In the press gaggle aboard Air Force One this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Gibbs admitted the Obama administration received and was briefed on the Bush team's review of Afghanistan.

Gibbs said he can't talk about it because the review is top secret -except to say that "some of the information was helpful" to President Obama. Gibbs concluded by saying the existence of the review wasn't the real issue anyway.

Here's the exhange:

Q    The Afghan review that the Bush administration -- or Cheney says was handed off to your administration, you said last week you would go and look at that.  What did you find when you did that, when you went and looked for the report?  Did they hand it off, and what did it say?

MR. GIBBS:  Well, I -- well, it's top secret, so I appreciate the opportunity to get into what it says.  Many members of our administration briefed people on the review's existence.  I don't think what was -- I don't think what's --

Q    Was your administration briefed?

MR. GIBBS:  With people that -- it's been public that we got these reviews.  I mean, we can show articles where these things are discussed.

While some of the information was helpful, the President obviously found it instructive to do a review of his own, and that's what Bruce Riedel did in the spring, which led to the President signing off on additional forces that went to Afghanistan.

I don't think it's the existence of the reviews that seems to be an issue here, Jon.  I think it's a focus on one area of the world at the expense of another.

For the record, this is what Emanuel told John King on October 18:

And when you go through all the analysis, it's clear that basically we had a war for eight years that was going on, that's adrift. That we're beginning at scratch, and just from the starting point, after eight years.

And:

You have literally got into a situation, is there another way you can do this? And the president is asking the questions that have never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side, and the strategic side. What is the impact on the region? What can the Afghan government do or not do? Where are we on the police training? Who would be better doing the police training? Could that be something the Europeans do? Should we take the military side? Those are the questions that have not been asked. And before you commit troops, which is -- not irreversible, but puts you down a certain path -- before you make that decision, there's a set of questions that have to have answers that have never been asked. And it's clear after eight years of war, that's basically starting from the beginning, and those questions never got asked.

All emphasis added.  Contra Gibbs, it's pretty clear Emanuel was saying that Bush's team hadn't done squat on Afghanistan: they hadn't asked any tough questions or conducted any analysis of tactics and strategy. They basically threw the problem in Obama's lap, forcing him to "start from scratch." It's also pretty clear, as we now know, that just wasn't true.

Close followers of the health care reform debate in Congress may want to keep their eyes glued to the TV at 3:15 p.m. today, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is scheduled to make an announcement regarding Senate legislation.

The Reid press conference comes as he, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), and senior White House advisers are completing negotiations on merging the two health care bills that have passed out of separate committees. A scoring from the Congressional Budget Office is expected this week, though Reid's press conference will provide further details on exactly where in the legislative process health care reform is, and perhaps what the merged bill will look like.

The blogosphere is abuzz over a new poll showing Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman leading Democrat Bill Owens and Republican Dede Scozzafava in the race to replace Congressman John McHugh (R), who resigned to become Obama's Secretary of the Army.  The Club for Growth-sponsored poll by Basswood Research shows Hoffman with 31%, Owens with 27%, and Scozzafava at 20%.

New York is a fairly unique state in that candidates run on a number of party lines (a fascinating history unto itself).  Normally the Liberal and Democratic parties endorse the same candidate, while the Conservative and Republican parties do the same.  But in New York 23, a district Republicans have held since the nineteenth century, the Conservative party was sufficiently disenchanted with Scozzafava to nominate its own candidate, Doug Hoffman.

On the one hand, this poll should be viewed skeptically.  It is commissioned by the Club for Growth, which has heavily backed Hoffman.   Candidate polls tend to somehow always show more favorable results for their candidates than other, non-partisan pollsters.

On the other hand, there's been a dearth of polling in the district, accompanied by a surge of activity.  The last polling was conducted by Research 2000 (October 19-20) for the liberal website DailyKos.  It showed Hoffman at 23%, Owens at 35%, and Scozzafava at 30%.    Polling conducted a week earlier by New York based Siena showed a similar Owens lead.

