As the Mitt Romney campaign tries to slow down Mike Huckabee’s surge in Iowa, they have long since begun issuing harsh criticisms of Huckabee’s past actions and statements. On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Romney called on Huckabee to apologize for describing President Bush’s foreign policy as “arrogant” and suffering from a “bunker mentality.”

On Sunday, the Romney campaign also sent to its media list a long, blistering attack on the piece, which is not so much a rebuttal to the substance as it is a compendium of bad reviews given to the piece by the National Review, The American Spectator, Fox News, Politico, radio host Hugh Hewitt, Bill Sammon of the Washington Examiner, the neocon analyst Victor Davis Hanson, and,  of Minnesota note, both Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters and Paul Mirengoff of  Powerline.None of these commentators gave Huckabee’s piece any compliments, at least in the portions quoted in the Romney press release. This is not surprising. But it is impressive — and a comment on the currently involved state of the media (by the way, several of the links are to videos) –  how quickly and easily a blamefest like this can be assembled and distributed.

If you click through to the full Romney piece, you can then click through to the full text of the dozen or more denunciamentos (I haven’t done this and am not sure I will get to them all) and could spend several hours reading, watching and listening to how bad Huckabee’s article was, without coming across a contrary note.

Interesting to contemplate how this treatment might influence the piece of a mainstream objective reporter writing about the state of the Romney-Huckabee contest in Iowa, or about the quality of Huckabee’s foreign policy thinking. But I offer it mostly so you can see what reporters are getting from the campaigns.

There’s a fresh wave of discussion in Washington and Minnesota of the possibility that U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad may change his annnounced plans to retire and seek another term. A very good source of mine has stated that this active reconsideration is occurring. My colleague Joe Bodell has the same information from a different Capitol Hill source.

Rep. Jim McCrery of Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, has decided to retire. Ramstad currently ranks three seniority notches lower, but could be offered the ranking position as an inducement to stay.

[JB]:  Apparently, the two Republicans ahead of Ramstad on the seniority totem pole — Wally Herger of California and Dave Camp of Michigan — are seen as minor roadblocks to Ramstad’s ascension, especially if the position of ranking member is dangled as a carrot to entice him out of retirement. 

Ramstad’s seat is currently seen as one of the most competitive open seat races in the nation.  An unretirement would call that status into question:  with the NRCC strapped for cash, caucus leaders will be looking for any opportunity to save money by turning a toss-up race into a likely hold for the GOP.

If you look at the list of the last 10 or 20 polls taken in New Hampshire, as compiled by the excellent pollster.com, you can see Clinton’s once-commanding lead dissipate pretty quickly, all within the past two weeks or so. Hardly any of the most recent polls show either Democrat with a statistically significant lead.In the breakdowns of this freshest poll by the Concord paper, Clinton still leads solidly among self-declared Democrats. But Obama wins by more among independent voters who plan to vote in the Democratic primary. And, rather amazingly, Clinton’s advantage among women voters has gone away.

On the Repub side, even as Mitt Romney has fallen into second place in Iowa, he continues to hold a commanding double-digit lead in New Hampshire. The Monitor poll suggested that if the election was held today, it would come out Romney 31, Rudy Giuliani 18, John McCain 17 and Mike Huckabee 9 percent.

Rich Dunn, the chief of staff from the Washington office, told the Minnesota staff Friday that former state Sen. Sean Nienow, who has been Bachmann’s district director, is out and will be replaced by Julie Quist of St. Peter.

Quist has been on the cutting edge of the Minnesota social conservative movement for more than a decade. She was a full partner with her husband Allen Quist in a stunning political accomplishment of 1994, when they defeated Arne Carlson, a sitting Republican governor, for endorsement (although Carlson beat Quist in a primary and was re-elected). The Quists beat Carlson within the GOP base substantially on Carlson’s liberal positions on social issues like abortion and gay rights. In recent years, she has been a leader at EdWatch, a far-right advocacy group on education issues.

