So history reminds us, that walls can be torn down, but the task is never easy. True partnership and true progress requires constant work and sustained sacrifice. They require sharing the burdens of development and diplomacy, of peace and progress. They require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and most of all, trust each other.

And the speech has started.

Although tonight I speak to not as a candidate, but as a citizen. A proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world.

Watch the livestream here.

Update: Some images:

Barack Obama's speech at Berlin's Tiergarten Park in front of the 226-foot high Victory Column is scheduled to begin at 1:00. A crowd of 100,000 to 1,000,000 is expected...and kudos to whoever went out on a limb on the estimate. Enjoy!

Watch the livestream here.

New numbers coming in:

With Obama now firmly in charge of the DNC, and directing his big-dollar donors in its direction, the DNC is finally competitive with the RNC. Combined, the Obama/DNC combo is now near parity with the McCain/RNC pairing. That didn't take long to close the gap. This month, the GOP gets left in the dust, and given that their current heavy spending isn't making much of a difference, that truly is a whiff of desperation you're smelling from the McCain camp.

Meanwhile, our two party committees are crushing their counterparts. The NRCC, in particular, is in woeful straits, and won't be in any position to provide its members or candidates any help whatsoever. Remember -- this is the month that included their big annual Bush fundraiser. They ain't got any more of those on tap.

The NRSC on the other hand has got enough money to play some respectable defense, though little more. The NRCC can't even offer that. But across the board, Democrats will be on the attack this November, with little Republicans can do except fill up some sandbags and hope the rising waters don't crest.

Via TPM, John McCain surrogate Nancy Pfotenhauer:

"Barack Obama and his supporters can try to litigate what came first or what was crucial, but that's really an attempt to undermine the significance and the impact of the American troops and their sacrifice and their effort."

How fucking insulting to our troops, that getting history straight about how and why they're fighting can undercut their efforts. As if they're infantile hot-house flowers that wilt in the bright light of fact. Ugh.

Ad Age:

It's official. Sen. Barack Obama's campaign will be among the TV sponsors of NBC Universal's Olympics coverage. In the first significant network-TV buy of any presidential candidate in at least 16 years, the Obama campaign has taken a $5 million package of Olympics spots that includes network TV as well as cable ads.

The last time a presidential campaign bought a national ad was 1996, with a single minute-long ad by Bob Dole. In short, in today's micro-segmented world, where you can geo-target your ads to swing areas of swing states, as well, as use cable to further refine those ads to hyper-specific demographics, this kind of buy would seem to be a thing of the past.

But for at least the duration of the Olympics, the whole nation will be exposed to the Obama campaign.

Responding to criticism for their unprofessional and unethical editing of a Katie Couric interview with John McCain, CBS News Senior Vice President Paul Friedman said:

The report was edited under extreme time constraints and one piece of tape was put in the wrong order. Fortunately, this did not in any way distort what Senator McCain was saying.

Clearly, Mr. Friedman is either stupid or a liar. Roll the tape:

Perhaps Mr. Friedman can explain how replacing McCain's incorrect claim about when the "Anbar Awakening" began and his mocking of Obama for not knowing this "matter of history," with a contemptible attack on Obama's patriotism didn't distort what McCain said.

When John Kennedy spoke in Germany in the midst of the Cold War, more than a million people followed his progress across Berlin. People leaned from windows and sat on the branches of trees to watch him pass. More than 400,000 were present to hear his speech in person. Kennedy's declaration of solidarity with the people of Berlin drew cheers that rattled windows on both sides of the wall.

When Ronald Reagan spoke at the Brandenburg Gate the situation was...  different. Both very different from the situation Kennedy had faced more than two decades earlier, and very different from the way it's presented to us by a GOP and media who have deified Reagan.  

When Reagan visited Berlin in 1987, the Soldiarity union was already seven years old. It had been formed in the strikes at the Gdańsk Shipyard, struggled through a period of martial law in which Soviet forces were expected in Poland at any moment, and lived on to begin negotiations with the collapsing communist government. Pope John Paul II had stepped back into his native country four years before Reagan came to stand next to the wall, widening the cracks that were radiating through Eastern Europe.  Gorbachev had been at the front of a crumbling Soviet leadership for two years, and it was increasingly apparent that he could not hold the faltering empire together either militarily or economically. Protests in Czechoslovakia had led to invasion in the 1960s, but this time it was obvious that the tanks weren't coming. How could they?  115,000 Soviet troops were still tied up in Afghanistan that summer, the seventh year of their costly invasion.  The cost of that war -- in men, in reputation, and in rubles -- was the heaviest straw on the back of a Soviet camel already on its knees.

