The Politico is reporting that a Texas oilman now on trial for paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein made quite a few donations to politicians before being indicted in 2005. Doing my own quick search through Fundrace and OpenSecrets.org, I wasn't able to find any Republicans who the oilman, Oscar Wyatt, donated to, other than the one that the article mentions, John McCain. All of the donors reported on in the article have indicated that they either have or intend to donate the money from the oilman to charity. All of them, that is, except for Hillary Clinton.

Joe Biden is donating to charity a contribution from a Houston oilman on trial for charges related to paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, and John McCain says he'll follow if Oscar Wyatt is convicted. But Hillary Rodham Clinton would make no such pledge.

Now that this story is in the news, I'm certain that Hillary will donate the money to charity, and make a big public relations thrust while doing so. That what her campaign does best -- make lemonade out of lemons. But this does highlight Hillary's biggest weakness -- lack of judgment. Her first instinct is not to do what's right, but what's best for her own self interest. In this case, money.

Rudy Giuliani took the MoveOn.org ad calling General David Petraeus, David "Betray Us," and made it a campaign plus for him. He's gone after them hard and rightfully so. General Petraeus made our esteemed elected leaders look even more buffoonish than usual. He was calm, answered their questions with authority and acted as one would expect a high-ranking military man to act, with class and dignity. MoveOn attacked a good man for partisan political purposes and Rudy is now using it as a weapon:

As for the candidates on the Dems side, Richard Cohen takes them to task today:

Almost instantly, though, it got pretty hard to find a Democratic presidential candidate willing to dispute MoveOn.org. To his credit, Joe Biden did. "I don't buy into that," he said. "This is an honorable guy. He's telling the truth." But lonesome Joe, whose virtues have yet to come to the attention of the vast and apathetic electorate, was seconded only by Joe Lieberman, not a presidential candidate, and John Kerry, a man whose tomorrow is yesterday. When Clinton was asked about the ad, she avoided answering.

It may seem unfair to single out Clinton in this matter when the bunker in which she took shelter was crowded with her fellow quivering candidates. But Clinton is the front-runner, quite possibly the next president of the United States, so it is reasonable to focus on her and wonder if, as some allege, she does indeed have a spine. In this instance, it was nowhere to be found.

This was the opportunity for Hillary Clinton so show that she has what it takes to be commander-in -chief (shudder) of the U.S. military and she punted. A more astute politician -- such as her husband -- would have seen the advantage of defending a career Army officer and highly regarded leader and bent over backwards to make it known that they didn't agree with the offensive ad. Clinton failed and Rudy grabbed the ball and ran with it. That action may have cemented his cred with conservatives who abhor the MoveOn crowd and conservative Democrats who feel Hillary has wandered a little too far into left field for their tastes (note: link to NY Times piece for TimeSelect members until midnight tonight).

MoveOn has accomplished two things with this inane ad campaign, a campaign they will continue to run: they've alienated a good portion of the electorate and pushed them toward Rudy who could hold them with his unique blend of social liberalism and national defense conservatism.

Return with me if you will to the last time we had a slate of candidates running for the presidency in 2003-2004. There were many issues discussed. Some of them -- including he Iraq war -- are still issues. But perhaps the greatest issue was military service. Being on active duty meant you had a view on war that was more nuanced and righteous than those who did not.

George W. Bush was pilloried by the Kerry campaign, the media and the anti-war left because he did not get activated and sent to Vietnam. This triad sent near-daily press releases detailing John Kerry's 45-days of service as if he were Audie Murphy. The campaign made his Vietnam service the center-point of his campaign--a tactic that back-fired spectacularly once the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth went into action and dispelled the carefully crafted biography Kerry had laid out. The military issue was so prominent that a well-respected newsman--Dan Rather-- lost his job because of a falsified letter he presented as truthful was brilliantly picked apart by bloggers.

Fast-forward to the present; there's zero discussion of military service by either side. Why the sudden change in attitude about whether or not someone served? Simple, only a few have and none of them are Democrats.

Let's look at the candidates and see who did, who didn't and who plain came up with a reason not to serve in the greatest military in the world:

Democrats:

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden: None. Rejected for medical reasons, but would have been eligible in a national emergency.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: None.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd: Army Reserve (1969-75).

