This weekend I finally finished reading two important recent books on Africa: Martin Meredith’s massive The Fate of Africa: From The Hopes of Freedom To The Heart of Despair, and Gerard Prunier’s relatively short but intense Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide. Both books are already helping fuel a growing debate in the U.S. and in Europe about what if anything “the international community” can do to solve Africa’s general problems, and the immediate and deadly crisis in Darfur.Meredith’s book, which attempts a panoramic history of post-colonial Africa, is fascinating, instructive, and impressively well-written, but as the subtitle suggests, his tale is one of unremitting woe and disillusionment. As you read through his roughly chronological account which shifts from region to region, the bright spots of independent Africa steadily blink out, and country after country devolves into corruption, tyranny, bankruptcy, and savage armed conflict (Botswana is the only country earning unqualified praise from Meredith, with South Africa being judged a qualified success).Indeed, I fear that Meredith’s book may have an impact on general readers similiar to that of Robert Kaplan’s 1993 book Balkan Ghosts, a cautionary tale about the depth of ethnic confilicts in the post-communist Balkans that reportedly influenced Bill Clinton to avoid U.S. intervention in the Bosnian civil war. Why bother trying to do anything about impossible people in impossible places?But Meredith has a very distinct point of view about what’s gone wrong in Africa, and what that means for non-Africans who want to do something constructive about it. As he relentlessly tells us, Africa’s failure is above all a failure in political leadership, and until its elites figure that out and do something fundamental about it, nothing else matters. As Andrew Rice usefully explained in The Nation a few weeks ago, this position places Meredith near one extreme, with Jeffrey Sachs on the other, in the ongoing chicken-and-egg debate on whether Africa’s poverty causes misgovernment, or its misgovernment causes poverty. (You should also read Sam Rosenfeld’s October interview with Meredith on the American Prospect site, wherein Meredith makes it clear he is indeed skeptical of the current Blair-and-Sachs-led effort to dramatically boost no-strings aid to Africa). Like Meredith, the French ethnographer Gerard Prunier focuses on political factors in his complex and ultimately angry book about Darfur. And even more than Meredith, he is disdainful of those who think humanitaritan assistance will solve the conflict that has probably killed over 300,000 people and displaced–while destroying the livelihoods of–more than two million people. But Prunier certainly doesn’t counsel international inaction until such time as the Sudanese get their act together. Au contraire: the major thrust of his book is to explain how Darfur was dragged into the current nightmare by the conflicts and intrigues of its neighbors, and then to indict the many excuses “the international community” has given itself from taking the diplomatic and military steps that could have stopped the killing, and still could.I’m writing a full review of Prunier’s book for Blueprint Magazine, but I encourage anyone interesed in Africa to read it, and to read Meredith as well.

I promise my next post will be a serious one (actually, a very serious one on two books about Africa I recently finished), but what’s the point of having a blog if you can’t occasionally share personal experiences with ten thousand or so total strangers? Saturday night I had a perfectly abysmal sporting experience. I was down at the home place in central Virginia, and since the ground hogs had apparently chewed up the wires from the satellite dish, I had to soujourn to the nearest city, Lynchburg, to watch my Georgia Bulldogs try to wrap up the SEC East against Auburn. Having googled up a “sports bar” in the ‘Burg, I sallied forth, pursued by my wife’s demands that I swear I would not touch Demon Alcohol before returning to the countryside. Forty-five minutes later, I settled in at the “sports bar,” where two screens directly in front of me were supposed to be showing my game, and then, of course, both sets were changed to the NASCAR Classic Channel or something, with the bartenders shrugging and alluding to shadowy robo-managers who programmed the sets two months ago. Finally, after exercising several complex moves I learned while riding Metro, I got to a seat where I could watch the Dawgs and the War Eagles from a 60 degree angle, and settled down with a non-alcoholic beer (dreadful stuff; it helps explain W.’s cranky disposition).About half-way through a tense second quarter, I suddenly saw bright flashing lights and heard a hideous wall of noise. Was I having a stroke? An allergic reaction to O’Doul’s? Had I died and gone to hell? No, I soon discovered, it was Karaoke Night in the “sports bar,” and for the next two hours I tried to watch a football game while being practically blown off the bar stool by bad music from every available genre, badly performed. And my fellow “sports bar” patrons, who were multiplying by the minute, were enraptured with the noise, greeting the first notes of Play That Funky Music, White Boy and Baby Got Back and even Rocky Top with bellows of sheer delight. And these were largely kids: is this what they are listening to on their I-Pods? In any event, I stuck it out to the bitter end, when Auburn beat Georgia on a last-minute field goal after an improbable long pass on a fourth-and-ten, just as the “sports bar” exploded with hormonal delerium to Fight For Your Right To Party. I paid off my tab for an evening of buzzless beer, and wandered off into the packed parking lot–somehow missing the army of Designated Drivers preparing to shepherd the drunken crowd inside safely home–and made a firm resolution never again to mix football with Karaoke. The funny thing is, I sort of like Lynchburg, despite its association with Jerry Falwell’s Church of the Angry God. The other city reasonably close to my Amherst digs is Charlottesville, whose snooty pretensions must torment Thomas Jefferson’s soul each and every day. Lynchburg is a cheerfully unpretentious old river town with impressive architecture and genuine southern food. But you just don’t want to go to its “sports bars.” Not unless you want to watch a game while protecting your non-alcoholic beer from a twenty-two-year-old Baptist strutting her stuff to Baby Got Back.