Julie Quist and Bachmann are personally and ideologically close and worked together when Bachmann was in the Minnesota Senate and led the charge to kill a state-mandated educational curriculum known as the Profiles of Learning. For Quist and Bachmann, the profiles were a Trojan horse for what they considered a secular humanism agenda. Quist and Bachmann share a passionate opposition to same-sex marriage.

Longtime Star Tribune political reporter Dane Smith described Quist as “a savvy and tireless political operative, organizer and campaigner who was always right there on the edge of whatever issue the social conservatives were pushing.”

Smith said he could imagine Bachmann benefitting from Quist’s skills as re-election time rolls around, but “if she’s looking to moderate  her image or her positions even a little, this is not the move to make.”

Other staff changes

Two members of the Washington staff  have already left in the last few days.  Legislative Assistant Erika Nelsen (a holdover from the staff of Bachmann’s predecessor, Rep. Mark Kennedy) and Legislative Correspondent Tara Westby (an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the state House of Represenatives in 2006) are gone.

Bachmann’s spokester, Heidi Frederickson (also a Kennedy holdover), is no longer returning press calls and will soon leave the office.

A certain amount of staff turnover is common during a congressperson’s first term. But this is an above average amount and Bachmann hasn’t completed the first half of her term yet.

When the dust settles from the current shakeup, Bachmann, who is already on her second chief of staff, will have replaced most of her top management.

The Bachmann office is not confirming any of these changes and is acting totally squirrelly about it. All questions are referred to Washington Staff Chief Dunn, who doesn’t return calls or e-mails.

The receptionist at the Bachmann St. Cloud office hung up on a constituent when he asked to know the name of the head of Bachmann’s Minnesota operations.

• Mike Huckabee: 39 percent
• Mitt Romney: 17
• Fred Thompson: 10
• Rudy Giuliani: 9
• Ron Paul: 8
• John McCain: 6

If this is right, it’s mighty impressive. This poll had a large sample, was taken Wednesday and Thursday by the most tried and trusted methodology (human telephone interviews) and had a smal margin for error (three percent). Using the same methodology in late September, Romney led Huckabee by 25-6 percent.

The comment from Newsweek’s pollster, Larry Hugick of Princeton Survey Research Associates: “You rarely see anything like [Huckabee's surge].”

On the Dem side:
Newsweek/Princeton had Hillary Clinton with an insignificant 30-29 percent lead over Barack Obama among Democratic leaning registered Iowa voters. But among likely caucus goers it was:

• Obama: 35
• Clinton: 29
• John Edwards: 18.
• Bill Richardson: 9.

Obama’s lead borders on statistical significance and shows a continuation of a surge that polls have been picking up for a couple of weeks, but is nothing compared to the Huckabee tsunami.

By the way, most of the presidential poll results I’ve posted under crack for political junkies have been from Iowa. That because I assume all other numbers (national or other state numbers) will be affect when Iowa completes its first in the nation caucuses Jan. 3.

Another reminder: In Iowa caucuses, on a precinct-by-precinct basis, candidates who receive less than 15 percent on the first round are declared “non-viable” and their supporters are given a chance to align with their second choice, if that candidate is viable. So second choices could have a big impact on the final result.

The administration has often seemed willing to bend, fold and mutilate the truth. But this is a tad different. Maybe two tads. I’m talking about the kind of “depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” parsing that was supposedly the essence of  Bill Clinton’s honesty problem. This was the opposite of what “restore honesty and integrity to the White House” Bush was supposed to stand for.

Specifically, what I’m noticing is that Bush and Cheney — while arguing that Iran’s nuclear ambitions could cause World War III — have recently (since August) sort of stopped saying that they believed Iran was developing a nuclear weapon. They have said instead that Iran had “hopes” or “ambitions” or acquiring nuclear weapons or was pursuing “knowledge”  or “technology” that “could be used to develop nuclear weapons.”I noticed these interesting word choices during Bush’s press conference Tuesday morning. But previous Bush and Cheney statements suggest that they knew what they were doing months ago. Here are three examples, with key words in bold face and my asides in italics and parentheses. These come right off the latest Joe Biden press release to reach my inbox (Biden was citing them for a different purpose).

