Follow this story: TPM elevating "voter suppression" charges

lol

From a longtime reader ...

What, like a lawyer involved in the case?

Ride in the Delorian: I blogged about this story earlier this week. Macomb County GOP Chair John Carabelli continues to deny he ever made these statements about foreclosed homes and the voters that are registered as living in them.

When denials are made, Talking Points Memo is only listening when they want to hear what you're saying.

More on that later: Two fronts to watch; Update: Drizzle

Two items today that actually do require a little "more on that later" insight. First is a TPM post from David Kurtz unlocking the door to discredit Amir Taheri's column published in the NY Post. Taheri alleges that Barack Obama tried to get the Iraqi government to delay their decisions on Iraq and the US presense there until after the November elections. Itself a serious charge, Taheri wrote this.

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

David Kurtz is suggesting this isn't really accurate and appears to have some sort of inside baseball quotes from Team Obama. Well, no quotes no, but hopefully more on that later. Kurtz does poor some slime in the path of, no, behind the path of Randy Scheunemann, a McCain foreign policy adviser.

If the news reports are accurate, and therein lies the rub. We'll have more on what exactly Obama has said on this issue, publicly, in a bit. But you need to know a bit more about Taheri, who runs in the same neocon circles as Scheunemann.

Taheri and Scheunemann might read the same newspapers. Uh oh.

Second story comes out of Michigan where allegedly the chair of the Macomb County GOP said that residents with homes in foreclosure will be challenged at the polls. Holy power of satan does this alleged charge have the passion and zeal to fire up the nutroots. But did the chair or didn't the chair actually make this statement that was reported and published by out and out left wing journalists.

Carabelli, however, told The Detroit News on Thursday that "I never said anything even close to that. We won't be doing voter challenges on foreclosures, and we've never had a plan to do it."

It's not the denial, but the original statement. Will it even matter if the original statement is fabricated? Project Vote is already on the scene in Michigan from a national view. Locally, the nutroots organized left of center media interest groups are pouncing.

What's in the postgame? Is Taheri a liar? Is Carabelli one too? More on both later.

UPDATE: In regards to Amir Taheri's column, has Team Obama confirmed the story? You decide.

In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.

Oh nos. More questions. Is the current Congress unable to review any statframagreement? Obama's part of that Congress. The Democrats control both chambers of the Congress. What gives? The Iraqis clearly state they're future cannot wait for Obama's clock to toll.

Unreal: Greg Sargent tells you what he thinks

MSM reporters actually read Talking Points Memo sites. Greg Sargent tells you what he thinks.

The McCain campaign issued a new ad today that runs through the ways that Obama has supposedly lashed out at Sarah Palin. It actually concludes with a woman saying, in a tone of a matron chiding an uppity black servant, "how disrespectful."

It's going to be a fun weekend. Buy a round and toast to civility in politics. At the least, punch your friends after they buy you one since there really isn't any civility at all anymore.

Who fired the shot? Who cares.

Dear Democratic Party

Hire this man.

More on this later.

Josh Marshall insinuating falsely that new McCain ad is "race-baiting"

Josh "more on that later" Marshall reacts to the new McCain ad that tries to tell viewers about the type of education reforms that Barack Obama has authored and supported. Marshall declares the ad to be "race-baiting".

And today McCain comes out with this rancid, race-baiting ad based on another lie. Willie Horton looks mild by comparison. (And remember, President George H.W. Bush never ran the Willie Horton ad himself. It was an outside group. He wasn't willing to degrade himself that far.)

Marshall doesn't explain how the ad is "race-baiting". Does he even think it is necessary to explain it? Just watch it, I suppose, and you'll clearly see the ad has to be "race-baiting".

Watch the ad for yourself. Perhaps Marshall will explain the "race-baiting" angle when he has "more on that later". Members of the press actually read this guy.