Veterans’ Day, unlike Memorial Day, is not essentially a celebration of those who have died or been injured in war, or even of war itself: it’s a commemoration of everyone who has “worn the uniform” and served his or her country. And in effect, it’s a memorial service for those days when most male Americans, at least, did indeed “wear the uniform,” even if they never fired a shot in anger or risked their lives.Like most baby boomers who went to college, I never wore the uniform, though I did come very close. At the end of law school, I decided to go into the Air Force JAG Corps. I survived the document review, the background check, the physical. I even got through the final interview, when I was asked: “How do you feel about nuclear war?” My impulsive response was: “Do you mean as a victim, or as a perpetrator?” Fortunately, the officer interviewing me had a sense of humor, and I was offered a commission as a USAF captain.As it happened, I deferred my commission for a year, because my girlfriend at the time, who was a year behind me in law school, wanted to go into the JAG Corps with me. In the interim, I stumbled into my first political job, and never looked back.But I regret never having “worn the uniform,” and I regret the fact that it’s become a rarer experience for the generations that followed the baby boomers.I’ve spent a considerable part of my professional life promoting the idea of universal access to national service: in the military, and in civilian occupations. I don’t support a return to the draft, but do believe that every American, male or female, should be encouraged to give a year or two to their community and their country, in exchange for the blessings we enjoy as Americans.My father, most of my uncles, and just about every man I know above the age of 60 did wear the uniform, often in supporting roles in wartime: as motor pool mechanics, as military police, as clerk-typists, as administrative staff. Virtually all of them say they benefitted from the experience of being intermingled with people from every part of the country, from every race and ethnic group, all their prejudices being burned off in the crucible of a common cause, and a common exposure to the ultimate sacrifice, even if they never went into combat.We should all honor that service, and better yet, spend days like Veterans’ Day pondering the value of univeral service and universal sacrifice, and considering ways to make national service once again a general experience for future generations.

Several alert readers have emailed me to make sure I know that the day-labor site in Herndon, Virginia, that was the object of Jerry Kilgore’s unsuccessful demagoguery in the late governor’s race is not, as I keep writing, in Loudoun County, but is instead in Fairfax County. (It’s actually near the Loudoun-Fairfax border, but facts are facts).Anyway, this correction enables me to point out that ol’ Jerry’s message resonated even less in the mega-suburb of Fairfax than it did in the smaller if faster-growing Loudoun. Kaine won Fairfax County by an astounding 60/38 margin, a plurality of more than 60,000 votes (or about 58% of his statewide margin), a big improvement over Mark Warner’s 54/45 win in 2001 (which produced a 25,000 vote plurality, or about 26% of Warner’s statewide margin).There’s a broader lesson here, that transcends suburban distaste for Jerry’s antics: Tim Kaine provided positive economic message to Northern Virginia, which harkened back to the days when Democrats made gains in high-growth areas by talking about balanced growth and “quality of life” issues. As the DLC noted today in a meditation on the Kaine suburban breakthrough, the middle-class and increasingly diverse residents of high-growth suburbs around the country are just as responsive to this message as they were in the 1990s. And “quality of life” is not just an issue for Starbucks patrons, by any means. Indeed, Democrats need to rediscover their voice on the real-life concerns of working stiffs who worry as much about traffic, sprawl, property taxes, and overcrowded schools as they do about offshoring or globalization. Check it out.