October 21: Cheney speech to Washington Institute for Near Easy Policy: “And now, of course, we have the inescapable reality of Iran’s nuclear program (well sure they have a nuclear program, they’re enriching uranium aren’t they?); a program they claim is strictly for energy purposes, but which they have worked hard to conceal; a program carried out in complete defiance of the international community and resolutions of the U.N. Security Council. Iran is pursuing technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons.” (Well sure, the technology that enables a country to enrich uranium could be used to develop nuclear weapons, right?)

October 17: Bush Press conference:  Bush was asked, do you “definitively believe Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon? (notice how clear the question is: buildnuclear weapons?)”  Bush said, “I think so long — until they suspend and/or make it clear that they — that their statements aren’t real, yes, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon. (I didn’t say they wanted to make one, I said they wanted to have the knowledge.) And I know it’s in the world’s interest to prevent them from doing so… So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

August 28: Bush at American Legion convention: (just after he had been told by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell of new indications that Iran had shut down its nuclear weapons program): President Bush Warns of “Nuclear Holocaust.” “Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.”

So I’m wondering whether this inclusion, after August, of language about developing the “knowledge” and the “capacity” to make a weapon was the Bush-Cheney way of continuing to give the impression that they thought Iran had a nuclear weapons program while saying nothing that specifically directly contradicted what they had just been told about the latest intelligence finding. It’s kind of like one of those technically correct but fundamentally false scripts for a political ad, designed to lead the viewer to a false understanding without committing a technical inaccuracy.

Maybe I’m imagining things. You’d have to review a lot of statements and see whether the “knowledge” and “capacity”  stuff started earlier. I’ve just spent a couple of hours testing my theory on the White House site that archives Bush’s speeches and news conferences and — while definitely not perfect — my theory is looking pretty good. Before August, Bush often states much more flatly that Iran is “pursuing nuclear weapons,” has a “nuclear weapons program,” is “trying to develop (or ‘get’) a nuclear weapon.”

There are a couple of exceptions (and maybe more that I haven’t found) before August, where Bush uses versions of the more recent language about acquiring know-how or capabilities. But before August, they are the exceptions.

After August, all of the instances in which Bush discussed Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions, he used language that is consistent with my theory. Post-August, Iran has bad intentions and is acquiring dangerous knowledge, but not running an ongoing program to build a bomb. The change is subtle enough that you might miss it if you aren’t looking for it, and as far as I can tell, we all did miss it.

Specific cases: Post-August language

In addition to the ones above, in Bush’s press conference of Sept. 20

“I believe it’s imperative that we continue to work in a multilateral fashion to send that message.  And one place to do so is at the United Nations.  We’re also talking to different finance ministers about how we can send a message to the Iranian government that the free world is not going to tolerate the development of know-how in how to build a weapon, or at least gain the ability to make a weapon.“

Specific cases: Pre-August language

Bush’s July 12 press conference:

“The fight in Iraq is part of a broader struggle that’s unfolding across the region.  The same region in Iran — the same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons” (not the knowledge that might enable Iran to someday build weapons; pre-August Iran was pursuing the weapons).

May 24 press conference:

“Iran is constantly on the agenda at a press avail like this — or a press conference like this, and the reason why is because they continue to be defiant as to the demands of the free world. The world has spoken, and said no nuclear weapons programs.  And yet they’re constantly ignoring the demands.” (They have a nuclear weapons program, exactly what we now understand they probably don’t have!)

Same press conference:

“It would have been a really dangerous world if we had the Iranians trying to develop a nuclear weapon, (not the know-how, the weapon) and Saddam Hussein competing for a nuclear weapon.  You can imagine what the mentality of the Middle East would have been like.”

May 10 press availability at the Pentagon:

“Do we understand the consequences of Iran having a nuclear weapon, which it looks like they want to try achieve — to get.  And the answer is, absolutely.”

