Props to the Jed Report for this one.  Guess who's the lead 'Citizen for McCain' from West Virginia?  Philip 'Icky' Frye.  This is too good to be true, but you get that:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain trumpeted the support of a "prominent" West Virginia Democrat over the weekend - a fringe political candidate best known because former Gov. Bob Wise had an affair with his wife.

Philip "Icky" Frye, a 2004 Democratic candidate for governor, was on a list of 30 people released by "Citizens for McCain," described in a news release as a grass-roots effort to rally people of all political parties to McCain. The group is headed by U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.

Frye, the only West Virginian on the list, said the McCain campaign contacted him about a week ago at his home in Hugheston and asked him to join the group.

"My name popped up, probably because I was an ex-gubernatorial candidate," Frye said.

Paul J Nyden - 'Prominent Democrat' Frye on McCain list of backers The Charleston Gazette 17 Jun 08

That's Frye on the right.  And Frye's claim to fame?  Pretty compelling stuff:

Well, he's a TV and VCR repairman who decided to run for governor of West Virginia after discovering that his wife was having an extramarital affair with then-Governor Bob Wise.

Icky said his campaign "was fueled by revenge" and that he "wanted to embarrass Wise," who he called a "little weasel-faced bastard" and a "typical Democrat."

During the campaign, Icky told a West Virginia TV station that he didn't have any qualifications to serve as governor but wanted "to be a sheer nuisance to Bob Wise." Icky's campaign slogan ("He'll do his job...not his staff.") was a reference to the affair between his wife, a state employee, and the governor.

Not surprisingly, Icky finished in 7th place of out 8, winning just 1% of the vote.

McCain claims fringe candidate as top Democratic supporter The Jed Report 17 Jun 08

But the McCain campaign, bless 'em, is having none of it.  When questioned on the matter they made their position clear:

The news release from McCain's campaign called Frye and others on the list "prominent Democratic and unaffiliated leaders and activists."

Jeff Sadoski, a spokesman for the national McCain campaign, said Monday, "This is a list of people who are known in different states, as Democrats or independents. They include elected officers and leaders in the Democratic Party. They were prominent Democrats."

Sadowski said Frye was "someone who has run statewide as a Democrat."

Asked how the McCain campaign chose people to put on the list of "prominent" supporters, Sadowski said, "We did research. We reviewed them."

Paul J Nyden - 'Prominent Democrat' Frye on McCain list of backers The Charleston Gazette 17 Jun 08

I'll say.  Hope they do better with their VP pick, and yet, something in me has sympathy for Mr. Frye.  He is not lacking in chutzpah or resolve, that's for sure.  God I love elections.

Last Friday I posted a diary regarding the linking of the Army Public Affairs web newsletter Stand To to a strongly anti-Obama posting in their 'What's being said in Blogs' section.  This had been originally reported by the Washington Post and Huffington Post linked to it on Friday at around midday regarding a Tuesday edition of Stand To.  The link was gone before midnight.

I posted the email address of Major General Anthony A. Cucolo III, Chief of Public Affairs, US Army and sent an email on the subject which can be found in the original diary.  I received a response from General Cucolo which in the interest of fairness, and with a sense of satisfaction in the integrity of the US Army, it seems appropriate to diarise here:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Shaun:

Thank you very much for copying me on your note. Linking to this particular blog entry was a mistake -- as you state, in fact, an embarrassing and damaging oversight by us.

My team does Stand To!...it is a very important internal communications tool for the Army, with the intent of helping soldiers, Army Civilians and Families stay informed. Last year, I directed my crew that puts that item together to select articles and links -- from US and international sources -- that are both positive and negative about the Army. We believe to stay best informed, we must pay attention to all that others are saying -- even if we don't "like" it. It helps us understand how, what and to whom we should communicate to close the gap between perceptions and reality, part of our duty as Soldiers to keep the public and our Congress well-informed.

However, we must and will remain an apolitical organization. Our loyalty is to defending the ideals of the Constitution of the United States, and not to an individual or a symbol.

By going to that link -- a milblog that we have linked to in the past for other, more topical, content -- we violated our own guidelines.