My colleague The Moose greeted the Virginia gubernatorial results with the headline: “Warner Defeats Bush!” And indeed, Warner deserves a lot of credit for Kaine’s win, not only because he campaigned effectively for his chosen successor, but because his record gave the Democrat a big leg up while reacquainting Virginians with the virtues of the Donkey.There’s also no question George W. Bush was a big loser yesterday, after having intervened in the Virginia governor’s race at the last moment. At the rate he’s going, Republican candidates next year may echo the words of Bob Dole in 1974, who, when asked if he wanted an embattled Richard Nixon to campaign for him in Kansas, said: “I wouldn’t mind if he flew over.”But there’s another Republican George whose repuation took a hit yesterday: Sen. Allen of Virginia.Back before it became fashionable to view the Kaine-Kilgore contest as a test of the relative appeal of Warner and Bush, it was often thought of as a shadow war between Warner and Allen, two Virginians eyeing a White House run in 2008. Allen certainly campaigned for Kilgore as much if not more than Warner campaigned for Kaine. Allen appeared in Kilgore’s ads, vouching for the natty mountaineer’s alleged sturdy folk virtues. The way things turned out, Allen’s lucky Bush flew in to take the fall for Kilgore’s debacle, but the race sure hasn’t burnished his own presidential credentials.That’s certainly bad timing for the junior senator. Up until now, he was the Washington Insider’s hot pick for the guy who might become the consensus conservative choice to block the awful prospect of a McCain nomination in ’08. Indeed, he didn’t seem to have much competition for that role. The nascent Bill Frist bandwagon has blown all four tires. Brownback’s views are too crazy. Santorum probably won’t hang onto his Senate seat. None of the GOP governors seem to be standing out (Bill Owens of Colorado was once the Rising Star of the Right, but he’s managed to alienate the Christian Right with his marital problems and then was recently excommunicated by the No Tax Church of Grover Norquist). Guiliani’s less acceptable to conservatives than McCain. Haley Barbour? Give me a break.On paper, Allen looks pretty good. He’s been a governor, then a senator. He’s obnoxiously conservative on most issues, but has managed to avoid making too many enemies, and always did surprisingly well in Virginia among minority voters. He won rave reviews for his tenure as chairman of the Republican senatorial campaign committee.But he sure couldn’t drag ol’ Jerry across the finish line in his own state. And worse yet, Kilgore got trounced in George’s old stomping grounds of Albemarle County (Charlottesville)–the very place where the son of the legendary Redskins coach once quarterbacked the Cavaliers.Now, as a relative newcomer to Virginia, I’ve never quite fathomed the Allen Mystique. He was a fairly successful one-term governor during an economic boom. Sure, he’s got the pseudo-populist rap down–he wears cowboy boots and chews tobacco–but he’d also give George W. Bush a strong run in a smirking contest, and has not exactly stood out as a senator, a policy innovator, or even much of an ideologue. My most searing impression of Allen was in a campaign ad he ran against Chuck Robb in 2000, wherein he seized on some anodyne Robb quote from ages earlier about the essential meaningnlessness of the Social Security Trust Fund, and accused his opponent of disrespecting the Lock Box! I had to check the channel to make sure I wasn’t watching Saturday Night Live.But all that aside, the bigger question about George is whether the country is ready for a presidential candidate whose entire world view and frame of reference is based on football metaphors.I mean, I like football as much as the next cracker, but Allen’s in his own league on this subject, as illustrated by a savage Dana Milbank profile of the senator earlier this year:

Sen. George Allen (Va.) contemplates a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, his prospects could come down to this key question: How many football metaphors can one nation stand?Last month on the Senate floor, Allen, a former quarterback for the University of Virginia and son of the late Redskins coach of the same name, said critics of Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state, “have used some bump-and-run defenses and tactics against her.”Talking about the Iraq war, he criticized Democrats for “Monday-morning quarterbacking.”When the GOP won a Senate seat in Louisiana in November, he said it “was like a double-reverse flea-flicker and a lateral.”As head of Senate Republicans’ campaign efforts in 2004, he called his candidates in the southern states the “NFC South.”In Allen’s world, primaries are “intrasquad scrimmages,” his Senate staff is the “A-team,” Senate recess is “halftime” and opponents are flagged for “pass interference.”If the electorate awarded points for football imagery, Allen would get the Heisman Trophy. But will voters find all this football talk to be presidential? That’s a wild card.

