Hillary Clinton may be leading her Democratic rivals in the polls and in fund raising, but she faces "possibly insurmountable" problems in landing her party's nomination for president in 2008, according to a leading liberal pundit.
With President Bush's administration on the ropes in his second term, "every Democratic contender will be offering change, but activists will be demanding the sort of change that can come only from outside the Beltway," says Markos Moulitsas, founder of the political blog Daily Kos.
"And therein lies Hillary Clinton's biggest problem. She epitomizes the 'insider' label ... She's part of the Clinton machine that decimated the national Democratic Party."
Writing in the Washington Post, Moulitsas notes that at this point in the last presidential cycle, insiders such as John Kerry and Richard Gephardt were the clear favorites for the Democratic nomination, and no one foresaw the emergence of the Howard Dean candidacy.
"But the netroots – the far-flung collection of grass-roots political activists organizing online – proved to be a different world, one unencumbered by Washington's conventional wisdom," reports Moulitsas, co-author of "Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics."
Dean was soon outpacing his rivals in fund raising, and although he lost, "the point was made," Moulitsas observes.
"Hillary Clinton seems unable to recognize this new reality. She seems ill-equipped to tap into the Net-energized wing of her party."
Instead, pollster Mark Penn has advised the Clinton team to ignore the party's netroots activists as "irrelevant," according to Moulitsas.
He concludes: "Money and star power go a long way, but the netroots is now many times larger than it was only three years ago.
"We regard Hillary Clinton's candidacy as anything but inevitable. Her obstacles are big, and from this vantage point, possibly insurmountable."
The Center for Military Readiness is calling on President George Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to address the improper assignment of women soldiers that has contributed to the deaths of 59 female GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a memo sent to "Interested Parties," Elaine Donnelly, president of the Washington, D.C.-based organization, calls attention to an article she has written for the Washington Times in which she charges that Army officials "continue to violate policy and law on women in land combat."
Fighting units and support units that "collocate" or embed with them are required by Defense Department regulations to be all male, states Donnelly, a former member of the Pentagon's Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.
To change this rule, the defense secretary must approve and report the change to Congress approximately three months in advance.
This requirement has not been met, "even though the Army has placed female soldiers in formerly all male support units that collocate with infantry/armor battalions," Donnelly writes in the Times.
Army Secretary Francis Harvey has claimed that female soldiers will be removed when units begin conducting combat operations. But "even if the Army had the resources to evacuate women on the eve of battle, the disruption could cause missions to fail and lives to be lost," according to Donnelly.
In her memo dated May 8, Donnelly notes that she has met numerous times with White House, Pentagon and congressional leaders to express the Center for Military Readiness' concerns about the issue.
"I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation for what is going on," she disclosed.
Several legislators on both sides of the aisle have submitted questions about the issue to Rumsfeld, she notes, adding:
"We appreciate the efforts of these lawmakers, but regret that the Senate has not had a hearing on this issue in more than 15 years, and the House in 27 years.
"Issues of concern to women in the military deserve timely and objective consideration, not evasion, excuses and embarrassment for the armed forces whenever something goes wrong.
"The Center for Military Readiness calls upon President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to act immediately to bring the Army back into line with current regulations."
Failure to deal with the issue could have a troubling corollary, Donnelly writes in the Times.
She points out that the American Civil Liberties Union will file a lawsuit challenging male-only Selective Service registration. Until now the Supreme Court has upheld the exemption of women because female soldiers are not ordered into direct ground combat.
If women are in fact engaging in combat, the ACLU will probably win, says Donnelly, and "voters will notice when their daughters are denied college loans for not registering with Selective Service."
Citing Fox News Channel's dominance of cable news, New York Magazine has named Fox CEO Roger Ailes as the second "most influential" person in the media.
The magazine places only Richard Parson, Chairman and CEO of Time Warner, ahead of Ailes.
Fox News Channel "is the preeminent news organization of George W. Bush's America," New York states. Ailes "brought the brash, outspoken, unabashedly right-wing sensibility of talk radio to TV, with vast and continuing commercial success.
"So dominant is FNC that nine of the 10 most-watched cable news shows air on Fox."
Placing Parsons at the top of the list, which was limited to New Yorkers, the magazine notes his "mind-boggling" purview – HBO, CNN, TBS, Cartoon Network, Time Warner Cable, AOL and Warner Bros. – and calls him the "cleanup man for history's most disastrous merger."
Following Parsons and Ailes on the list are three New York Times executives, including publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
Next come Jon Stewart and two executives connected with his TV show and "The Colbert Report," followed by Conde Nast Chairman Si Newhouse.
Others on the list include Katie Couric, incoming CBS Evening News anchor, and Richard Johnson, editor of the New York Post's gossip column "Page Six."
Howard Stern said he's been offered a "major deal" to come back to terrestrial radio and said a return would be "really cool."
But the shock jock no sooner disclosed the offer than he shot it down, vowing never to return to regular radio due to censorship fears.
On Monday, May 8, Stern told his audience on Sirius satellite radio about the possibility of going back to terrestrial radio while remaining on satellite – just as his rivals Greg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia did recently, inking a deal with CBS Radio while remaining on XM satellite.
"The joke could be on them if I get good and worked up [because] I got offered a major deal to go back to terrestrial and stay on satellite at the same time," he said.
"Can you imagine if I go across town against them in all those markets and just kick some a--. That would really be cool."
According to the New York Post, the offer most likely came from Citadel Broadcasting, which is acquiring Disney/ABC's radio division.
When that deal is finalized, Citadel could immediately return Stern to major FM stations in New York, Los Angeles and other large cities.
But two days after Stern dropped his bombshell, he seemed to rule out a return to terrestrial radio.
"I'm very flattered terrestrial radio can't let go of me," he said on his morning show. "But I would throw up if I had to go back. I'm never going back."
He added that he wouldn't return "for any reason. Not for money. I left because I couldn't stand the censorship."
Stay tuned.
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