I offer no excuse and accept full responsibility for this error. I want you to know that we have removed the blog and its archive. For what it is worth, we do post a disclaimer with every Stand To!, a portion of which follows:

"*External Links Disclaimer - The appearance of hyperlinks to external sites does not constitute endorsement by the Department of the U.S. Army of the linked web site or the information, products or services contained therein."

But I want to assure you, the disclaimer is not meant to cover prohibited issues such as partisan political activity (or even the perception of it) -- bottom line, even with the disclaimer, we should not be linking this type of material at all. Again, this is my responsibility, it is inexcusable, and we have taken immediate steps to remove the links and emplace better oversight so it does not happen again.

You and the public must have confidence that the armed forces, especially your Army, remain apolitical in every respect.

Thank you again for your note.

Very respectfully,

Tony Cucolo
Major General, US Army Chief, Army Public Affairs

Thanks, General.  As I said in the original diary, this is a housekeeping issue, no big deal, but it is gratifying to have a response from our military which demonstrates an apparently perfect understanding, at least, of the situation and the problem the link presented.  Good on General Cucolo and the US Army.  A small lesson, perhaps, in the importance of vigilant push-back and also a reason to take some pride in the process we enjoy in these United States.

Whoops.  Glad this saw the mainstream light of day, thanks to The Huffington Post, but as it was on a national-security themed column in the Washington Post it may be worth a bit more exposure here, regarding the Army's public affairs office daily roundup of Army-related news called Stand To:

Tuesday's edition contained an entry under "WHAT'S BEING SAID IN BLOGS" that struck me as unusual -- both for its headline and its patent political bias:

Obama: World peace thru surrender (KDIHH)

[...]

Seriously?  Have any of these people actually read the Obama defense policy papers or speeches -- or are they simply going on what they hear on Fox News and the Limbaugh network?

And more to the point, why is the Army's official in-house public affairs shop linking to this kind of stuff? Just a few weeks ago, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told all hands to stay out of politics: "As the nation prepares to elect a new president, we would all do well to remember the promises we made: to obey civilian authority, to support and defend the Constitution and to do our duty at all times.... Keeping our politics private is a good first step." He added: "The only things we should be wearing on our sleeves are our military insignia."

Unfortunately, the message didn't get to through to the Army.  

Let's be clear: It is okay for the services to have a message. Both the Early Bird and Stand To speak for the Pentagon and the Army as institutions, and that's okay. They generally support the troops, the military, the chain of command, and the current endeavors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing wrong with that.

And I have no objections to what Mr. Hooah wrote, besides the fact that I think it's factually wrong. He has his opinion; I have mine.

But the Stand To page is different -- and Tuesday's edition crosses the line.  This isn't some citizen's blog or website. It's the in-house public affairs digest of the United States Army.  It should not be amplifying partisan political attacks, nor should it be airing them at all.  This appears like yet another example of the unusually cozy relationship which has developed over the last generation or so between the military and the right wing of American politics -- an unhealthy development, to say the least.

Philip Carter - Army Shows Its Colors WaPo 12 Jun 08

I'll say.  And one wonders what the best way to push back on this kind of thing might be.  E-mail your Congressperson?  Get Move On on the case?  Thoughts, folks?

[Update]: Brigadier General Anthony A. Cucolo III, Chief of Public Affairs, US Army is apparently reachable via anthony.cucolo@hqda.army.mil. The Army Public Affairs website doesn't seem to have a direct email address. Funny, that. Stand To has a feedback address as well, stand-to@smc.army.mil. Drop 'em a line and let them know how you feel, I reckon.

[Update]: As pointed out by Steve M the link to the anti-Obama blogsite no longer appears in the edition of Stand To in question. That was pretty quick.

This is one of those short, one notion diaries but I feel compelled to acknowledge the unique experience we have enjoyed here over the past few days.

The recent history of MyDD during this primary season has been exceptional, originally a very pro-Edwards site, based on it's population it became a Clinton-oriented refuge while maintaining a fairly even distribution on the front page.  And throughout there has been a strong and persistent Obama minority which I have been proud to number myself among.

