Author: Carnacki

With apologies in advance to David Letterman,

From the home office in Paw Paw, West Virginia, here’s the Top 10 reasons on why you should support Anne Barth.

No. 10 – Anne’s been “Getting the Job Done” for West Virginia for the past 21 years working for Senator Byrd unlike Shelley Moore Capito, who after 8 years in Congress can’t list a single accomplishment.

No. 9 – Nick Rahall and Alan Mollohan endorsed Anne because they want someone who is hard working and effective to serve with them because whenever they call Shelley she’s busy serving as president of the George W. Bush Fan Club.

No. 8 – Anne is for “pay-as-you-go” balanced budgets while Shelley helped George W. Bush run up record federal deficits, blowing through money faster than Powerball winners on a road trip to casinos and strip clubs.

No. 7 – Anne wants our veterans to be able to go to high quality VA hospitals for their healthcare needs. Shelley wants them to go deploy on yet another tour of duty in Iraq.

No. 6 – Anne wants tax breaks for working families of West Virginia so they can take care of their children and send them to college. Shelley looks out for a special class of minorities, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans who are millionaires. Hey, someone’s got to look after their interests so they can buy all the caviar, yachts and multiple vacation homes they want.

No. 5 – Anne believes in improving West Virginia’s highways and bridges so they don’t fall down like in Minnesota. Shelley’s for spending money for new roads and bridges too – in Iraq.

No. 4 – Anne graduated from West Virginia University and her daughters are now Mountaineers too. Shelley attended Duke University just like her daughter now. Duke, possibly the most evil school in the NCAA during basketball season, appropriately is represented by a Satanic symbol*.

No. 3 – West Virginia currently ranks 46** out of 50 in the Cutest Congressional Caucus Category. Anne’s election would singlehandledly put West Virginia in 1st Place.

No. 2 – Anne is for healthcare access for all. Shelley’s healthcare policy is healthcare for the rich, aspirins for everyone else.

No. 1 – Iraq.

Cross posted from West Virginia Blue

From an email:

Wow, what a great start for our campaign for Congress!

As you know, a top-notch Congressional campaign is an all-consuming undertaking for any candidate who is in it to win it. I promise you I have been working as hard as I have ever worked in my life to earn the support I’ve been getting from people like you. Together, we will give West Virginians in the 2nd Congressional District a stronger advocate in Washington. I’ve made visits to nearly all the counties in the broad 2nd District – many of them more than once – and I can tell you that there is a palpable excitement and energy for change. I’ve been meeting and talking with people in fire halls, community centers, senior centers, churches and private homes.

Over and over West Virginians tell me they have become disillusioned by years of Bush-Cheney policies that simply don’t reflect the needs of rural America in general, and working West Virginians in particular. It is your views, your ideas, your concerns – and your support – that continue to energize me and drive my campaign forward.

I wanted to take a moment to update you on the progress of our campaign to restore West Virginia values to the 2nd Congressional seat in Congress. The all-important FEC first quarter reporting period ended on March 31. Our filing will show that the campaign has collected just over $330,000 in contributions from people like you.

The first quarter reporting number is a critical barometer of a campaign’s vitality. We are setting very high expectations for our campaign, and so far we are meeting and exceeding them. We had six fundraising events around the state in the first quarter, including one that was hosted jointly by Senator Byrd, Senator Rockefeller, Congressman Rahall and Congressman Mollohan. I am so proud to have their support, which has provided such a boost to the campaign and to peoples’ confidence that Democrats are working hard to regain the seat. People from across the entire state have been mailing contributions to our campaign headquarters and donating with their credit cards on our website.

In addition to the support of the entire West Virginia Democratic delegation, the Anne Barth for Congress campaign has also received endorsements from a variety of organizations, including the West Virginia AFL-CIO, United Mine Workers, United Auto Workers, Communications Workers of America, the Southwestern District Labor Council, United Steelworkers, Teamsters, the West Virginia Education Association, the West Virginia Sheriff’s Association and the American Federation of Government Employees.

These organizations are a vital part of our communities, and I am honored to have them as friends and supporters. We expect more endorsements from organizations to be made public soon – and we’ll keep you posted.

Through all of this busy campaigning I have received a lot of good press, in small town weeklies, larger daily newspapers, and regional television stations. I have also appeared on radio stations across the district to get my message out, and continue to enjoy building relationships with members of our state media that the voters rely on in their communities to keep themselves informed and up-to-date on the issues.I was especially gratified to receive the endorsement this week of the state’s largest daily newspaper, the Charleston Gazette.