In short -- no one was paying any attention to Reagan. Far from bringing out a thronging horde, Reagan's second visit to Berlin was barely noticed either by the press or the populace. There were no crowds on the street. No one even thought of climbing a tree to see him.

At the Brandenburg Gate, the streets weren't choked by hundreds of thousands eager to listen. Instead, about 20,000 Reagan supporters were brought in for the occasion, positioned to provide a backdrop, and prompted to cheer. When the speech was over, they were bused home.

In 1963, Berlin was looking to Kennedy to show that Berlin would not be allowed to fall to communism. In 1987, communism was near the end of a two decade collapse, and Reagan's speech was a media event made for America, not Berlin.  It was staged as much as pulling down the statue of Saddam. What he said was little noted by the people of Europe, and had no effect on the end of  communist control. Only in retrospect, and in the minds of Reagan's fanatical supporters, did the speech gain mystical connotations.

In 2008, Barack Obama is stopping to pay a visit in Berlin. It's too much to expect that his words will have the kind of electrifying effect that Kennedy had in 1963. The situation then was so dire, and the lines of delineation so stark, that the speech raised up not just the people of Berlin, but the people of the world. One thing is clear enough: the huge crowds already forming by the Victory Column show that there's far more interest in what Obama has to say than there was for Reagan.

The question for today is, in these times when the problems at least seem so much more complex and tangled, will Obama be satisfied with reminding us of the importance of what Berlin stood for in the past, or will he use that location as a symbol for our future?

In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

FLOOR SCHEDULE FOR THURSDAY, JULY 24, 2008

House meets at 10:00 a.m.: Legislative Business
Ten "One Minutes" Per Side
Last vote predicted: 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.

H.Res. 1367 - Providing for consideration of motions to suspend the rules (Rep. Slaughter – Rules)

Suspension (1 Bill):

1.     H.R. 6578 – Consumer Energy Supply Act of 2008 (Rep. Lampson – Energy and Commerce)

H.R. 5501 - Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008 (Rep. Berman – Foreign Affairs) (Subject to a Rule)

H.Res. 1368 - Relating to the House procedures contained in section 803 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (Rep. Slaughter – Rules)

Complete Consideration of H.R. 3999 - The National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act (Rep. Oberstar –Transportation and Infrastructure) (Subject to a Rule)

Postponed Amendment Votes:

·         Childers Amendment

Postponed Suspension Bill (1)

1.     H.Res. 1296 – Supporting the designation of a National Child Awareness Month to promote awareness of children's charities and youth-serving organizations across the United States and recognizing their efforts on behalf of children and youth as a positive investment for the future of our Nation (Rep. Calvert - Education and Labor)

• Conference Reports may be brought up at any time.
• Motions to go to Conference should they become available.
• Possible Motions to Instruct Conferees.

In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

Convenes: 9:30am

9:30am - 10:30am equally divided and controlled between the Leaders or their designees with the Majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half.

10:30am - 5:30pm Equally divided and controlled in 30 minute-alternating blocks of time with the Majority controlling the first 30 minutes.

1:00pm filing deadline for all first degree amendments to S.3268, the Energy Speculation bill.

3:40pm Moment of silence in remembrance of the fatal shootings of U.S. Capitol Police Officers, Officer Jacob J. Chestnut and Detective John M. Gibson. All Senators are encouraged to be on the Senate floor prior to 3:40pm.

Note the 1:00pm deadline listed above for all "first degree amendments" to S. 3268. What's a "first degree amendment?" That's the term for amendments  proposed directly to the text of a bill. An amendment to an amendment is a second degree amendment. Senate rules prohibit taking this any farther, and there are no third degree amendments permitted. See this explanation of the "amendment tree" for more information. Harry Reid is employing the strategy of "filling the amendment tree" on two bills this week: the energy speculation and housing bills discussed below.

On the Radar:

• Republican delays on the Energy Speculation bill have spilled over beyond expectations, and chewed up more floor time than anticipated, and yesterday's House action on the housing bill (H.R. 3221) puts that ball back in the Senate court with the August recess looming. That almost certainly means a weekend session is in store in the Senate, and it's also pushed consideration of the "Coburn Omnibus" (S. 3297) back into next week. Expect cloture votes on the energy and housing bills this Friday, keeping the Senate occupied with post-cloture debate over the weekend.
• The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meets this morning at 10 to consider a subpoena to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, in pursuit of documentation that would expose White House interference in EPA compliance with the Massachusetts v. EPA ruling and state-based greenhouse gas standards. Good luck to Senator Barbara Boxer, as she heads into the exact same stone wall that met Henry Waxman in late June, prompting him to issue the required Stern Words.