While other progressive blogs became, appropriately or otherwise, largely pro-Obama bastions, and other sites emerged which were virulently anti-Obama in Hillary's cause, MyDD remained a hotly contested crucible for inflammatory arguments for and against Hillary's and Obama's respective candidacies.  While the recommended list was conceded the comment threads never were and the arguments pro and con were pursued with a tenacity, and perhaps a polemic enthusiasm, which raised ire and threatened civility more than many other first-rank forums in the blogosphere.

I think we all despaired, at one time or another, that this division was an indication of the perilous and damaging condition of the party in this crucial presidential election, yet we stuck to our principles and fought on with dedication and loyalty to our respective candidates.

But now, while the sluggish media is still mesmerised by the narrative of the party's divisions we are witness here to a remarkable and inspiring spirit of reconciliation.  Leading diarists for Hillary's cause have written, with profound courage and insight, on the real challenges facing us as Democrats and have been received, by and large, with a warm response by their former adversaries.

Today I am proud of the MyDD community and the population of posters here who are demonstrating qualities which call on our higher political and ideological virtues and likely insure our victory in this election.  Whether by accident or design, and as a consequence of the dynamics of this site over the last few months, if feels like we as a community are leading the way at the moment in forging an alliance which bodes well for Democrats in this election cycle and beyond.

I am proud to consider myself a MyDD'er today and that pride extends to the adversaries I have sparred with all these long months.  We are clearly greater than the sum of our parts.

In the wake of Senator Obama's historic victory it may well be worth noting the single deciding factor in the widely acknowledged skill with which his campaign was conducted:

...a critical mass of progressive Americans are learning political discipline again: the disciplines that had been carried like rare seeds through a decades-long desert by the few and the proud that had continued the study and practice of community organizing.

We are today reading a plethora of columns by pundits and reporters marveling at the discipline of the Obama campaign and its successes. Every single one of those successes can be traced to a single core factor: Barack Obama was one of the few, even in politics, that had carried the community organizer torch all these years. Those principles were infused into every aspect of the campaign. The community had simply become an entire country.

Al Giordano - No More Drama The Field 5 Jun 08

As Al further notes in a link to Karen Tumulty in Time:

When Betsy Myers first met with Obama in his Senate office on Jan. 3, 2007, about two weeks before he announced he was forming an exploratory committee to run for President, Obama laid down three ruling principles for his future chief operating officer: Run the campaign with respect; build it from the bottom up; and finally, no drama.

Karen Tumulty - How Obama Did It Time 5 Jun 08

This is the legacy of Saul Alinsky and his legendary Rules for Radicals on a national scale.  The patient transmission of these hard-learned lessons in the labour movement and community activist groups for a generation has finally borne fruit in national politics, bursting on the scene with unanticipated success.

And the breakthrough is not just one of national politics, but has already had an unprecedented impact on our national culture of 'individuality' which sadly has largely compartmentalised us into isolated consumers of information, ideology and entertainment, often co-mingled into a pastiche with little usefulness in changing our physical reality.  The result has crippled our solidarity as willing movement-oriented participants in the political process and led to an unwittingly selfish and fractious attitude toward collective action:

The presumption by so many Americans (the international leader in these indulgent personality traits, and this, one of its last export products to the rest of the world) that their precious sense of "individuality" gives them the 24 hour right to use all public forums as personal therapy sessions to vent and inflict their every perceived psychological misery upon others is a big part of what has made serious political movements in the US impossible for so long. Anybody that has attended a political "meeting" at which there was a "decision making process" has seen the tyranny of the individual crash down upon the collective imperative again and again. "Acting out" - without discipline nor regard for the hijacking nature of such behavior - had become considered a sacrament, rather than the sabotage that it was and is.

Al Giordano - No More Drama The Field 5 Jun 08

Well, we have now been given a dramatic lesson in how powerful we can be when these 'bad habits' are unlearned, even for a few short months.  Senator Obama's policies, taken one at a time, are no more radical in detail than those of any of his opponents, some of them even less than theirs, but his over-arching strategy of applying the simple, basic precepts of community organizing in electoral politics has defied the conventional wisdom of the punditry, the political establishment and, yes, the citizenry themselves.  Hang on to your hats, folks, we could end up miles from here.