I have also participated in several Meet the Candidate events around the district, as well as forums and debates, with my primary opponents at West Virginia Wesleyan in Buckhannon and the Young Democrats Convention in Charleston. I enjoy these exchanges and look forward to debates with them at the Jefferson County League of Women Voters event on April 17 and the Berkeley County Democratic Association event on April 21.

Though I have many years of experience in the political realm, being a candidate is a new experience for me. I continue to learn more as I travel and meet with constituents. While serving in Sen. Byrd’s office for 21 years, I never lived in Washington, I always continued to live and work in the 2nd Congressional District, and that is one reason I am running – I understand the needs and concerns of the people of my home district. And I have learned from my experiences on Sen. Byrd’s staff how to get results for the people of West Virginia in Washington.

With your continued support and involvement, we can win in May – and again in November. Please stay in touch with our campaign, visit our website for updates at AnneBarthforCongress.com, volunteer when you can and make a contribution if you are able.

Change is coming for the people of West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, and together we are driving that momentum for change.

Thank you for your support and encouragement – and please keep in touch.

Barth is off to a tremendous start, especially considering she got into the quarter late. That’s got to be making Bush Republican Shelley Moore Capito nervous.

Jake Stump has the story in the Daily Mail:

Her campaign finances outpace those of her primary opponents. One of them, former South Charleston mayor Richie Robb, raised $2,475 from January to April, and has $10,835 cash on-hand, according to his latest filing with the Federal Election Commission.

A financial report for a third candidate, Thornton Cooper, was not available.

Political observers expected Barth, who entered the race after state Sen. John Unger dropped out right before the filing deadline, to have a tough time raising money because of her late start.

Incumbent Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., had $643,865 cash on-hand as of Jan. 1.

snip

“We have very high expectations for ourselves as a campaign, and we are meeting those marks,” said Ned Rose, chairman of the Barth campaign. “Our fellow West Virginians are also expressing their high expectations for Anne by contributing so generously. I can assure them all one thing — nobody will outwork Anne Barth. She is a tireless campaigner and a dynamic individual.”

The interesting thing will be whether campaign donors who’ve backed Capito in the past will continue to give, or if they’ll see she’s a lost cause. My guess is she’ll receive some contributions, but keep in mind she angered many of her fellow Republicans in 2006 by not contributing to other races. In fact, she was still holding fundraisers the weekend before the last election, a sure sign she was worried about Mike Callaghan. She ended up buying herself a landslide because Callaghan, among other flaws with his campaign, had run out of money and was unable to answer a last minute barrage of misleading attack ads from Capito. In addition to having a very focused campaign style, Barth is going to have enough money to go toe-to-toe against Capito at the end.

Posted Wednesday night at West Virginia Blue.

I went to the peace vigil in Shepherdstown tonight. Five years of the occupation already. Some have been at it since before the Iraq invasion and occupation.

The event was moved to O’Hurley’s General Store due to the rain.

I saw many familiar faces from other peace events and political campaigns and I saw new faces as well. There were about 80 people in all in the large room where music and dances are sometimes held.  

It was a good mix of young students from Shepherd College and gray-haired veterans of the Vietnam War and of Vietnam War protests.

It had been cooler during the day, but had warmed after the rain stopped and a fire in the stone fireplace had died down to smoking embers. On a wet day, the wood-smoke made the room seem cozier.

A good friend who I had traveled to Fairmont with to canvass in the last days of the 2004 Kerry-Edwards race was at the entrance collecting money for Central Asia Institute. We hugged and I made a donation and got a couple of sugar cookies and a cup of tea.

There were a pair of guitarists singing. Then I saw Anne Barth, our WV-02 candidate for Congress, standing in the back of the room. She greeted me warmly. She really is a very nice woman. I was surprised to see her there not because she’s not a strong advocate for peace, but because I hadn’t seen any announcement of her attendance. She was there not to politic but to show solidarity with the others who want to support the troops and bring them home from Iraq.

She hadn’t planned on speaking, but one of the singers asked between songs if she would say a few words. Barth kept it brief. She introduced herself and said she remembered the day when Senator Byrd spoke out against the war and how the fax machines buzzed with people agreeing with him and others opposed to him. (Read his speech here.) She said she still gets chills thinking of his speech when he was one of the few voices with the courage in Congress to speak out in opposition before the war.

“Senator Byrd was right,” Barth said and people applauded. “I want to end this war and bring our troops home.”

Barth said she wanted to go to Washington and join him in his efforts to bring the troops home.

“The troops have served honorably. It is time they were brought home,” she said.

When she finished to loud applause, two more singers, a young, college age woman and a grayhaired man did a lovely duet of John Lennon’s Imagine.

It was a good event, solemn yet friendly with people united in purpose.