In all likelihood, Coleman says, the position of U.S. attorney for Minnesota will be filled for the remainder of the Bush term by an interim appointee, chosen from within the current staff of the office.

For several weeks, I have been seeking to interview Coleman about the details of his role in Paulose’s rise and fall. Wednesday, we had that conversation.

Here are some of the highlights:

 
• Coleman says that he had no idea that Paulose’s predecessor, Tom Heffelfinger (below, right), was on a list of U.S. attorneys that the Bush administration intended to fire. He would have preferred that those compiling the list had contacted him, as the Republican senator from the state in question, and if they had, he would have told them that Heffelfinger was highly regarded, highly competent and should not be dismissed. Heffelfinger resigned in February 2006, but was not fired and has maintained that he, like Coleman, was unaware until it came out in subsequent congressional testimony, that his name was on the list.

 

• Coleman says he also was not consulted when the Justice Department disregarded Heffelfinger’s recommendation that his own top assistant run the office on an interim basis until a permanent U.S. attorney was confirmed and instead named Paulose to the interim job in March 2006.

“I wasn’t pleased with that,” Coleman said, feeling that tradition indicated the Republican senator should participate in such a decision by a Republican administration. He expressed his “deep concern” over it, and someone at Justice apologized to him.

 
• An even more powerful tradition is that the senior senator from the president’s party chooses a new U.S. attorney (although the nomination is made by the president). Coleman sent two names to the White House for the job: Clayton Robinson of the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office (an old friend of Coleman’s) and Paulose.

Why did he put Paulose on the list?

Coleman said she was already doing the job on an interim basis. “It was clear that within Washington, she had a lot of support.” She had sterling academic credentials and enthusiastic recommendations from federal Appeals Court Judge James Loken, for whom she had clerked, and two prominent DFLers in the legal establishment, former state Supreme Court Justice A.M. (Sandy) Keith and lawyer John French, both of whom had been mentors to Paulose.

It was perfectly clear that the Bush administration wanted Paulose for the job, but Coleman says that no one from the White House or Justice lobbied him at all on her behalf. He acknowledges that he was under no illusion that the White House might choose Coleman’s friend Robinson, but he submitted two names anyway because “I wanted there to be a choice.” He said that twice. I don’t know quite what it means. I’m guessing either that he did it either to honor his old friend, or as a small protest against the pressure to nominate Paulose.

I asked Coleman whether Minnesotans should honestly believe that Paulose was his choice or should see this as a case of deferring to the White House. He replied:

“A little bit of both. Let me say this: Certainly deferring, but as I looked at the background, independently, she would have been a choice of mine.”

He described Paulose as “a woman of extraordinary intellect … an immigrant background … attracting strong bipartisan support … The kind of woman you’d want to support.” Coleman said that during his public career, he has a history of appointing young women who broke through glass ceilings (he mentioned several names and added that he appointed Susan Kimberly of St. Paul, the first transgender deputy mayor in America).

But there was a major gap in Paulose’s resume, a lack of supervisory or management experience. When I suggested as much, Coleman replied: “Absolutely.” And when I suggested that as a former prosecutor himself who had occupied leadership positions in the office of Minnesota attorney general, he should know the importance of management skills for such as a post, he repeated: “Absolutely.”

Coleman says that at one point, before Paulose was confirmed but after she was serving as acting U.S. attorney, an anecdote reached him (he won’t give any details) that raised a concern that there might be a problem with the way Paulose treated subordinates.

“One thing I did do was I did communicate with the White House the concern about management experience, management skill. And one of the things I would have expected from Justice is that if issues like that arose, central Justice would have responded very quickly to those.”

Despite these concerns, when the permanent appointment of Paulose was confirmed just before the Senate recessed in December 2006, Coleman issued a press release taking credit for pushing the nomination through and expressing confidence that Paulose “will do an exemplary job.”

Four months later, four top leaders of the U.S. Attorney’s Office resigned their supervisory positions to protest the way Paulose treated them and others in the office. Her style of management and communications was described as insulting and dictatorial, treating disagreement as disloyalty.