Well, Al Giordano, who has become a 'must read' serious pundit and number cruncher over at The Field with a pretty realistic handle on things, though clearly in the tank for Obama, sums it up pretty well:

There is no question any more that - despite the pronunciations of the dead-enders and the fantastic dark fantasies of some Obama supporters - we are in the end days of Clinton's quest for the White House. Within a week or two she will suspend her campaign (after, first, offering another bluff or two about "taking it to the convention" just to pull your beards one or two last times). Expect Obama to be conciliatory. And get ready for a great many Clinton partisans to warm to him considerably and begin to convert to his cause. Some of them will become his most enthusiastic faithful in short time.

Others - personified by the few hundred crazies that got caught on YouTube yesterday protesting the RBC meeting - will not. And far be it from me to try to talk them down off the ledge. I don't mean to be too much of a sadist and be the first to yell "jump!"

But, that said: "Jump! Please!"

Discipline among all players and even fans is a trademark of any winning team. The Obama camp demonstrated that it has cultivated that kind of discipline among its rank-and-file yesterday. The other camp did not.

Al Giordano - Mopping Up: Transitioning Out of the Pre-Season 1 Jun 08

I agree, the winning of hearts and minds presumes them functioning normally.  While there is much merit in conciliation and reconciliation at this stage of the primary, the general election looms.  It is the main event and the challenge which unites us all.  If it doesn't, there is only so much which can be bartered or compromised before the train leaves the station and that time is nigh.

Hillary supporters, your candidate fought a tenacious and competent campaign once she took control of it.  She is to be admired and respected.  But to try and promote faux issues on her behalf, or to extend them beyond their shelf-life and into the general election out of pique or ill-will is simply intolerable.

There are many Obama supporters willing to extend the olive branch and welcome the many loyal, well-spoken Hillary backers to join us in defeating McCain in November, as we surely will.  Many of the staff of her campaign who fought so tenaciously in her cause will no doubt be joining us.  To those in crisis, we will take the time and energy to talk you down off the ledge but if you insist on staying there and hurling insults at the rest of us or regale us with disruptive schemes or arguments with which you would attempt to squander this opportunity or thwart our aspirations you should perhaps reconsider.

There are only two ways down from the ledge and we will help you take the more comfortable route, but this is a busy time for us so tarry not.  If, on the other hand, you are determined to jump you are on your own and you may as well go now and be done with it.

Update: To be perfectly clear this is not a criticism of Hillary supporters in general, far from it, but is a response to the few who promote ongoing, and counter-productive, angst here over voting metrics when the RBC has already ruled, continue attacks on Senator Obama when it is increasingly clear he is the presumptive nominee and declare tacit or overt support for McCain on a progressive Democratic blog during an election year.

A candidate supporter diary for MyDD

Of all the issues facing Americans in this crucial national election none is more compelling than providing a remedy to our international relations and re-framing the debate on 'national security.'  Arguably our present discussion of foreign policy fails to take into account the challenge it presents to our long-term prosperity.  One seldom sees the story presented in the US media but the challenges facing the US in trade, specifically in the competition for energy resources and markets in a rapidly changing global economy, are going to have an enormous impact on our prosperity in coming decades.  And if your priority issues are along the lines of health care reform or other important domestic social initiatives it is perhaps worth considering that these are going to be advanced most reliably or, alternatively, constrained by our performance on this one overriding issue.

It's not just the trillion dollars we have spent on basically nothing in Iraq over the last few years, that is just the tip of the iceberg.  It is the loss to US business of energy related profits and the lost opportunities this foreign policy has created in the reshaping of the global energy economy, for example, as a consequence.  The nascent North-South corridor is a potential threat, an economic shift that would see the bulk of the Gulf's energy moving overland through Russian pipelines to Europe and, possibly, China, with gas and oil moving into these growing markets potentially generating nil profit to US corporations and forcing the US into an increasingly competitive negotiation for these dwindling resources.  Health care and other social reforms, not to mention the enormous investment we will need to make in re-engineering our infrastructure for alternative and green energy are vital issues.  But if there is an erosion of our national prosperity which pays for these programs we will be unable to achieve them.  Just look at the price of fuel today and consider the impact that has on every aspect of our economy, it is money that could be well-spent elsewhere.  