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards: None. Draft number was never called.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich: None. Was rejected for military service because of a heart murmur.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama: None. Too young to have been drafted for the Vietnam War.

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico: None. Received student and medical classifications. Draft number was never called.

• • •

Republicans:

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback: None. Came of age as draft was ending.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani: None. Received student and occupational deferments. Draft number was never called.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: None. Came of age as draft was ending.

California Rep. Duncan Hunter: Served as an Army paratrooper and Ranger in Vietnam (1969-71).

Arizona Sen. John McCain: Served in the Navy (1958-81); prisoner of war in Vietnam (1967-73).

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: None. Received a deferment as a Mormon missionary in France. Was eligible for the draft upon his return to the states but was never selected.

Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo: None. Received student deferments. Was available for military service in 1969. Reclassified in 1970 because of stress-related anxiety and could have been called up only during a pressing national emergency.

Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson: None. Gained deferment because he had children. (Note: Not on original list, added by author)

Texas Representative Ron Paul: Served in the Army as a Flight Surgeon (1963-1965); Air National Guard (1965-1968) Never served in Vietnam, served in South Korea, Iran, Ethiopia and Turkey. (Note: Not on original list, added by author as an update on 8/22/07 0857))

If we go by the criteria set-forth in 2004, the only candidates who would warrant any attention and would have authority to speak on Iraq are Sen. John McCain, Rep. Ron Paul and Rep. Duncan Hunter. In fact, Hunter's son is currently active duty and boots on the ground. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson would not be considered (however Thompson's exemption is more warranted than others). In fact, if we were to silence all who never served from talking about the war, the discussion would be pretty small.

I said it in 2004 and I'll say it again, the Founding Fathers believed strongly in the concept of civilian control of the military. There's a reason the Commander in Chief is the President and not a five star General or Admiral. The Democrats and liberals made it an issue because they had a candidate who had served in Vietnam and the GOP did not. Now that circumstances are different, the fact that their candidates have no service time is not even muttered and that is disengenuous at best.

If I were John McCain and Duncan Hunter, I'd make this a priority on their campaigns, however, most who served are too proud or humble to do that. Of course, John Kerry was neither and wore his like a badge of courage while John McCain -- a man beaten in a POW prison for years -- did not.

With the expected-sooner-or-later news that Tommy Thompson is bowing out of the GOP presidential primary, I've been wondering, who's next?

The top tier, those who are collecting money, support, or doing well in the polls will be in it to stay. Also in it for the long haul are those for whom the message is way more important than their position in money or polling, or even their own self-respect. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, I'm looking at you. It's the middle tier, those who are serious candidates, have great resumes, but are now facing the obvious. They will never get their party's nomination. At least, not in this cycle.

My vote on the GOP side is for Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. Despite placing third place in the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll, he lost to Mike Huckabee, who is competing for the exact same sets of conservative Christian voters, despite spending almost twice as much money. He's a senator, which is a weaker position than a governor, and there are still two governors or former governors in the race (plus a mayor who was the executive of a city with a bigger population than most of the states.). Basically he's redundant, and at some point he will face those facts, probably before January, long before January.

On the Democratic side, we have a close one between Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. Neither of them have a chance, most folks don't even know they are running. Obama is sucking up all the oxygen and whatever's left is going to Hillary and John Edwards. My bet is that Chris Dodd will bow out first because Joe Biden thinks very, very highly of himself, enough to overcome any feelings of inadequacy about scraping the bottom of the barrel in this contest. Chris Dodd is out before December?

What's your call? Who's out next and when?

"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world/Like a Colossus..." ~Shakespeare

Al Gore might not be the next Julius Caesar, but his influence over the Democratic Party at this point certainly parallels that of J.C. over the Roman Republic.

If Gore decides to run in 2008, Democratic voters have a counterbalance to their party's most visible current candidates: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards. More than any other candidate, Gore would remind the Democrats that they have "unfinished business" ... a reckoning with the Republicans after the Supreme Court decision Bush v. Gore gave the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000.

The Democratic debaters on Monday night realized this. Only Sen. Joe Biden responded to a two-person question sent from Murfreesboro in Gore's state of Tennessee.