Your one stop pundit shop.

Karl Rove says that John McCain and Barack Obama are both flip-floppers, but when McCain does it he has a good and principled reason. And it's gutsy.

Richard Allen compares Barack Obama's foreign policy experience with that of past presidents and explains why Ronald Reagan's thin resume didn't matter:

One of Reagan's most important advantages by 1980 was the widespread notion that he was but "a B-grade movie actor" -- entirely scripted. In fact, he was a voracious reader, researcher and writer, and over the span of his career had publicly addressed practically every foreign and domestic public policy issue a president would confront.

Todd Domke is afraid that Mitt Romney will buy himself the VP slot and that this would be bad because he is too pretty, too rich, too white, and besides, Democrats might call him a Mormon as payback for the "Obama is a Muslim" claims.

Donald Lambro lauds John McCain's many trips to Iraq and Afghanistan in one paragraph and says it's "a little pathetic" to think that Barack Obama's trip to Iraq and Afghanistan has any meaning in the next.

Douglas MacKinnon says that the media is unethical, liberal, in the tank for Barack Obama, and that:

The main complaint of this editor was the liberal "monolithic-thought" that permeated management at the top newspapers in the country. "Oh, sure," he stressed. "They will let the occasional conservative on the page, but a conservative will never be hired."

MacKinnon makes his complaint on the pages of the Washington Times. More later on Mr. MacKinnon's take on the advantages of being a black in America.

Jamie Barnett, the former deputy commander of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, takes on "don't ask, don't tell."

It is up to Congress and the president to craft policy on gay men and lesbians serving in the military, but it is the responsibility of senior military commanders to advise our nation's leaders on how law and policy affect military readiness. I raised this issue in 2003 when a task force I served on worked on the Navy's diversity strategy. Senior leaders must state plainly how "don't ask, don't tell" affects recruiting, retention and our ability to develop essential military skills. They should speak up about how it affects military honor and integrity. It is our duty, something military leaders understand well, to speak openly of how "don't ask, don't tell" injures our military and weakens our preparedness.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

If...

You don't know how to use the internet, you don't know that Czechoslovakia is no longer a country, you don't know Sunni from Shia, you don’t know much about the economy, you're uninformed about women's health issues, you don't know whether you're for or against gay adoption, stem cell research or setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, you don't know what countries share a border with Pakistan, you don't know when the surge began, you no longer object to waterboarding or closing Guantanamo, you don't tell the truth about your votes on veterans issues, you said Putin was the leader of Germany, you think alternative energy means switching from regular to premium, you say you know how to win wars but you haven't actually won any, your idea of a funny joke is suggesting different ways to kill people in other countries, you want to keep giving tax breaks to the wealthy but not the middle and lower class, you confuse Somalia with Sudan, you thought voting for the Iraq war was an exercise in good judgment, you once said "I disagree with what the majority of Americans want," you think Social Security is "a disgrace," your idea of health care is apparently 'take more vitamins,' you voted to support Bush's policies 95 percent of the time last year and 100 percent of the time this year, and over the course of a single week you unfairly attacked both your opponent's patriotism and his humanity...

Then tell me again, Senator McCain: why should Americans vote for you?

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Tonight's Diary Rescue crew was Louisiana 1976, BentLiberal, dopper0189, Yashua, Avila, ItsJessMe, dadanation and srkp23.

The rescued diaries

• First-time diarist MindWideOpen brings us some perspective in an op-ed about the state of the world in Fire + Fire = More Fire. (Yashua)
• First-time diarist lyubansky examines The Racial Implications of a Barack Obama Presidency. (dopper0189)
• Lib Dem FoP pens an eloquent tribute to a courageous Royal Marines reservist who has been honored with the George Cross medal for his service in Afghanistan in For Gallantry. (Avila)
• Immigrant Punk introduces us to a new canvassing organization and how we can help in Progressive Future: The Foot-Soldiers of Your Revolution. (ItsJessMe)
• In a well-researched and well-crafted diary, Liberal Youth cites case law and precedent in asking and answering the question How Likely is it that Bush Pardons Himself? (BentLiberal)
• Stranded Wind writes how medical services for the poor are not equal in all states in Universal Health Care Has Made Me Whole and uses his own health history to illustrate the point. (Louisiana 1976)
• We all want "fair and balanced" news. This includes RKA who believes McCain deserves more media coverage. (Spoiler -- excellent snark contained in this diary - editor). (dopper0189)
• Press to Digitate presents a compelling argument for lending an ear to various opinions on saving our planet in A Carbon Future: Now 'Up In The Air'. (Yashua)
• In a diary chock-full of helpful advice, margeauxtex describes her own and her family's personal experience in I can't be broke -- I still have checks left and tells us how we can raise financially-responsible children. (Louisiana 1976)
• Eternal Hope delves into the depths of 19th Century philosophy, and argues against the practices of Christian Fundamentalism in Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil. (Yashua)

The regular extras

jotter has High Impact Diaries - July 22, 2008.

va dare brings Top Comments 7.23.08 'Progressive Mojo' - an oxymoron?

