22 am 7/2/2009) – HotAir commenter thomasaur has the perfect comment:

Presstitutes working for W. H. O. R. E.

White

House

Office
of
Reality

Enhancement

R&E part 4 (12:11 pm 7/2/2009) – With a tip of the hat to Ed Morrissey, the Post’s Howard Kurtz is now saying that the series has been cancelled. Of course, the less-destructive meme that they were selling access to themselves is getting a lot more play than the probably-illegal one of them selling access to the politicians outside the scope of lobbying laws.

First we had Chris Matthews with tingles in his leg and now we’ve got Harry Smith crying as he purges his white guilt.

Being a male of German descent, I don’t relate to these public displays of emotion. Can we please just get back to our regular doses of excessive fawning?

(H/Ts – Sister Toldjan and Jim Geraghty)

The same day that Rasmussen Reports released a poll stating that 49% of those polled believe that the presstitutes are in the bag for Barack Obama, The Drudge Report breaks news that the New York Times Sedition Slimes rejected the following John McCain op-ed piece:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation "hard" but not "hopeless." Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," he said on January 10, 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that "our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence." But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, "Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress." Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City"”actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his "plan for Iraq" in advance of his first "fact finding" trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five "surge" brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his "plan for Iraq." Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be "very dangerous."

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the "Mission Accomplished" banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war"”only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

I am shocked, SHOCKED that one of the leading mouthpieces promoting the McShame-Slimeroad Lieberal Protection Act would use its status as an exempted press organization to shill for the DhimmiRAT and against the co-author of that act. NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley (who Drudge reminds us worked as a Bill Clinton speechwriter) explains his decision to shaft McCain thusly:

The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information; while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans….

It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq.

McCain’s piece works for me because it offers a direct retort to the Obamination. I also could have sworn that “creating (a) stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic all(y)” qualifies as a concrete term of McCain’s definition of victory in Iraq.

I guess that hack wants McCain to accept retreat and defeat. I strongly suspect it will be a cold summer in Hell before that happens.

Revisions/extensions (1:18 pm 7/21/2008) – Lawhawk goes into the memory hole to dig out not only the fact that tne NYT allowed Hamas access, but defended that access by saying that it wasn’t in its interest to present only one side of the debate. I guess that only applies if the one side presented is not the New Sedition Slimes’ side.

R&E part 2 (8:22 pm 7/21/2008) – The Nose On Your Face dug up Shipley’s proposed rewrite of McCain’s op-ed (H/T – Doubleplusundead)

(H/T – Ed Morrissey)

ABC News engages in some fantasy about how Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) can maneuver herself into the Oval Office come January 20. Let’s more-fully explore this.

The first trigger in this series of events would be a failure of either John McCain or Barack Obama to get to 270 votes in the Electoral College as recognized by a joint session of Congress. The most-likely method is a “clean” 269-269 split, but it’s not the only one. There are also the possibilities of a “faithless elector” denying one or the other 270 electoral votes, and a third-party candidate getting at least 1 electoral vote.

I will briefly touch on the possibility that a sufficient number of challenges to the electoral votes in Congress exists to prevent a certification of all 538 electoral votes. That very-nearly happened in the 1876 election, with the final Congressional acceptance of the results (as judged by a special joint Congressional/Judicial commission) on March 2, 2 days prior to the expiration of the term of Ulysses S. Grant. 3 U.S.C. Sections 15-18 govern the counting of the electoral votes and resolution of challenges to same, and under the limits of debate and recess, Congress would be able to handle no fewer than 56 objections prior to noon on January 20.

At the point no candidate gets at least 270 electoral votes, the 12th Amendment provides that the House of Representatives chooses the President:

…The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice….

ABC News claims that the Democrats currently have a 26-21 advantage in this, with 3 states having evenly-divided delegations. They neglected to factor in the Democratic pick-up in Mississippi, which makes their advantage among the state delegations 27-21-2. That would suggest an Obama victory should it go to the House. However, it won’t be this Congress that will decide this; it will be the next one. I haven’t taken the time to evaluate the possibility of Republican pick-ups (or further losses) outside of Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional, which would make Wisconsin’s delegation evenly-divided if John Gard were to oust Steve Kagen, so I can’t evaluate whether there would no longer be a majority (vice a plurality) among the delegations.

Let’s say that the House deadlocks. The 20th Amendment provides that the Vice President elect would assume the duties until such time that a President qualifies. However, the same situations that would cause an Electoral College deadlock would likely cause it to not choose a Vice President elect, as the 12th Amendment further reads:

…The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed,…

In that case, the Senate would choose the Vice President under the authority of the 12th Amendment:

…(I)f no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice….

ABC presumes that the Senate could deadlock on this issue, with the line of succession as delimited by 3 U.S.C. Section 19 (under the authority of the 20th Amendment) giving the keys to the White House to Pelosi. Indeed, even though the Democrats have an absolute plurality of 49-49-2, and a working majority of 51-49, Joe Lieberman is unlikely to vote for Obama as he has endorsed John McCain. However, in addition to the fact that it won’t be this Congress doing the voting, there’s the “slight” matter of Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution – “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.” As the Senate would be choosing between the top 2 vote-getters, and as the 111th Congress would be at the beginning of its term, essentially the only way for the Senate to not get a majority on its own is if they were evenly-divided at 50, which would give Dick Cheney the 101st and decisive vote.

Keep dreaming, ABC.