memeorandum: 2008 House Ratings (The Rothenberg/The Rothenberg …)

6:10 PM ET, October 11, 2007

Top Items:

EXCLUSIVE: E-mail Reveals That McConnell Staffer Propagated Smear Campaign Against Graeme Frost — Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that there was mounting evidence that a staffer for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) may have been involved in the right-wing campaign to smear Graeme Frost and his family.

Discussion: American Prospect, TalkLeft, D-Day, The Carpetbagger Report, Balloon Juice, Matt Ortega, Shakespeare's Sister, Firedoglake, BuzzFlash.org, WHAS11 Political Blog, Interesting Times and The Garlic

Faiz / Think Progress:

CNN Pins Blame On Democrats For Right-Wing Smear Of 12-Year Old Boy — This morning, CNN aired its first report on the right-wing smear campaign against 12-year old SCHIP recipient Graeme Frost. CNN pinned the blame on Democrats for assault on the Frost family.

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report, QandO, The Newshoggers, Wake up America, Norwegianity, D-Day, Riehl World View and Suburban Guerrilla

Atrios / Eschaton:

And It Was McConnell's Office — Not surprised. My understanding is that reporters were initially chomping to do a story from the perspective of the "scoop" of stalkin' Malkin and her gang and their supposedly poorly "vetted" spokesperson until it all fell apart as absurd.

Discussion: Think Progress and The Gavel

Sadly, No!:
Stalkin' Malkin Is Losing It

Discussion: Ezra Klein, Crooks and Liars, Balloon Juice, UrbanGrounds, The Newshoggers, The Moderate Voice, Pandagon and Angry Bear

Time:
The Swift-Boating of Graeme Frost

Amy Ridenour / Townhall.com:
SCHIP, Graeme Frost, and the Bloggers

Discussion: Sadly, No!

Kevin Drum / Washington Monthly:
THE FEVER SWAMP....A plainly disgusted Karen Tumulty recaps …

Discussion: Brian Beutler

Editor and Publisher:

Ann Coulter on CNBC Show: Jews Need 'Perfecting' — NEW YORK Appearing on Donny Deutsch's CNBC show, "The Big Idea," on Monday night, columnist/author Ann Coulter suggested that the U.S. would be a better place if there weren't any Jewish people and that they had "perfected" themselves into — Christians.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Anchoress, NewsBusters.org, Bookworm Room, The Opinion Mill, Media Matters for America, Air America Radio, Roger L. Simon and Cliff Schecter

Fox News:

Columnist Ann Coulter Shocks Cable TV Show, Declaring 'Jews Need to Be Perfected by Becoming Christians' — Slash-and-burn columnist Ann Coulter shocked a cable TV talk-show audience Monday when she declared that Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians, and that America would be better off if everyone were Christian.

Discussion: Mere Rhetoric, Little Green Footballs, Sweetness & Light, FreeSpeech.com and Wonkette

The Atlantic Online:

Coulter and the Jews — Atrios and Andrew Sullivan agree that there's something fishy in Ann Coulter's desire to see Judaism wiped off the face of the earth so we can all be "perfected" by becoming Christians. — This is an uncomfortable thing for Jewish people to think about …

Discussion: Eschaton, The Huffington Post and Lawyers, Guns and Money

The Raw Story:
Jewish group calls on media to boycott right wing author

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Hot Air, Debbie Schlussel and Daily Kos

Carla Marinucci / SFGate:

UPDATE - Gore cancels appearance at Boxer fundraiser — Sen. Barbara Boxer's office just contacted us to say former Vice President Al Gore has been called "overseas" for a trip related to his work on global warming and has canceled his scheduled appearance Thursday in San Francisco at a fundraiser for Boxer's re-election effort.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, On Deadline, michellemalkin.com, Hot Air, Taegan Goddard's …, Blue Crab Boulevard, Riehl World View and Taylor Marsh

Chris Cillizza / The Fix:

Movement From the Gore-acle? — As regular Fix readers know, we have long been fascinated with former Vice President Al Gore and his future (or lack thereof) in elected politics. — The confluence of two recent stories has our Gore-dar buzzing again. The first was an ad that ran in the New York Times yesterday.