The reminder

Please use this as an Open Thread as well as your chance to promote your favorite diaries of the day. Respectful engagement is most welcome here. Please keep in mind that each Diary Rescue's daily purview extends from 3pm PST yesterday to 3pm PST today.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman spoke at the Hagee "summit" yesterday, as Think Progress notes:

Lieberman again drew a parallel between Hagee and biblical figures, this time saying biblical heroes, unlike the demigods of Greek mythology, "are humans — great humans, but with human failings." Lieberman said that Moses had his shortcomings, too.

"Dear friends, I can only imagine what the bloggers of today would have had to say about Moses and Miriam."

Funny you should ask:

Markos Moulitsas: "He promised us snakes would lead to our liberation.  Well, Pharaoh's still in charge.  We need More and Better Hebrews!"

Atrios:  "Moses said we'd be out of Egypt after one plague.  We're already Nine Plague Units into this with no end in sight."

Mike Stark: "I am going to go to Pharaoh's house with a big roll of papyrus to confront him about his former slaves."

Chris Bowers: "The last three polls all say that Pharaoh's vulnerable, so I believe Moses can take a more aggressive stand.  Praise Joshua and let him know."

FDL: "Take a look at these stones Miriam just inscribed for us that detail her journey -- it's not getting enough attention.  She'll be here to answer questions in our Tablet Club after sunrise on Sunday."

Howie Klein: "I'm already running pro-Aaron hieroglyphs in Moses' camp."

Matt Stoller: "If Moses doesn't beseech Hashem to deliver us something other than manna to eat, he should be primaried."

Big Tent Democrat: "Jethro has too much influence over Moses' judicial appointments."

Jeffrey Feldman: "If I'm Aaron, I'd be using this Golden Calf symbol everywhere I could.  It's the icon that coalesces the needs of the Hebrews in the wilderness."

FiveThirtyEight.com:  "I've checked out the demographics; look for the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin to make real gains in Moses' new census."

And from across the Red Sea:

NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "A totally crazy Shabbas thought: Wouldn't Ramses make an awesome high-school government teacher?"

VoteVets has a new ad featuring Brandon Woods, an Iraq War veteran from New York.

In the ad, Brandon says, "What did we fight for in Iraq? I have some idea. I fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom. And "freedom" means when the Iraqi people and their Prime Minister ask us to make a plan to leave, we do. But, Senator McCain would occupy Iraq indefinitely, against their wishes. That's not what freedom means. That's not what we fought for. Senator, I thought you would know better."

Here's VoteVets' statement releasing the ad:

Senator McCain once said that if the Iraqis asked us to leave, we would have to leave. Those of us who served agree with that. Senator McCain now either has to back off his refusal to set a plan to leave Iraq, as Prime Minister Maliki requested a number of times in the past week, or tell the American and Iraqi people why he would overrule Iraq's government and turn our troops into an indefinite occupying force. Those are his only two options. Our new ad makes that clear.

The American people, the Iraqi people, the Iraqi government all think it's time for us to leave. So what does "winning" mean now, Mr. McCain? Stubbornly staying put when you're the only one who wants us to stay?

And here's the J Lo version from the movie Selena -- J Lo's breakout role.

Colorado

Rasmussen. 7/21. MoE 4.5% (6/17 results)

The Pollster.com composite is 47.6 Obama, 44.9 McCain.

Michigan

EPIC/MRA. 7/13-15. MoE 4% (5/19-22 results)

The Pollster.com composite is 47.6 Obama, 39.1 McCain.

Florida

Rasmussen. 7/22. MoE 4.5% (6/26 results)

American Research Group. 7/19-21. MoE 4% (6/13-17 results)

Those Ras numbers are a little goofy. That's a big shift in a single month, and one seen in few other states. Then we have ARG giving us the exact opposite trendline, though we all know ARG sucks you-know-what.

Thank heavens we can fall back on the composite, which is less sensitive to wild swings and outliers. And on that front, it's really, really, really tight: 45.7 McCain, 44.9 Obama.