Afterwards another canvassing partner, JBdem4usa, took me out and bought me a beer, Mountaineer Stout, just like he said he would.

Someone shot this video with a cellphone on Feb. 1 when WV-02 Democratic candidate Anne Barth made her Eastern Panhandle announcement in Martinsburg and just posted it on YouTube. This is great to see and I hope the campaign uses YouTube a lot because Barth is a great candidate.

Here’s Clem’s post from this same Feb. 1 event.

I spoke to a union guy last week at the gym, who saw her at this event and at her speech before the West Virginia AFL-CIO. He thought Barth was wonderful here, just after she filed, and he raved about how polished she has become in such a short time.

Those who saw rightwing Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito’s speech at the Rotary Club recently reported she could barely string sentences together and seemed to know little of current events in the state or of issues pending in Congress. It will be great fun watching these two clash in a debate.

More on Anne Barth here.  

Democratic candidate Anne Barth is running in West Virginia 02. She’s Senator Robert C. Byrd’s longtime aide and an excellent candidate to take on vulnerable rightwing Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito.

Sunday’s event, held at a popular Chinese restaurant in downtown Martinsburg, was just one of several events Barth held throughout the Eastern Panhandle.

Democratic candidate Anne Barth is running in West Virginia 02. She’s Senator Robert C. Byrd’s longtime aide and an excellent candidate to take on vulnerable rightwing Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito.

Tonight’s event, held at a popular Chinese restaurant in downtown Martinsburg, was just one of several events Barth held throughout the Eastern Panhandle.

The Berkeley County Democratic Association has a new, very attractive banner.

I’ve canvassed and phonebanked with several of these folks. Anne Barth is talking to Berkeley County Clerk Virginia Sine, a member of the county Democratic Executive Committee.

I arrived a bit early and Ryan Frankberry told me we’d be meeting in the back. For a Sunday night, I thought we’d get 15 people and it’d be a good turnout.

I was wrong.

Very wrong.

We didn’t fill the back of the room. We filled up the room. I couldn’t find a good angle to get everyone standing on one side and seated on the other. Berkeley County is Capito’s strong base. This is where she’ll either win or lose. The enthusiasm to see her ousted is very high. She came in with Bush, we think she should leave when he goes.

I attended the meet and greet in Shepherdstown Friday evening for West Virginia’s new Democratic candidate for WV-02 Anne Barth. About 200 people packed the event, a great turnout for an event on such short notice and on a day when the weather involved a freezing rain.

The room was packed, but I saw many familiar faces from Democratic and progressive groups from across the Eastern Panhandle. Some of my favorite people from the Kerry-Edwards campaign in ’04 are among her staunchest supporters and think highly of her.

I got a great first impression from her. She’s just six days into this race and she’s got a solid stump speech. What I really liked about her speech is how she weaved her personal background in smoothly to show how it shaped her career in public service. But what I liked most about her stump speech is she goes straight at Capito – politely, almost quietly, yet landing the lines that drew sharp distinctions between herself and her Republican opponent. Capito is a backbencher who has supported Bush’s agenda against the interests of West Virginians and Capito has worked against the rest of the West Virginia delegation in Congress. Barth did a great job of pointing that out in her speech and those lines drew the most enthusiastic response.

I spent most of my time speaking to Berkeley County Democrats about county issues. We’ve also got some great candidates running in Jefferson County and (note to self) I’ve got to write up a post about them.

I did not get a chance to go over a checklist of issues with Barth. While her campaign has hit the ground running, it is just six days into it. As eager as I am to find out where she stands on a wide variety of issues, some patience is required. As soon as her web site is up, either I or someone here will link to it.

But from what I saw, there’s a lot to like in Barth as a candidate. She was poised, she was personable and there’s a solid network of supporters for her in the Eastern Panhandle. This is where the battle for WV-02 is going to be decided because this is, unfortunately, Capito’s base. To defeat Capito, and Clem and I have said this all along, a successful candidate can’t just rely on voter turnout in the more Democratic counties and ignore the Eastern Panhandle. That’s not worked in the previous campaigns. A successful candidate has got to peel away voters from Capito here by going after her here.

Barth assured the party loyalists that she’ll be in the Eastern Panhandle a lot. She has good friends to stay with in the Eastern Panhandle who can build the kind of friend-to-friend GOTV that is much more effective than traditional stranger-to-stranger canvassing and phonebanking.

This region is Capito’s strongest point and Clem and I are just stealing a play from Karl Rove’s playbook when we say the best way to beat her is to attack her where she’s strongest. Barth came across as a candidate who’ll take the fight to Capito while keeping a charming, winning smile on her face the entire time. That’s going to make Barth a formidable ball carrier* now that the football has been handed off to her.

