The Caucus is reporting that “it is on in Iowa between Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton.” Obama is arguing that Clinton’s vote in favor of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which “called for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to be declared a foreign, terrorist organization,” gives President Bush Congressional authorization to “justify an attack on Iran as a part of the ongoing war in Iraq.” From the Obama mailing:

Why is this amendment so dangerous? Because George Bush and Dick Cheney could use this language to justify keeping our troops in Iraq as long as they can point to a threat from Iran. And because they could use this language to justify an attack on Iran as a part of the ongoing war in Iraq.

Clinton has responded in kind:

Let me be clear – I am opposed to letting President Bush take any military action against that country without full Congressional approval. And I see nothing today that would justify giving that approval.

Ironically, Clinton has used similar language to justify her 2002 vote granting the President authorization to go to war with Iraq. In a speech on the Senate floor, here is how Clinton explained her vote:

Even though the resolution before the Senate is not as strong as I would like in requiring the diplomatic route first and placing highest priority on a simple, clear requirement for unlimited inspections, I will take the president at his word that he will try hard to pass a U.N. resolution and will seek to avoid war, if at all possible.

But a day before casting the vote, Clinton “voted against the Levin amendment, which would have required UN approval for the use of force against Iraq; and, failing that, another Congressional vote authorizing the President to use American military force…Clinton’s other notable Senate action on that day was drawing a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, saying Saddam had given “aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members.”

Since then, Clinton has argued that she was duped by the President.

I voted for [the resolution] on the basis of the evidence presented by the administration, assurances they gave that they would first seek to resolve the issue of weapons of mass destruction peacefully through United Nations sponsored inspections, and the argument that the resolution was needed because Saddam Hussein never did anything to comply with his obligations that he was not forced to do,” Clinton writes. “Their assurances turned out to be empty ones, as the administration refused repeated requests from the UN inspectors to finish their work. And the ‘evidence’ of weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaida turned out to be false.

But President Bush has made similar diplomatic assurances in his approach towards Iran. According to the New York Times, “the United States has said it is pursuing a diplomatic approach to Iran, including the threat of a new round of United Nations sanctions, but it has refused to rule out military action to halt Iran’s nuclear program.” Has Clinton been duped again?

In recent days, the President and the Vice President have both stepped-up their war rhetoric against Iran. President Bush warned of the risk of ‘World War III’ if Iran acquires “the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,” and Vice President Cheney warned Iran of “serious consequences” should it continue to develop a nuclear weapon.

Thus, the question remains: if Clinton believes that the President misled her in the lead-up to war with Iraq, why does she still trust the administration’s “diplomatic assurances” on Iran?

In light of the administration’s stepped-up rhetorical attacks against Iran, “Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told France’s Le Monde newspaper there was plenty of time for diplomacy, sanctions, dialogue and incentives to bear fruit.”

“I cannot judge their intentions, but supposing that Iran does intend to acquire a nuclear bomb, it would need between another three and eight years to succeed,” ElBaradei told Le Monde. “All the intelligence services agree on that.” “I want to get people away from the idea that Iran will be a threat from tomorrow, and that we are faced right now with the issue of whether Iran should be bombed or allowed to have the bomb,” the Nobel peace prize winner said. “We are not at all in that situation. Iraq is a glaring example of how, in many cases, the use of force exacerbates the problem rather than solving it.”

Rudy Giuliani’s ridicule of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) recent claim that the country can’t afford her ideas was the highlight of tonight’s GOP Presidential Debate in Florida. Giuliani quoted Clinton as saying, “I have a million ideas. America cannot afford them all” and proclaimed “No kidding, Hillary. America can’t afford you!”

This isn’t the first time Giuliani misrepresented Clinton’s statements. This time, he got the quote (mostly) right but he stripped her comments out of context and falsely suggested that Clinton’s domestic programs would increase the national deficit. Ironically, according to the Boston Globe, Clinton made the comments in the context of fiscal restraint.

Clinton recently floated the idea of issuing a $5,000 bond to each baby born in the United States to help pay for college and a first home, but it immediately inspired Republican ridicule and she quickly said she would not implement the proposal.

She defended that decision yesterday, saying she is focusing on proposals with more political support and she is not formally proposing anything she can’t fund without increasing the deficit: “I have a million ideas. The country can’t afford them all.”

No word yet on whether Rudy Giuliani believes that the $1.2 trillion the Bush administration has spent on the war in Iraq is something Americans can afford.

During tonight’s GOP presidential debate in Florida, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney argued that Hillary Clinton does not have the experience to be president because she never ran a business. Romney said that he could not understand how someone without business experience could be president of the United States.

But ironically, Romney’s new mentor, former President Ronald Reagan, never ran a business. While Reagan studied economics in college, upon graduation, he became a radio sports announcer, an actor, and later President of the Screen Writer’s Guild.

Does Romney believe that Reagan should not have been elected President?

UPDATE: In his post debate interview with Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes, Romney praised Reagan.

The older I get the smarter Ronald Reagan becomes...Ronald Reagan is one of my political heroes…He is one of the great presidents of all time…he is one of the great conservative leaders.