New Hampshire

American Research Group. 7/19-21. MoE 4% (6/13-17 results)

U of New Hampshire (PDF). 7/11-20. MoE 4.5% (4/25-30 results)

Two crappy pollsters, but let's plug their numbers into the composite anyway. Currently, it's 47.4 Obama, 40.4 McCain in New Hampshire.

Ohio

Rasmussen. 7/21. MoE 4.5% (6/17 results)

Did Ras juice their (D) sample this month? Or did Obama hit upon the holy grail of Florida and Ohio swing-state politics? I don't know if I buy these particular numbers, but there's no need to. The composite actually feels quite right: 45.9 Obama, 42.4 McCain. Give Obama the twitchy, very nervous lead. Essentially, this one's tied (like Florida, like every fucking election cycle, it seems).

Update: I reversed the Ohio numbers. It's McCain that's up.

Virginia

Public Policy Polling. 7/17-20. MoE 2.7% (6/26 results)

Just float within the MoE. The composite remains razor tight: 46.7 Obama, 44.1 McCain.

Other: Monmouth University reiterates that yes, Obama is crushing McCain in New Jersey 50-36 (PDF).

Barack Obama isn't the only one facing the dirtiest of race-baiting attacks this cycle.

Rep. Mark Kirk, locked in the race of his life with Orange to Blue candidate Dan Seals, has already made several highly controversial statements about Democratic candidates this cycle, most notably this one (emphasis added):

DON WADE: In fact, yesterday in a conference call, Barack Obama's advisers were asked, "If Osama bin Laden were caught, should he get to challenge his detention in U.S. courts?" And the advisers said that -- should that right to challenge detention that they get at Gitmo based on the Supreme Court ruling, should that be applied to bin Laden? -- and Obama's advisers said, "Yes."

KIRK: Yeah, and I would much rather have a policy where if we see Obama there's a shoot-on-sight order.

DON WADE: Well, okay. I'm with you, but I don't know whether that's going to make 67 -- well it might --

ROMA: I don't think Osama bin Laden -- no one ever sights him.

Kirk apologized to Senator Obama for the alleged mix-up. But he's back to making underhanded, oh-so-subtle statements about Democrats, this time about Dan Seals himself.

The Kirk campaign is going after Seals for being "unemployed".

"After losing his bid for Congress, Seals did not return to GE Finance and was unemployed," according to a Kirk campaign memo out last week. "Near the end of the 2006 campaign, Seals paid himself $25,000 out of his campaign donor funds — an act that is legal but strongly discouraging to donors ... in May, Seals filed his 2008 financial disclosure with the U.S. House showing only $3,300 in earned income through the first quarter of the year."

Unemployed? Seals has been working as a business consultant and lecturer at Northwestern University.

Most candidates for Congress take at least a leave of absence from work to focus on their campaigns, especially campaigns as hotly contested as this one. This is hardly a secret. Candidates frequently sacrifice promising careers out of a commitment to public service; praise to those who do.

Heaven forbid we actually have candidates for office who put public service ahead of their own personal gain. I understand why that concept may be foreign to Republicans, but still.

Regardless of the stupidity and irrelevance of the quote, it is wildly inaccurate, as the Seals campaign pointed out:

But Seals’ campaign said in a new memo distributed Monday that the incumbent is resorting "to demeaning and untruthful smears" reminiscent of slash-and-burn GOP operative Karl Rove.

"Mark Kirk entirely overlooks the fact that Dan Seals has worked as a business consultant and lecturer at Northwestern since 2006 and that Seals’ wife serves in a senior level corporate position," the Seals campaign memo states. "So the question is, what does Mark Kirk find so objectionable that the Seals family, like many families in the 10th district have two working parents?"

"It is this out-of-touch mentality that has guided Kirk’s votes against economic relief for hard-hit families and also driven Seals to devote himself full-time to campaigning, because now more than ever change is needed in Washington," the memo continues.

So why on earth would the Kirk campaign seek to target Seals as "unemployed", given the fact that it isn't true?

Why would they think that dog would hunt, given Seals' stellar professional and educational resume? In addition to his consulting work and teaching at Northwestern, Seals has worked as an English teacher and Senate aide, worked in marketing at Sprint and GE Finance, and holds degrees from Boston University, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Chicago.

Who do they think they're kidding with the "unemployed" line? Who do they think would buy the idea of Dan Seals as a freeloader?

Please tell me it doesn't have anything to do with Seals being African-American, running in an affluent white district.

Because if it does, Kirk is guilty of engaging in the most shameful and vile brand of politics imaginable.

On the web:
Dan Seals for Congress
Orange to Blue ActBlue Page

Race tracker wiki: IL-10