…

* Since I’m breaking out the football metaphors anyway, I’ll repeat a story I’ve told before because I think it fits.

Make no mistake, it’s an uphill fight against an opponent that has campaign coffers filled from the corporations and rightwing conservatives she’s supported in Congress. In terms of size, Capito is a much bigger opponent.

Long ago in a land far away, I played on football team for a small high school where our biggest lineman weighed just over 200 pounds and our opponents came from much larger schools with much, much bigger players.

And every Friday night, our head coach gathered us together before our games and said:

“Boys, it’s not the size of the dogs in the fight that matters, it’s the size of the fight in the dogs.”

My senior year we went 9-1 and won the league championship. Our only loss was to Oak Hill, which won because of extremely questionable officiating on their home field (not that I hold a grudge two decades later — the bastards.)

The other teams may have been taller and outweighed us, but nobody, not even Oak Hill, ever out hit us.

I got the sense tonight that Capito might out spend Barth, might pull out every dirty Republican trick in the book to try to stop her, but there’s no way she’s going to out play Barth, who after 21 years on Senator Robert C. Byrd’s staff knows the ins and outs of West Virginia politics. There’s a lot of desire to win in Barth and desire and heart can take you a long way.

“Hey John, so are you going to enter the race or not?” I asked back in the spring as I stood outside near my grape arbor.

“I don’t know [my real name],” he said. “I’m thinking about it. Someone on the Internet is pushing for me to and the DCCC has called.”

I told him the person on the Internet pushing for him to run was me. And I knew the DCCC was interested because our site meter on the old site was filled with DCCC.org visits coming in off Teh Google looking up information on him.

Some of you might remember in 2004 I worked hard mainly on the Kerry-Edwards campaign. I wrote diaries about it (here’s one example, my first ever recommended diary, West Virginia by DCDemocrat and Carnacki, appropriately on Halloween.

I didn’t work much – some canvassing and phone banking for the WV-02 candidate in the 2004 race.

We lost the presidential and the WV-02 race even though we had better candidates in both.

I did all I could in 2006 for Mike Callaghan, the Democratic challenger in WV-02 to beat the faux moderate Shelley Moore Capito, daughter of the federally convicted former Republican Gov. Arch Moore. We lost big, 57-42.

I met wvablue (Clem here) at a campaign event and the two of us became close friends, one of several great friends I’ve made through Daily Kos.

Instead of quitting, the two of us kept working. We didn’t stop with the 2006 election. The day afterwards we were already at work on the old site and with our offline meetings at Waffle House working to lay the groundwork for the 2008 race.

There wasn’t a Democratic or progressive group blog for the state. So we made one. We tried to draft fellow West Virginia Christy Hardin Smith from Fire Dog Lake to run, but she did not want to uproot her family. (Don’t worry, along with Howie Klein, we still have plans for drafting her for an office in the future, even if I have to forge her name on the candidacy papers…mwhahahah…Oh don’t act so shocked and pretend you haven’t committed election fraud in the past eith…you haven’t? Uh, never mind.)

So I thought who would give us the best chance at beating Shelley Moore Capito in WV-02?

I’ve known John Unger before he ran for office and liked him then. As my State Senator, I’ve touted him on the blog before (here’s one example from 2005).

In very Republican Berkeley and Jefferson counties, Unger won against a well financed and popular Republican challenger Jerry May (Berkeley 65 percent, Jefferson 67 percent).

wvablue and I looked at the math. If Unger could match Callaghan’s numbers in the rest of the WV-02 and hold his own in his home turf, because of the high density of the Eastern Panhandle Unger would beat Capito.

Now John is more socially conservative than I’d like on two issues: abortion and gay marriage. Both of those issues are important to me and I’m still working to persuade him to my point of view on them.

The truth of the matter is in this district, my ideal candidate would get crushed. My ideal candidate wouldn’t have a chance.

John does have a chance. CQ has just downgraded Capito’s chances. The DCCC has named this race one of top challenger races so they’re committed and they wouldn’t be committed if they didn’t think he could win.

How often have those of us in the netroots complained that the Democrats don’t listen to us.

John is listening to us. On many other issues important to progressives – the Iraq war, respect for the U.S. Constitution, access to healthcare for every one, protecting labor rights, protecting the environment, opposition to torture, finding alternative sources of clean energy, helping the poor, he’s on our side.

So going back to those depressing days of November 2006. wvablue and I had several goals: find a viable candidate to run. We did that.

Get the DCCC in our race. We helped do that.

Get the Big Boys of Blogging paying attention to the race. We helped do that (clem is wvablue here. See also Kos’s Capito’s in the crosshairs and here.

I know a lot of us are disappointed in the performance of our Democrats.