One may debate whether our military and naval investment in Iraq, and the Near East generally, has improved our national security, arguably it hasn't but that's not the point.  Clearly from the perspective of the Gulf states the security situation in their region has been de-stabilised and they are considering looking elsewhere for the kind of guarantees which have seen US protection of supertanker trade routes as the status quo for a generation.  Real 'security' is not having two aircraft-carrier groups in the Persian Gulf but rather not requiring any there in the first place.

Consider, for example, the Russian response to increased tensions over Iran last year, at a time when our attention was directed to an imminent pre-emptive strike on a populous and sovereign nation in the context of our narrative of the 'global war on terror' and security concerns regarding Israel.  Putin, possessing a soul or not, didn't miss the opportunity, travelling to Tehran and crafting the beginnings of a diplomatic and economic agreement in a face-to-face meeting with Khomenei under the aegis of a trans-Caspian accord.  Not to mention stalemating US military activities in the region with the signing of the Declaration:

The declaration signed at the end of the summit covers a wide range of subjects in its 25 articles. The document virtually binds the littoral states into a non-aggression commitment, warns the outsiders to refrain from using the Caspian region soil for military operations or interfering in any other way, supports the right of Iran to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful purposes...

Tehran Summit Unites Caspian States on Major Issues News Central Asia 17 Oct 07

The outcome?  It seems we've been significantly outmanoeuvred by our old Cold War rival and apparently risk missing the point of the real shifts in regional economics and geopolitics in the global economy.

The 'race' issue seemed to get under Bill's skin yesterday:

In a further indication of just how perturbed Bill Clinton has been with this campaign, Bill made the following accusation against the Obama camp on a local Philadelphia radio show yesterday: "I think that they played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the campaign that they planned to do it along."

It's not entirely clear what "memos" Bill might be referring to. The closest such memo in existence is one the Obama campaign put out a while ago, accusing the Clinton people of playing the race card on various occasions.

After the interview had officially ended, but while his microphone was still on, Bill upped the ante: "I don't think I should take any shit from anybody on that, do you?"

Eric Kleefeld - Bill Clinton: Obama Camp Memos Reveal Plan To Play The Race Card On Me TPM 22 Apr 08

On first impression somebody's just not letting it go.  I thought this probably would get smothered by election result reporting but interesting nonetheless.  Not arguing the point but just noting the exchange, OK?  But today the issue cropped up again, as you imagine it might:

Today in Pittsburgh, Clinton was asked what he meant by saying the Obama campaign was playing the race card on him.

"When did I say that, and to whom did I say that?" Clinton asked, per ABC News' Sarah Amos.

"On WHYY radio yesterday," he was told by an NBC/National Journal reporter.

"No, no, no," Clinton said. "That's not what I said. You always follow me around and play these little games, and I'm not going to play your games today. This is a day about election day. Go back and see what the question was, and what my answer was. You have mischaracterized it to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your game today. Have a nice day."

Huh?

That's exactly what he said.

"I said what I said," Clinton said. "You can go back and look at the interview and if you will be real honest you will also report what the question was and what the answer was.  But I'm not helping you."

Jake Tapper - Revisionism In Record Time ABC 22 Apr 08

If there's anything I've learned from a close following of the rhetoric in this election cycle it's to expect a certain Orwellian artistic freedom in the spin of surrogates and their subsequent explanations of egregious characterisations of their opponents or the truth.  But doesn't this threaten to set a new gold standard for outright denial or revisionism?  Or maybe even draw aside the curtain and show us the mere mortal who is furiously working the controls behind the scenes?  I look forward with delicious anticipation to the creative writing challenge this presents to Hillary supporters.  Go for it and best of luck to you all.