Since those polls were conducted, Scozzafava has endured a spate of bad publicity.  In particular, her use of the police to stop an aggressive reporter has received widespread attention in the district.  Hoffman has had some decent fundraising and has received endorsements or campaign visits from Dick Armey, Sarah Palin, Steve Forbes, and Michele Bachmann.   He's finally gotten on the airwaves.  In other words, it's at least plausible that he's surged in the past few days, while Scozzafava has faded.

In the absence of a few more datapoints from non-partisan pollsters, this race remains in the "who knows what's really going on" category.   But a Hoffman victory doesn't seem as improbable as it did a week ago.

A couple of media outlets have questioned Rasmussen's generic ballot results, noting that it presently appears to be an outlier from other data in the RCP generic ballot average.

It might appear to be an outlier if you just glance at the data.  But if you dig a little deeper, you see something different. As at least one observer has pointed out, Rasmussen samples likely voters, rather than registered voters or adults.  Likely voter samples typically skew toward Republicans compared to "adult" or "registered voter" samples, and this effect may be especially pronounced at a time when Republicans are thought to be more energized than Democrats (and hence more likely to survive likely voter screens).  We can debate the pros and cons of imposing a likely voter screen a year before an election, but note that the other pollsters who have done so this year -- Democracy Corps (D), NPR, and Battleground -- have all shown either narrow Democratic leads or slight Republican leads.

But there's more going on here than just an A/RV/LV distinction, though.  If you go through the rest of the generic polls conducted this year, you'll see that almost all of the polling conducted this year (the relatively small amount not conducted by Rasmussen) shows a single-digit Democratic lead.  Why do ABC/WaPo and CBS show a healthier Democratic advantage?  To put it differently, Rasmussen is closer to Gallup's D+2 registered voter poll than ABC/WaPo or CBS.  Why is Rasmussen the outlier here, instead of these other pollsters?  And what accounts for the discrepency between ABC/WaPo-CBS and Gallup?

Good pollsters will generally ask their horse race questions toward the beginning of the poll.  This is because "policy preference" questions or questions involving other political figures can ultimately skew the result of a later horse race question, by unintentionally leading readers to view the horse race in a certain frame.  ABC/WaPo asks the horse race question as question 18.  CBS asks it after some thirty-odd questions.  And both pollsters ask the horse race question after a bunch of questions about a very particular policy topic: health care!  This is understandable since it's the hot issue of the day, but its also an issue where Democrats typically hold an advantage in the public mind.  This in turn probably left respondents somewhat more primed to answer "Democrat" than they would otherwise be.  Additionally, the questions about Obama (who is generally regarded somewhat more favorably than "generic Democrat") probably have some priming effects as well.

In other words, if you are asking which pollsters have it right, I'd probably put my money on Gallup-Rasmussen rather than ABC/WaPo-CBS.

Ed Gillespie takes Rahm Emanuel to task for going on national television and asserting, ahem, the opposite of the truth.  I understand the knee jerk reaction of the current administration to blame Bush for all their woes, but I don't know how Emanuel thought he could get away with what appears to be such a blatant falsehood.

Maybe CNN should do one their famous "fact checks" on Emanuel.

My goodness. There are more than enough angles out there for the media to legitimately criticize President Obama, so why is the New York Times (and others) spending time analyzing who he plays basketball and golf with? It's preposterous.

Did Bill Clinton and George W. Bush ever include a woman in their golf games? I have no idea - not only because it's irrelevant but because I don't recall the media ever making a big deal about it to begin with. So why is Obama getting the treatment now?

Equally as disappointing as the coverage is the fact that Obama, after correctly asserting the any suggestion of Presidential chauvinism was pure "bunk," turned right around and caved to the press' silly sniping by having White House aide Melody Barnes hit the links with him.