But I know John. We’ve met with him several times. He’s joined us at Waffle House and talked politics with us from the early evening until 2 a.m.

He’s a guy who worked with Mother Theresa as a volunteer helping the poor and flood victims.

He took a year off from college to do it. Think about this a second if you don’t think John is committed to making the world better: he was the first person from his family to go to college. And he took a year off from doing so to spend a year as a volunteer in India. He went on to become a Rhodes scholar. In 2003 he worked with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) called Save the Children that followed the troops in after the invasion to do humanitarian work.

Some people talk about helping others. John’s done it.

The rightwingers in West Virginia mock Unger as “St. John.” He has a reputation as an independent voice in the state legislature when it comes to ethics issues.

Meanwhile let’s look at Shelley Moore Capito. Although she calls herself “independent” she’s voted consistently with Bush and the most extremist corporate agenda when it comes to the Iraq war, worker rights, and warrentless wiretapping.

She was the leading recipient of Tom Delay’s illegal PAC funds and formed a PAC with Republican Congressman Mark Foley while he was being a sexual predator of Congressional pages and she was one of three members on the Page Board. Her aides have been linked to Jack Abramhoff scandals and she was a recipient of campaign contributions from the Utah mine owner who wanted to reopen the collapsed mine back up for operations before the bodies were recovered and who has a history of fighting against safety regulations.

Capito is the Zelig of Republican scandals. You name it and she’s in the background. Is it because she’s clueless or turns a blind eye to wrong doing as with the Foley case? Is it because she’s willing to do anything to maintain her seat and help the Republican Party?

I don’t know what’s in her heart. I just know I’d rather have John Unger representing me in Congress.

But forget everything I wrote about Capito and Unger. Donate to his campaign because I’m tired of her. I’m physically and mentally tired of her.

Don’t do it for Unger. Don’t do it for the Democrats. (You know my thoughts on them. Don’t do it to eliminate someone like Capito who’ll vote for endless war and occupation.

Do it for me.

Do it because I spend two or more hours a day slogging it out at West Virginia Blue trying to help the grassroots and the state netroots. And a lot of my time is spent having to counter Capito’s bullshit lies.

No really, if we don’t knock her out of office now, she’s going to run for U.S. Senate in the future – or governor. Who knows? She’s the only big name Republican in West Virginia. And I am sick of writing about her.

Everyone else is asking for money now for their candidate. I’m asking for me. If I ever made you laugh about Wild Monkey Sex or smile with a happy story or you appreciated something I wrote on equality for gays, help me out here.

Unger is very close to meeting his fundraising goal for the quarter. As someone who helped get him into this thing, I’d love to be the one to put him over the top.

I ain’t got no money and if you can’t give I understand. But if you can, do me a favor and donate today.

Because I don’t want to write about Capito after the 2008 election.

If you can afford to donate, please donate. Any amount will help. $5, $10, $50, whatever you can afford. I’ll also assure you that Unger’s campaign won’t spend the money frivolously. I know because he’s a tightwad when it comes to spending money on campaigns. People had to sign out for his State Senate race yard signs so he could get them back after the election. So a $1 in this race will stretch a lot farther (further?) than in other races.

Cross posted from West Virginia Blue

Pro-Iraq war Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito spent a day in Iraq and now she’s an expert.

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito has just returned from an unpublicized trip to Iraq and Kuwait.

Though Capito, R-W.Va., had to tread around mostly in full military armor in 116-degree heat, she said the visit helped reinforce her confidence in U.S. efforts there.

She flew into Baghdad earlier this week accompanied by a Republican delegation of Reps. John McHugh, N.Y.; Frank LoBiondo, N.J.; Douglas Lamborn, Colo.; and Gus Bilirakis, Fla.

After arriving in Baghdad, she then went to Fallujah and back to Baghdad.

“We wanted to get a firsthand sense of how things are going,” said Capito in a telephone interview just hours after her return to the U.S. on Thursday. “We talked with leadership and the troops on the ground. My overwhelming impression initially was how proud I am of the men and women in uniform.”

snip

She was mostly impressed with the turnaround of Fallujah, a city 43 miles west of Baghdad and notorious for a 2004 attack on four American contractors who were dragged from their cars, beaten, set on fire, pulled along the streets and hung from a bridge.

“Seven or eight months ago, we wouldn’t have been able to come here,” Capito said. “The level of violence has decreased dramatically. It’s very encouraging, but I still realize it’s a very dangerous situation.”

The U.S. delegation met with Fallujah city government officials. They acknowledged that while the violent atmosphere has lessened, progress remains needed for the political system.