During tonight’s GOP presidential debate in Florida, both former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney tried to run away from their past more liberal positions. In fact, Fox News moderators Chris Wallace, Brit Hume, and Carl Cameron repeatedly asked Giuliani and Romney to prove their conservative credentials. And while the mainstream media allows the GOP to cater to its conservative base and ideology, political pundits don’t extend the same privilege to Democrats.

As the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has pointed out, the mainstream media often pulls Democratic candidates to the right and suggests that representing liberal causes or “catering” to progressive organizations like MoveOn.org will lose them the election.

Media advocates of centrism typically call on Democrats to reject their natural supporters, often denigrated as “special interests”: liberals, unions, civil rights and feminist groups, and environmental and consumer rights organizations. Meanwhile, corporate-friendly policies and conservative-leaning “moral values” are presented as the road to electoral success. Many political pundits say going centrist is not only the right thing—it’s the only way Democrats can win.

During tonight’s GOP presidential debate in Florida, while defending his conservative credentials, New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani claimed that during his years as mayor, he was the toughest crime fighter in America. “I brought down crime more than anyone in the history of this country…I took the crime capital of America and I turned into the safest city in the country,” Giuliani said.

But as PolitiFact points out, “Giuliani’s big claims come with big caveats. While the statistics he cites are accurate, independent experts and studies of the phenomenon suggest Giuliani exaggerates his role.” Consider the following:

- Violent crime in New York began falling three years before Giuliani took office in 1994, U.S. Justice Department records show. Property crime began falling four years before. The decline accelerated during his administration, but the “turnaround” he claims credit for started before him.

- New York was no anomaly, but was part of a trend that saw crime fall sharply nationwide in the 1990s, particularly in big cities. The city with the best record for reducing violent crime during this period? San Francisco.

- Independent studies generally have failed to link the tactics of the Giuliani administration with the large decrease in crime rates.

Read more here.

During his speech at the Values Voters Summit, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney suggested that the biggest problem facing African American communities is “out-of-wedlock childbirth.”

Ann and I will use the bully pulpit to teach America’s children that before they have babies, they should get married. It’s time to make out-of-wedlock births out-of-fashion again!

Bill Cosby related that in some inner cities: ‘There are whole blocks with scarcely a married couple, whole blocks without responsible males to watch out for wayward boys, whole neighborhoods in which little boys and girls come of age without seeing up close a committed relationship and perhaps never having attended a wedding.’ This simply breaks my heart. And then there are the broad national implications of this tragedy. A nation built on the principles of the founding fathers cannot thrive when so many children are being raised without fathers in the home.

While “close to 70% of all new [African American] babies are born to unwed mothers–about three times the rate of illegitimate birth that prevails among whites and Asians” — preaching about family values does not address the structural racial inequalities that are undermining African American families. As author and social critic Paul Street points out:

The phenomena that are hopelessly muddled include an inequitably funded educational system that apparently just happens to provide poorer instruction for blacks than whites; an electoral system whose voting irregularities and domination by big money happens to disproportionately disenfranchise blacks; a criminal justice system that happens to especially stop, arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate African-Americans; a political economy whose tendency toward sharp inequality happens to especially impoverish and divide black communities; and residential markets and housing practices that happen to disproportionately restrict African-American children to the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods and communities, where kids’ chances of learning are significantly diminished by the threats of injury and violence. The list goes on.

Rev. Jesse Jackson made a similar argument in a rare appearance on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. Jackson argued that in African American communities “jobs out, investment out, guns and drugs in. We do not grow drugs, nor manufacture them. To unleash semiautomatic weapons as legal again to enforce the drug trade. Taxes up, service down. First-class — second-class schools.”

There’s a phenomenon here that lends itself to marginalizing a whole body of American people. We must take that on seriously, because in some sense, it costs more to lock up than to lift up.

While conservatives, and some liberals, are generally reluctant to discuss or address America’s deep racial inequalities, Mitt Romney’s misunderstanding of the problems plaguing African American communities may rest in his sheer reluctance to learn. Back in September, Mitt Romney was one of four top-tier GOP candidates who skipped a minority issues debate, citing a “scheduling conflict.” Unfortunately, rather than address what he calls one of the “biggest threats to the fabric of our society” with tailored solutions, Romney prefers to apply misguided ‘family values’ templates and leave the real problem unresolved.

During today’s address to the Value Voters Summit, the year’s largest gathering of religious right activists, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani “tried to find peace with a restless bloc of the Republican Party…telling religious conservatives not to fear him for his stand on issues such as abortion or expect he would change purely for political advantage.”

“We may not always agree,” he said. “I don’t always agree with myself. But I will give you reason to trust me.”

Giuliani’s quote may be more revealing than he hoped. As The Body Politik has previously noted, Giuliani has “changed purely for political advantage.” Since announcing his candidacy for president, Giuliani has shifted his positions and outlook on immigration and the threat of terrorism to reflect the views of GOP primary voters.

While mayor, Giuliani sued the federal government over a provision in a welfare reform bill which he believed would lead to “inhumane” treatment of illegal immigrants. He defended immigrants “as valuable contributors to the city’s economy and culture” and acknowledged that “we’re never going to be able to totally control immigration to a country that is as large as ours.”