Discussion: JammieWearingFool

Paul Steinhauser / CNN:
Will Gore add Nobel to Oscar and Emmy?

Discussion: Times of London, Gates of Vienna, Left in the West, The Democratic Daily, Gateway Pundit, Connecting.the.Dots and Balloon Juice

Brian Montopoli / CBS News:
Could Nobel Prize Spur Gore To Run In '08?

Discussion: MSNBC, If I Ran the Zoo, Attytood and Sister Toldjah

Brent Budowsky / The Hill:
Al Gore for President

Discussion: The Swamp, Make Them Accountable, The Huffington Post and Riehl World View

Tom Hays / Associated Press:

Police: Columbia Won't Turn Over Video — NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia University has refused to turn over security videotape that could help identify who hung a noose on a black professor's office door, police said Thursday. — Investigators began asking on Wednesday for tapes from cameras in the building …

Discussion: The Corner, Gateway Pundit, Little Green Footballs, Sweetness & Light, Hot Air, Wake up America and Blue Crab Boulevard

NY Daily News:
Columbia professor: I will not stand for this!

Discussion: New York Post, michellemalkin.com and New York Magazine

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

GLENN GREENWALD: Warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty — There is a lot of debate about what accounts for the decrepit state of our political press, but often overlooked is the sheer sloth and ignorance of journalists, who repeat what they are told without having any idea what they are talking about.

Discussion: Open Left and TalkLeft

Christy Hardin Smith / Firedoglake:

Not Ready To Make Nice — Well this gets a big, fat "hell, no" from me. Via e-mail from Liz Rose of the ACLU on the draft Senate version of the FISA bill, which is not yet publicly available and not being widely shared for review either: … If they didn't do anything wrong, why should they get retroactive immunity?

Discussion: The Newshoggers, DownWithTyranny!, Taylor Marsh, Corrente and Balloon Juice

Satyam / Think Progress:

Lynne Cheney: Terrorist Attacks Worldwide Don't Affect 'American Interests' — A frequent Bush administration talking point in defense of the "war on terror" is claiming that United States has not been attacked since 9/11. — Yesterday, Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Cheney …

Discussion: Matt Ortega and Angry Bear

Brian Faughnan / Weekly Standard: Hillary's Arrogant Foreign Policy

New York Times:
Turks Angry Over House Armenian Genocide Vote

Discussion: Associated Press, PoliBlog (TM), The Glittering Eye, Blue Crab Boulevard, Guardian, Outside The Beltway, D-Day, normblog and Central Sanity

Media Matters for America:

Gibson knew school shooter was white because "[b]lack shooters don't" shoot themselves; "they shoot and move on" … On the October 10 broadcast of his nationally syndicated Fox News Radio show, while discussing 14-year-old Asa H. Coon, who earlier that day shot four people at his Cleveland high school …

Discussion: Eschaton, Daily Kos, Whiskey Fire and ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Rocky Mountain News:

Documents: Qwest was targeted — 'Classified info' was not allowed at ex-CEO's trial — The National Security Agency and other government agencies retaliated against Qwest because the Denver telco refused to go along with a phone spying program, documents released Wednesday suggest.

Discussion: TalkLeft, Eschaton, The Next Hurrah and The Carpetbagger Report

Marcella Bombardieri / Boston Globe:

Clinton vows to check executive power — Would curb use of signing statements — Senator Hillary Clinton said yesterday that if she is elected president, she intends to roll back President Bush's expansion of executive authority, including his use of presidential signing statements to put …

Discussion: Washington Wire, Moonbattery, MSNBC, TigerHawk and Reason Magazine