Author, Daily Kossack and Iraq war veteran The Angry Rakkasan wrote a diary about Congressional delegations going to Iraq for the “fact finding” tour:

This is how it happens: A desperate Republican goes to Iraq looking for something-anything-to justify the continuing presence of American troops there.  The Republican stays for a week (give or take), and then returns home as if he or she were Moses coming back from Mount Sinai, carrying to the American people stone tablets engraved with The Ultimate Truth About Iraq.

And of course, this Ultimate Truth About Iraq is learned by the Republican in the chow hall, on the secure base, with the hand-picked soldiers sitting at the table.

This is what Senator Jim Webb rightly  called the “dog and pony show.”  For those who don’t know, that’s an old military expression used to describe how troops are often forced to put on a “show” for visiting politicians or VIPs to convey just how swell everything is going on the front lines.

Politicians or VIPs who’ve served in a combat zone know this.  Sadly, the rest visit the troops in a state of blissful ignorance.

The story does not say what day she was in Iraq, just that it was earlier this week. Somehow in reporting she saw “progress,” Capito and the Daily Mail reporter Jake Stump forgot to mention this happened also this week perhaps on the day she was there:

Hospital officials in northwestern Iraq have told TIME that the death toll from Tuesday’s blasts in Qahataniya may exceed 300, making the multiple suicide bombings the deadliest terrorist operation in the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein. One hospital is saying that there are at least 500 bodies and that 375 people are injured. That report, however, cannot yet be verified.

snip

Since then, the massive “surge” of U.S. and Iraqi troops in and around Baghdad has made the Iraqi capital safer than before from such bombings – but terrorist groups have stepped up attacks elsewhere. There have been a number of attacks in northern Iraq, which had enjoyed a long spell of peace before the start of the “surge.”

Tuesday’s bombings were also a reminder that even successful U.S. military operations can have a short shelf life – a sobering thought for Bush Administration officials and independent analysts who have recently been talking up the successes of the “surge.” After all, the area around Qahataniya was the scene of a major anti-insurgent operation barely two years ago. In the fall of 2005, some 8,000 American and Iraqi troops flushed a terrorist group out of the nearby town of Tal Afar in an operation that was a precursor to the “clear, hold and build” strategy that underpins the current “surge.” A few months later, President Bush cited Tal Afar as a success story for the U.S. enterprise in Iraq.

There have been several attacks in and around Tal Afar since then; last March, two truck bombs killed more than 100 people in a Shi’ite neighborhood in the town. The bombings in Qahataniya were a deadly reminder that the terrorists have not gone very far away. 

And she failed to mention this:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Despite U.S. claims that violence is down in the Iraqi capital, U.S. military officers offer a bleak picture of Iraq’s future, saying they’ve yet to see any signs of reconciliation between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims.

Without reconciliation, the military officers say, any decline in violence would be temporary, and bloodshed could return to previous levels when the U.S. military cuts back its campaign against insurgents.

The downbeat assessment comes despite a buildup of U.S. troops that began five months ago and has seen U.S. casualties reach the highest sustained levels since the United States invaded Iraq nearly 4 1/2 years ago.

U.S. officials say civilian casualties in Baghdad are down by half. But they wouldn’t provide specific numbers, and statistics gathered by McClatchy Newspapers don’t support the claim.

The number of car bombings in July actually was 5% higher than the number recorded last December, the statistics show, and the number of civilians killed in explosions is about the same.

Daily Mail reporter Jake Stump. He’s still under the illusion that Gen. David Patraeus is going to write the report.

Army Gen. David Petraeus, top commander in Iraq, informed Capito that areas of the country have undergone vast improvements. Petraeus is slated to give Congress a report next month that addresses whether the troop surge strategy is working. The general has stated that it could take until the summer of 2009 to attain security in Iraq.

The report is really going to be written by the White House. Dan Froomkin of the White House Watch at WashingtonPost.com:

The “Petraeus Report” — the supposedly trustworthy mid-September reckoning of military and political progress in Iraq by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker — is instead looking more like a White House con job in the making.

The Bush administration has been trying for months to restore its credibility on Iraq (as well as stall for time) by focusing on Petraeus — President Bush’s “main man” in Iraq — and his report to Congress. But now it turns out it that White House aides will actually write the “Petraeus Report,” not the general himself.

But it does appear as if Capito now knows what it is like to suffer. She had to wear a helmet and body armor in the 116 degree heat for a little while and “endured” a 14-hour flight from Kuwait back home.

But maybe her suffering was much worse:

Capito said she gave soldiers opportunities to spill their concerns or frustrations over the war, but none complained.

Or maybe they know that Capito doesn’t listen. Maybe they know that whatever the reality is in Iraq, she’s going to say she has “concerns” and then keep voting to keep them occupying Iraq in the middle of a civil war forever.