Now, Giuliani is certain that we can. In a recent speech Giuliani promised that “we can end illegal immigration” with “stricter border control, tamper-proof identification cards for noncitizens and the deportation of foreign-born criminals.”

Giuliani’s rhetoric on terror also contrasts with his record. These days, Giuliani says that he understands terrorism “better than anyone else running for President,” and portrays himself as “deeply engaged with the Islamic extremist threat long before planes hit the World Trade Center.”

“But for most of Giuliani’s career as a Department of Justice official, prosecutor and New York’s chief executive, terrorism was a narrow aspect of his broader crime-fighting agenda…Giuliani expressed confidence that Islamic extremism could be contained through vigorous investigation by law enforcement agencies and prosecution in the court system — the same approach he now condemns.”

In fact, Giuliani framed “terrorism in the language of crime” in the weeks after September 11th and “as mayor, Giuliani made decisions that seemed to discount the gravity of the terrorist threat, such as placing his emergency command center at the World Trade Center a few years after the 1993 bombing attack there, against the wishes of top advisers.”

World events and shifting political realities can surely cause politicians’ views and positions to evolve. But Giuliani’s disingenuous attempts to portray himself as a consistent, tough and even visionary candidate only highlight the contradictions of his image.

The former lead prosecutor for terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay has alleged that “politically motivated officials at the Pentagon have pushed for convictions of high-profile detainees ahead of the 2008 elections…adding that the pressure played a part in his decision to resign earlier this month.” Air Force Col. Morris Davis felt “pressure to pursue cases that were deemed “sexy” over those that prosecutors believed were the most solid or were ready to go.”

Davis said his resignation was also prompted by newly appointed senior officials seeking to use classified evidence in what would be closed sessions of court, and by almost all elements of the military commissions process being put under the Defense Department general counsel’s command, something he believes could present serious conflicts of interest.

“There was a big concern that the election of 2008 is coming up,” Davis said. “People wanted to get the cases going. There was a rush to get high-interest cases into court at the expense of openness.”

Unfortunately this isn’t the first time the Bush administration has manipulated terrorism prosecutions to score political points. In September 2002, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh revealed that the prosecution of ‘the twentieth hijacker’ Zacarias Moussaoui, “has also contributed to discontent within the F.B.I. over what some see as a politicized Justice Department more eager to have splashy court victories than to protect intelligence resources.”

One senior F.B.I. official noted, with obvious disdain, that the Justice Department attorneys wanted to use raw intelligence from sensitive, ongoing investigations to bolster otherwise flagging counterintelligence or counterterrorism criminal cases. “You’d make one case but lose thirty others,” the official said.

The prosecution of Jose Padilla suffered a similar fate. According to Harpers Magazine’s Scott Horton, the administration orchestrated a show trial.

The Attorney General had gone way out on a limb in the accusations he made. In fact, Ashcroft had done this. It had happened while he was in Moscow—and I was there at the same time, working on a deal, and remembering my amazement over the spectacle of a U.S. Attorney General making these sorts of accusations at a hastily convened Moscow press conference. It was simply bizarre. […]

From the outset it was handled in a way that undermines the public’s confidence in the integrity and fairness of our law enforcement system, and was, in important ways, simply stupid.

The attorney general’s dramatic press conference in Moscow, for instance, is now regularly acknowledged by Justice Department officials (off-the-record) as a colossal mistake. They justify it by saying that it provided proof of the Department’s zealous work to protect the country from terrorism. That is a suspiciously political calculus. An attorney general should not be concerned about the monthly fluctuation of public opinion polls. He should be focused on justice. And that press conference and the relentless hype that followed it obstructed the pursuit of justice in the Padilla case. It showed a failure to adhere to basic rules of prosecutorial ethics. And beyond that, it was simply unwise.

Point well taken. Rather than using terrorist prosecutions to boost sagging poll numbers, the administration should, as Davis has asked, “leave prosecuting cases to prosecutors.”

MSNBC is reporting that “a principal architect of Iraq’s interim constitution, who resigned in August as one of the country’s top diplomats, has laid out a devastating critique of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the U.S. occupation, telling NBC News that, functionally, “there is no Iraqi government.”

[Feisal Amin] Istrabadi traced what he called the country’s “chaos and instability” in part to the U.S. insistence on holding elections in 2005, before Iraq had developed robust democratic institutions to buffer the influence of religious leaders.

“Both the Shia and the Sunnis were told if they didn’t vote for their respective parties, that would be a violation of their religious duties,” Istrabadi said.

The result was a government dominated by Shiite Islamist parties and a constitution rejected by Sunni ethnic groups. Shiite Islamist parties have blamed the Sunnis for refusing to engage in the political process.

“I think the question was: ‘Should elections have been held?’ And I think that there is only one answer to that question, and that’s absolutely not,” Istrabadi said.

Istrabadi’s comments come on the heals of a new report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction which concluded that U.S. attempts at political reconciliation, economic growth, and building an effective police force in Iraq “have failed to show significant progress.”