That is what Sen. Joe Biden called it yesterday in CNN's "Situation Room" anchored by Wolf Blitzer. The Democratic presidential candidate said he thanked Sen. Richard Lugar in a phone call for his departure from the president's Iraq policy. He also told Lugar he would be part of an bipartisan effort to get the U.S. out of "this mess" (his words) if President Bush wanted to do that.

What I find most striking about Biden's interview was that he did not back away from his earlier statement that he would NOT cut off funding for our soldiers in favor of a timeline. I appreciate that Biden, even as a Democrat, wants to keep our soldiers safe and that awakened my interest in him a couple weeks ago.

The Biden-Gelb plan for Iraq sure sounds good. However upon further research of Biden's plan on Iraq on his Web site I have to say it would be very hard to follow through with this plan. After all Biden is not running for president of Iraq. (insert sarcasm) On the one hand, he calls for us to get out of the Iraqi civil war. On the other hand he presents his Iraq plan as if he would be in charge of Iraq if he were elected U.S. president. I think it ought to be up to the Iraqi government on how to establish a secure Iraq, not to our government.

I do want to wait for the results of the troop surge -- which will supposedly be announced in September. But I do have to say that l found it refreshing that Biden has the safety for our troops in mind even so he is calling for a withdraw of troops. It shows after all that you can be indeed for our troops even so you are against the war in Iraq.

A few observations from the second Dem debate.

-Unlike Ron Paul, Democratic spoiler Mike Gravel could not keep up the entertaining hijinks from the first debate and looked rather bumbling all around.

-At times it felt as if John Edwards and Barack Obama were having a private conversation.

-Hillary Clinton continues to show that she's a polished candidate. She has an alert, articulate presence, and doesn't wither from attacks (be they from Dennis Kucinich or Edwards).

-If you assumed that each of the moderators' microphones would have been tested before the debate started, you would be wrong.

-Obama is damn good at thinking on his feet, and, of the big three, seemed to answer each question the most directly.

-Bill Richardson did well in stressing his experience, but tends to bite off more than he can chew. Why is Bill Clinton angry at him, and why do we keep worrying about what job the former president will be given?

-Whose bright idea was it to get rid of the podiums and tell them to sit down? And where's Oprah? Somehow I think she'd be better at this format than moderator Wolf Blitzer.

-Thanks to the Fox News Republican debate, it seems that idiotic hypothetical questions will now be a staple of all future debates.

-Joe Biden (whose delivery was, at times, the most impassioned) and Chris Dodd did pretty well but have no chance whatsoever.

-Kucinich and Gravel did poorly and have no chance whatsoever.

Bottom line. A fairly substantive, if not boring, debate.

Let's face it, congressional Dems don't have a particularly strong hand to play in this round of Iraq war poker. Especially those who are running for president in 2008.

Given that their majority is much too slim to override a presidential veto, they are forced into the unenviable position of considering whether to hand over the funds to enbale President Bush to continue his war, despite the fact that nearly every metric out there tells us that things continue to head in the wrong direction, or be seen as depriving our soldiers the tools to fight and protect themselves. More than just a bumper-sticker philosophy, "supporting the troops" is a sticky issue indeed. There are some 160,000 of our own men and women on the ground in Iraq. To date nearly 3,500 have died, and over 26,000 have been wounded in what was supposed to have been a low-casualty, pay-for-itself repeat of the first Persian Gulf War. Here's Joe Biden:

"I believe as long as we have troops in the front line, we're going to have to protect them. We're going to have to fund them."

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have not signaled how they will vote. Chris Dodd will go against the funding bill. John Edwards is shouting on the sidelines for everyone to stand firm and just say no. What makes this moment doubly difficult is the sense that President Bush is simply running out the clock.

Tonight the Democratic candidates square off -- on the same stage, face to face -- at South Carolina State University in Orangesburg, S.C. for the first time in the race. About time! I mean, there are only nine months until we have to vote.

First, the debate rules: This thing lasts 90 minutes; The question order is at the discretion of moderator Brian Williams; each candidate gets 60 second to respond (ha!); and candidates are supposed to refrain from asking direct questions of each other (huh?). So, as one of our commenters pointed out, it's more of a Q&A then debate.