We need a Congressional representative who is smart enough not to fall for the “dog and pony shows.” We need a Congressional representative who listens.

Crossposted from a version at West Virginia Blue.

State Sen. John Unger is that rare candidate, drafted by those of us at West Virginia Blue and the DCCC to run against vulnerable Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito.

As we’ve posted before, the GOP has desperately sought anything to throw at State Sen. John Unger, Democratic challenger to the vulnerable Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito.

With her neverending Iraq occupation stance, her handcuffing herself to an incredibly unpopular president, the DCCC making this a top tier race, the growing anti-Capito sentiment with the netroots, and the overall weakness of the GOP bench, the West Virginia Republicans are desperate to find something to throw at Unger to protect her even when they have to make it up.

We’ve called the rightwingers on it before. This time Unger called them on it and it’s good to see the campaign fighting back.

Once again a Republican attempt to throw mud at Unger has splashed back on Capito.

The latest attempt is a variation of one they’ve tried before on Unger’s employment as a federal contractor and yet it only highlighted how much better qualified Unger is for the job than Capito.

This time, however, the effort not only shows a potential ethical breach by the WV GOP, but it reveals dirty tricks by Capito. So much for her genial, civility veneer.

From Unger’s statement to the media today:

CHARLESTON – To combat the State Republican Party’s early smear campaign against him, Senator John Unger today made public a letter from Lewis G. Brewer, Executive Director of the West Virginia Ethics Commission, directly contradicting the State Republican Party’s attack on Senator Unger’s 2007 financial disclosure form.

In the attached letter from July 16, Executive Director Brewer states:

“Marking `other’ on your form would not meaningfully change the financial information you have already disclosed in completing the form.  Accordingly, it is my opinion that you are not required to file an amended financial disclosure statement.”

In simple words even rightwingers can understand the West Virginia Republican Party Chairman Doug McKinney filed an ethics complaint for Unger filling out the disclosure papers properly. How much more desperation are they going to get?

Seriously, they filed a complaint for someone filing a form properly. What’s next from the West Virginia GOP? “Unger places stamp with torn corner on envelope.”

Anyway, back to Unger’s statement:

West Virginia Republican Party Chairman Doug McKinney filed a formal complaint with the State’s Ethics Commission on July 17 alleging Senator Unger did not properly complete his personal financial disclosure statement.

“I am very proud of my employment with EG&G Technical Services and the work I do in the area of homeland security,” Senator Unger said.  “As can be seen by my financial disclosure forms, I have been open and transparent about my employment with EG&G.”

Filing ethics complaints against challengers of Shelley Moore Capito’s is not uncommon practice with the state’s Republican Party. In 2000, Shelley Moore Capito ran ad campaigns alleging at least 18 ethics charges had been filed against her opponent Jim Humphreys in an effort to attack his credibility.

In her ads, Capito herself said her intention was to state “the truth about Jim Humphreys’ questionable conduct, deceit and repeated violations of personal and professional trust.”

“It is unfortunate that the West Virginia Republican Party has run out of meaningful ideas about solving the pressing challenges our state and country are facing today, and instead has decided to engage in these petty character assassination attempts,” Senator Unger said.

What will be interesting to see in the days ahead is whether the media digs into how Capito’s supporters are filing false ethics complaints and abusing the ethics system for partisan political reasons or whether the press simply parrots Republican talking points.

Jake Stump of the Charleston Daily Mail already debunked the smear on Unger’s employment.

An employee at the National Energy Technology Laboratory recommended him for the EG&G job, Unger said.
“I’m not a federal employee, but I work with federal officials,” he said. “The reason I don’t talk much about the particulars of the job is because we’re dealing with sensitive materials and homeland security.”

The senator said he believes the company tapped him not because of his political background, but for his experiences overseas.

He has worked with Mother Teresa in India during monsoons and riots in 1990. There he coordinated the distribution of relief supplies.

Before that, he worked for the United States Refugee Program in Hong Kong and helped Vietnamese refugee children there.

He’s also aided in disaster relief efforts in Turkey and Iraq, where he has traveled twice.

Unger said those experiences provided him with knowledge concerning international relations and security.

“Part of our training in Iraq dealt with security,” Unger said. “When you’re working with government in the area of human relief, there’s a large component of security.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again of the rightwing whining smears on Unger: That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?

Capito’s got no positive record to run on after six years as an ineffective representative for West Virginia. All she and her supporters got against Unger is he filled out a form correctly and they’ve tried to make an issue of it.

They’ve done it before because they’ve got no ideas to run on and no facts to use against him. So they throw mud. They throw mud and it splashes on Capito. With friends like them, Capito doesn’t need any enemies.

