Three great threads today in politics, as we approach the midterms:

1)Democrats might soon say the latest aggressive campaign tactics by President Bush are pure desperation. (Oh wait, they already have.) And they might be right, if Republicans can’t get the corruption stories out of the way as they head towards next Tuesday — Jack Abramoff doesn’t stop, it seems.

2)When President Bush says the Democrats are both “measuring the drapes” and “dancing like they are in the endzone” he is not wrong because of mixed metaphors (and Cokie, those are TWO different metaphors, “Come on!?!”) — he is right, because that is exactly what is happening.

3)Karl Rove is “supremely confident” blare headlines in the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. But is the MSM wrong? Time’s Mike Allen and Vanity Fair’s Todd S. Purdum, both formerly daily White House beat reporters, do a great job deciphering the code.

In Bruce Sterling and William Gibson’s book The Difference Engine, they look at how the world would be different if a computing machine had been invented by Charles Babbage in 1855.

It is sci-fi, to be sure, but it serves as a good parable for how much change can be (will be) wrought by the computer.

It’s either scary or exciting, depending on how you look at it. Either way, we are still just at the tip of the computing iceberg, or so says technology writer Steve Lohr in today’s NY Times.

Lohr’s article keys off a recent conference from the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board that looks at where we’ve been — and where we’re going — in the field of computers.

Spend a day perusing the futurist topics on slashdot, or sign up for Dave Farber’s IP listserv (which is where I first stumbled on Lohr’s essay). Both serve as interesting outposts from which to view the frontiers of technological development.

Maybe ESPN’s Brian Kinchen, announcing the Northern Illinois-Iowa game, will get fired for this, like Miami announcer and former player Lamar Thomas was fired after his outburst during the onfield riot that made headlines two weeks ago.

I’m sure it wasn’t kosher to be inapporopriate pre-Internet, but on-air screwups are probably even more fatal in the era of Youtube.

(Thanks, WizardOfOdds.)

There’s a telling political anecdote about Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, when he walked into the first day of teaching at a politics class at the University of Louisville:

“He didn’t introduce himself to his students. He went straight to the chalkboard and scribbled.

‘I am going to teach you the three things you need to build a political party,’ he said, and backed away to reveal the words: ‘Money, money, money.’”

All of that is very clear right now, as election season enters the stretch run:

A) Business money is following the CW, and the Democrats.

B) Businesses are spending money and lobbying power ready to roll back Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulatory moves, post-Enron.

C) Money, money, money.

All the news about the coming elections, and whether Democrats or Republicans control the House and Senate afterwards, can sometimes turn into background noise.

But David Brooks does the best job yet of distilling where things are headed in the next few years.

I wonder if Howard Dean is one of the people Brooks thinks will be able to take advantage of the new interactive playing field.
And while some wonder if Facebook and MySpace could play be the way to connect to the “young crowd”, the young crowd just laughs.

He got a year less than WorldCom’s Bernie Ebbers, so at least the U.S. Justice system is consistent.

But Jeff Skilling won’t go to prison without a fight, so keep your eyes peeled to the Houston Chronicle’s blog to make sure he gets what he deserves.

Actually in WorldCom news, the SEC laid something off an egg today in terms of WorldCom’s fraud payout. And its not the only test the SEC is facing in terms of regulatory issues.

Whenever a politician says he or she is resigning to “spend more time with my family,” it is a given that jaded political hacks reporters will immediately jump to conclusions about a Don Sherwood-like affair, or some soon-to-be-discovered ‘Monkey Business’.

But Mark Warner claimed the “family excuse” last week, and dropped out of the 2008 Presidential race…where he had already amassed a formidable campaign machines.

But in this incredibly insightful article in The New Republic, White House correspondent Ryan Lizza looks deeper into Warner’s life, and his three daughters, and finds that his family statement is, to Lizza’s mind at least, heartfelt and genuine.

(more…)

Ta-da. It’s my first legitimate Berlin dateline:

Location, location, location.

Portland’s major daily newspaper, The Oregonian, has been losing circulation in Portland ever since the NY Times went national and started morning deliveries in the city. (Obviously, most papers have seen those same declines — and not because of the old, “Gray Lady” — but its probably most felt in well-educated Democrat-heavy cities like Portland).

Its coverage is sometimes thin, and doesn’t have the resources necessary to cover the international and national news without mostly relying on wire stories.

But this week was especially bad for the newspaper.

First off, it angered thousands of its readers when it endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton.

And then the New York Times reported on a controvery brewing at Macy’s, that all the local TV stations went with, but the Oregonian dropped the ball.

And Times’ reporter Andrew Adam Newman made a point of the Oregonian’s lack of coverage.

Especially considering it ran an ad for the department store — and it’s back-to-school clothing, which as you see in the picture to the right, wasn’t entirely “age appropriate.”

Ken Lay’s verdict is vacated.

At least it won’t affect Skilling.

(But I still like the New York Post’s headline the best.)