What will the President do when La Raza asks why he hasn't been golfing with a Hispanic. What about Asians? You know Human Rights watch is digging through press reports right now to see if he's golfed with a gay. Pretty soon every time the President wants to go golfing he'll need reservations for a lot more than a foursome.

Lord knows this is all so much more important than analyzing what the President plans to do about Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, health care, and the rest.

Six in 10 Americans believe that President Obama did not deserve to win the Nobel Peace Prize, according to a Gallup poll released this afternoon.

The country is split evenly, 46 percent “glad” and an equal share not, that he was awarded the prize. Partisanship, of course, colors opinions. Fully 76 percent of Democrats are glad he won; 76 percent of Republicans are “not glad.” And more independents agree with Republicans. By a margin of 52 to 36 percent, independents are displeased that the president was awarded the high honor.

They say Americans are can-do people. But "can" and "do" are not one and the same. Americans seem to understandably believe that he has not "done" it, at least not yet. That he can, sure. But Americans believe, sometimes desperately, in meritocracy. And most Americans don't believe the president merits this honor.

That only 46 percent are "glad" he won, well, that just cannot be good for this president. When our family, friends even, win an honor that they don't deserve, we are still happy for them. It's a bad sign for Obama that nearly half the public, and a majority of independents, are "not glad" he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Not terribly surprising news:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran on Friday failed to accept a U.N.-drafted plan that would ship most of the country's uranium abroad for enrichment, saying instead it would prefer to buy the nuclear fuel it needs for a reactor that makes medical isotopes.

The response will come as a disappointment to the U.S., Russia and France, which endorsed the U.N. plan Friday they drafted in discussions with Iran earlier in the week. The agreement was meant to ease Western fears about Iran's potential to make a nuclear weapon.

While Iran did not reject the plan outright, state TV said that Tehran was waiting for a response to its own proposal to buy nuclear fuel rather than ship low-enriched uranium to Russia for further enrichment. Iran has often used counterproposals as a way to draw out nuclear negotiations with the West.

This all has a very familiar ring to it.

The AP reported today that the U.S. government has filed an extradition request for Roman Polanski. But there was also this key nugget tucked away in the story:

… legal experts say he has little chance of avoiding a return to the United States after 31 years as a fugitive.

This follows an LA Times report a couple days ago:

Swiss officials told U.S. authorities earlier this month that Roman Polanski probably will be returned to Los Angeles ...

As I wrote before, the irony of Polanski is that he now may live to bear his own true Hollywood ending. His extremely sad past makes him a sympathetic character. But the case against him is strong. And now he might have to face not only what life did to him but also what he did to life, or to one 13-year-old girl, in 1977. What's that King said about the arc of the moral universe being long, but that it bends toward justice. In this case, it just may.

In a contentious three-way contest, Democrats currently have a slight edge as the Republican vote splits between the party's chosen candidate and a conservative alternative in a new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll.

Special Election Matchup
Owens (D) 35
Scozzafava (R) 30
Hoffman (C) 23
Undecided 12

Looking at the party breakdown, Bill Owens has a solid lead among Democratic voters with 60 percent of the vote. Dede Scozzafava, however, only wins 46 percent of Republican votes, with Conservative Party candidate David Hoffman getting 27 percent. Among independent voters Hoffman actually leads, garnering 35 percent to Owens' 32 percent and Scozzafava's 22 percent. That may suggest Hoffman's appeal as an alternative to the major party candidates is stronger than his appeal based on issues.

Asked for their second choice, only 9 percent of Hoffman's voters said they'd back Scozzafava, with 26 percent saying they would not vote and 62 percent undecided. National Republican figures have split on endorsements in the race as well, with Sarah Palin weighing in on Hoffman's behalf last night.

Favorable Ratings
Scozzafava 38 / 35
Hoffman 27 / 19
Owens 33 / 24
Gov. Paterson 26 / 57
Obama 53 / 39

The survey of 600 likely voters was conducted October 19-21, and has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.