Crossposted at West Virginia Blue.

I’ve watched with bemusement at the effort by supporters of vulnerable Rep. Shelley Moore Capito to throw mud at State Sen. John Unger only to have it splash back on Capito.

The latest effort by Capito’s supporters to protect their vulnerable Rubberstamp Republican has been to criticize what Unger does for a living and make it sound like there is controversy where none exists.

Now considering how badly the last effort by the right worked, you would think they would learn.  Of course, they don’t. They’re rightwingers.

Jake Stump of the conservative-leaning Charleston Daily Mail does a good job debunking the latest smear effort by the rightwingers.

Unger acknowledges he has what some might consider a vague, confusing job title. He’s senior adviser of homeland security and economic development for the National Energy Technology Laboratory, part of the U.S. Department of Energy with offices in Morgantown.

But he is an employee of EG&G, a Gaithersburg, Md.-based national defense contractor that provides engineering and technical services. The company provides direct-labor employees who are paid based on their performance with contracted clients.

Now some of Unger’s critics are too stupid to understand the complexities of federal government contracting. But others are simply Republican political hacks who know they haven’t found any dirt to throw at Unger so they have to make it up through implication.

But like an earlier effort, see here for an example – their efforts end up unintentionally making Capito look bad.

Here’s Stump on how Unger got the job:

An employee at the National Energy Technology Laboratory recommended him for the EG&G job, Unger said.

“I’m not a federal employee, but I work with federal officials,” he said. “The reason I don’t talk much about the particulars of the job is because we’re dealing with sensitive materials and homeland security.”

The senator said he believes the company tapped him not because of his political background, but for his experiences overseas.

He has worked with Mother Teresa in India during monsoons and riots in 1990. There he coordinated the distribution of relief supplies.

Before that, he worked for the United States Refugee Program in Hong Kong and helped Vietnamese refugee children there.

He’s also aided in disaster relief efforts in Turkey and Iraq, where he has traveled twice.

Unger said those experiences provided him with knowledge concerning international relations and security.

“Part of our training in Iraq dealt with security,” Unger said. “When you’re working with government in the area of human relief, there’s a large component of security.”

In other words, the Rhodes scholar Unger not only can speak knowledgeably on homeland security issues, he already has experience at international issues. Plus he did missionary work which shows he cares compassionately about people.

Compare that experience to Capito’s, whose only qualification before her election in 2000 was she was former Gov. Arch Moore’s daughter and she has a pleasant smile.

In an earlier smear attempt, Republican strategist Gary Abernathy tried to put words in the mouth of Unger’s friend and WEPM cohost Chris Strovel to make up dirt on Unger even though Strovel had said nothing critical about Unger.

Just like before, there is nothing there.

You don’t  have to take my word for it. Thanks to Stump’s reporting you can hear it from Unger’s employer:

Brent Armstrong, vice president of the Energy, Environment and Health Services Department at EG&G, confirmed Unger’s employment with the company.

“He is earning a living,” Armstrong said. “I’m not sure what the confusion is.”

Two specific projects Unger is contracted to work on with the laboratory include the modern grid initiative, which updates the nation’s electricity system, and ensuring that infrastructure is in place for securing energy supplies.

Armstrong said he’s heard no complaints from the laboratory regarding Unger’s job performance. Unger is required to submit monthly progress reports on each project.

“I don’t care who they are,” Armstrong said. “If they’re not cutting the mustard, they won’t have a job. He’s been doing a job the client is very pleased with.”

Unger makes his employer happy. He’s knowledgeable and experienced at national security issues, energy issues, and international issues.

Capito has a pleasant smile. She’s probably quite personable to talk with. People say she’s quite devoted to her family. I’ve never questioned that. But as a Rubberstamp Republican, she has shown poor judgement time after time and as a continued supporter of occupying Iraq in the midst of a complex sectarian civil war that is bankrupting the country and making us less secure, she has blood on her hands. She has failed to show the wisdom of our other Congressional representatives Alan Mollohan and Nick Rahall on Iraq. She has floundered as a Congressional representative, allying herself with suspected criminals like Republicans Tom Delay (she was the largest recipient of his illegal PAC contributions) and Mark Foley (she formed a political action committee with him even while he cyberstalked underage male pages and she served on the Page Board that was to protect them). Did she intentionally ally herself with so many Republicans now caught up in criminal scandals? Real scandals unlike the ones the rightwingers keep trying to make up about Unger. I don’t know what is in her heart.

I do know that Unger is knowledgeable and makes his employer happy with the work he does and as a constituent of WV-02 I want to hire him to represent all of us in the District in Congress in 2008.