Coleman said that when he heard about the turmoil, he thought back to the warning he had given to the Justice Department about monitoring Paulose’s management skills. He says Justice failed in that regard. In the aftermath of the resignations, Coleman publicly rebuked Paulose, urged her to “take immediate action to shed light on the resignations and address the concerns which have been raised relative to your management skills.”

Between then and November, Paulose’s situation crumbled. Her Washington allies lost their jobs, the staff remained alienated from her leadership, she was under official investigation for inappropriate personnel practices and received a damning performance review. Coleman edged into the camp of her critics. When Michael Mukasey was nominated to be attorney general, Coleman asked Mukasey to give the  festering situation in Minneapolis the attention it needed.

In the last days before she resigned, Paulose and some of her defenders publicly suggested that her problems were caused by critics who were biased against her for some combination of her race, gender, age, religion and her commitment to prosecute human trafficking cases. She did not produce any evidence that any of her critics were motivated by these factors. I asked Coleman if he subscribed to this theory. He said that he had no idea what motivated her critics and wouldn’t comment on the various bias theories.

Coleman said he didn’t encourage Paulose to resign, although he believes she did the right thing by stepping down. He doesn’t know what role his conversations with Mukasey had on the final outcome and played no role in negotiating a new job for her  as counselor to the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Policy in Washington.

I asked Coleman if he had any concerns about Paulose getting that job after the failures of her tenure in Minneapolis. He first of all defended her tenure, saying it was harsh and unfair to characterize it as a failure. He said she had “no reservations” about her ability to do the new job, which will not require her to supervise a staff: “It’s fair to say that she had difficulties with management, with running an office.”

But Coleman repeated his high regard for Paulose’s intellect and legal skills, said he had “no regrets about recommending Rachel Paulose” to be U.S. attorney and “if I had a candidate like Rachel Paulose in front of me again, I wouldn’t hesitate to put her name in nomination.“

In general, I thought the president was on his game, presentation-wise, notwithstanding a weird question from a reporter who told Bush he looked tired and depressed. But in his argument that Congress needs to stop sending him bills (SCHIP, Iraq funding bills with troops reduction timetables) that he will veto, the prez provides an opening for something I’ve been meaning to point out since he started using that argument.

Let’s say, just for the sake of discussion, that the executive and legislative branches are truly “co-equal,” as they are often called. (Quick aside number one: An honest constitutional originalist would concede that the executive branch has become much more powerful than most of the framers intended. Quick aside number two: Someday someone will have to explain to me what the prefix “co” adds to the word “equal.”)

If it’s a “waste of time” for Congress to pass bills that the president opposes, why is not a waste of time for the president to propose bills (for example, a supplemental appropriation for the Iraq war that doesn’t include even a non-enforceable goal for troops withdrawals) that he knows the majority in both houses of the Congress opposes?

“Norm Coleman’s record is clear: blind support of the President’s disastrous Iraq policy and absolutely no interest in defending his repeated votes against bringing our troops home. If I were him, I wouldn’t want to talk about a record like that, either.

But fundamental dishonesty like we are seeing from Coleman’s campaign today was a bad way to get us into this war, and it’s certainly not going to get us out. It won’t stop Al from speaking out against this war and holding Norm Coleman accountable, and it won’t stop Minnesotans from voting for a new direction.”

I’ve asked Team Franken to specify the “fundamental dishonesty.” So far, they haven’t replied. Matt Martin at MNPublius put together a more substantive rebuttal for Franken,  but I can’t say I find it  very persuasive.

The Coleman video, like most political attack pieces, is not a paragon of civility or substance. But it effectively puts on the table issues that Franken should someday confront honestly and directly.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I had been plenty worried that 2008 was going to be a year of buildup to a U.S. bombing attack on Iran. This is going to make it a lot harder to build the case for any such idea.

Here’s a PDF of the NIE’s key conclusions.

Here’s the New York Times bulletin on the report.