In the most welcome modification to the typical debate format, the candidates skip opening statements. Nor do they go through the usual niceties of thanking everyone. "Consider yourself thanked," deadpanned Williams.

8:30PM Update: And it's over. Though it was a rather civilized affair, with few fireworks and zingers, I have to admit that was a quick 90 minutes -- as far as debates go anyway.

My Quick Thoughts:
- Brian Williams did a good job keeping things moving along, even trying to vary the types of questions. I liked the hand-raising thing on the gun question;
- Good thing little-known Mike Gravel was on hand to supply some moxie. He made the most of the few questions directed at him, going directly after his rivals with a passion rarely displayed the rest of the night;
- Hillary Clinton came across as knowledgeable and likable, willingly offering up mistakes she's made in the past. The Wal-Mart answer was good too;
- Laugh out loud moment: Joe Biden, (in)famous for his "verbosity," was asked if he was capable of a brief answer. The Delaware senator succinctly replied, "Yes."
- Why isn't anyone looking more seriously at Bill Richardson? His candid reply to the Alberto Gonzales question, among others, was refreshing;
- John Edwards took a good ten of his precious 60 seconds to pause before taking on a question about who is his moral compass. It was odd for him, but apparently smart: his choices (his Lord, wife and father) might have been predictable, but the reply as a whole was genuine and compelling.
- The only "scuffle" of the evening was between Barack Obama and Dennis Kucinich, over security and Iran. It was oddly the most memorable debate moment for both men.

So what did you think? Let us know in the comments below.

Missed it? You can watch over at MSNBC. And don't worry: The candidates will be doing this for, oh, another nine months. Plus remember, up next week: the Republicans.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden wants to deploy (ht to Instapundit) American troops in Darfur, the wasted land where Muslims have been killing Christians for a while now.

''I would use American force now,'' Biden said at a hearing before his committee. ''I think it's not only time not to take force off the table. I think it's time to put force on the table and use it.''

In advocating use of military force, Biden said senior U.S. military officials in Europe told him that 2,500 U.S. troops could ''radically change the situation on the ground now.''

''Let's stop the bleeding,'' Biden said. ''I think it's a moral imperative.''

Since Biden put himself out there, I think it's fair to ask him what he thinks will happen in Iraq if we leave?

The vote for the non-binding, no confidence in our troops bill is done and the dovish Democrats are vanquished:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan resolution repudiating President George W. Bush's decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq failed to advance in the U.S. Senate on Monday, dealing a serious setback to critics of the war.

The resolution needed 60 votes before the 100-member Senate could begin debate, but it got 49, with 47 voting against. Although it would not have been binding on the president, the measure was the first serious effort in Congress to confront Bush over the unpopular Iraq war.

I agree with AP that it was just a show for the Democrats so they can say they tried to their far-left centrist base. It essentially meant nada, yet it is telling that it was so close. The result is also a stunning rebuke to Senators Biden and Hagel who wanted a much tougher resolution and were cajoled into the weaker bill voted on tonight.:

Levin, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., originally proposed a tougher resolution, but bowed to the request of Warner and other Republicans to soften the language while still voicing disapproval with the troop increase.

So the debate on the war rages everywhere but in the Senate. With both Hagel and Biden going on record with their feelings on the war and running for president, we'll have to see how this affects them politically. It could be more serious blow to Hagel with the GOP than Biden and the Democrats.

The only Republicans to join the retreaters majority party were Sens. Coleman and Collins. Sen. Lieberman joined the GOP, but no Democrats did. There were four senators who did not vote including Sen. John McCain and the still-recovering Tim Johnson.

By the way, note that Warner voted against his own bill.

Let me add to what my blogthren Patrick wrote earlier today about Joe Biden.

Joe Biden is gold if you are a Republican, as Patrick said. He is articulate, yet whenever he opens his mouth, you never know what will come out. He has no filter and I suspect that's because he's been in Washington for entirely too long and has no idea what's going on in the real world.

The thing that get's me about the quote is that Biden and the left are spinning it as if he said nothing wrong or that a comma was would change everything. What a sham, Biden has a long history of saying insensitive things, just last year he made the Dunkin' Donuts comment:

Yeah, he wasn't joking.