After yesterday’s results, I guess you could ask if Republicans want to go with a coach who’s just lost a crucial home game by letting his quarterback get intercepted on a bomb thrown into triple coverage, when he should have just controlled the ball and run out the clock.After all, at this point, Republicans don’t want to follow up George W. with George L., for Loser.

Ring the town hall bell and sing a Te Deum: Tim Kaine soundly beat Jerry Kilgore in the Virginia governor’s race yesterday, and in the process showed that sometimes nice guys finish first. Sorry I’m posting a bit late this morning, but I was up until the wee hours savoring the county-by-county and city-by-city returns. And the outlines of the Kaine victory are very clear. Kilgore ran well ahead of 2001 GOP candidate Mark Early in southwest Virginia, in much of southside Virginia, and in the southern parts of the Shenandoah Valley. Yet Kaine ran ahead of Mark Warner’s winning 2001 performance just about everywhere else (the Richmond area, Hampton Roads, and Northern Virginia) and in the end, actually exceeded Warner’s statewide margin, beating Kilgore by nearly six percent. Aside from burying Jerry, Kaine’s big win buried a whole host of myths in ways that may reverberate nationally:1) The Myth of the GOP Turnout Machine: plenty of people, including a lot of Democrats, were nervous about Kaine’s small lead in the polls going into this election, on the theory that GOP superiority in the “ground game,” buttressed by its success in 2004, would lift Kilgore to victory. Didn’t happen. Turnout in heavily Republican areas was no higher than in heavily Democratic areas. And if the GOPers did indeed do a better job than Democrats in cherry-picking individual voters around the state, then there are a lot less of them than we realized.2) The Myth of Bush’s Power To Energize the Base: according to one popular theory, the Republican “conservative base,” excited about Bush’s flip-flop on the Supreme Court and his recent discovery of the idea of spending restraint, would snake-dance to the polls to congratulate him, especially after he zoomed into Richmond on the eve of the election to appear with ol’ Jerry. Again, it didn’t happen. If Bush’s presence was going to matter anywhere, it would have been in the key Richmond suburb of Chesterfied County, but as it transpires, Kilgore ran three points behind Early’s 2001 performance there. I somehow don’t think vulnerable Republican candidates in 2006 are going to line up outside the White House gates to demand Bush’s presence on the campaign trail. 3) The Myth of the Old Cultural Wedge Issues: 75% of Virginians favor capital punishment. Tim Kaine doesn’t, and hasn’t hidden it. It’s clear Virginia GOPers thought they’d be half-way to victory if they simply intoned “Death Penalty;” southern politicians simply don’t oppose it. Instead, the issue wound up hurting Kilgore more than Kaine. Now, that obviously doesn’t mean Democratic politicians should hasten to embrace unpopular positions on cultural issues, or minimize their potential impact. But it does mean a candidate can get away with an unpopular position if he or she is clear about it; bases the position on faith or other respected values; and exhibits a willingness to defer to majoritarian opinions. Kaine did all those things very effectively.4) The Myth of the New Cultural Wedge Issues: perhaps the single most important national consequence of the Kaine victory is that it may forestall a heavy emphasis by Republican candidates in 2006 and 2008 on immigrant-bashing themes. GOPers are flirting with this issue all over the South, and indeed, in every state where there are enough immigrants to be visible, but not enough to defend themselves politically. Down the stretch run, Jerry Kilgore’s campaign in Northern Virginia was all about immigration, focused relentlessly on the decision of a town in exurban Loudoun County to build a shelter for casual day laborers, most of them immigrants. But yesterday, Jerry got waxed all over Northern Virginia (where he was running even with Kaine in polls as recently as September). And most importantly, Kilgore lost Loudoun County by a 51-46 margin (Early beat Warner there 53-46) . Any Republican operative who believes this issue is an electoral silver bullet should take a long look at those results, and repent. 5) The Myth That Going Negative Always Works: this myth, beloved of campaign tacticians in both parties, took a big hit in Virginia yesterday. Recent polling (most notably in the Washington Post) showed that the tone of Kilgore’s campaign was turning off voters, even Republicans, and generating sympathy for Kaine. Yet Jerry pretty much stayed on the low road to the bitter end, providing connoisseurs of this sort of thing with an assortment of last-minute dirty tricks (fake brochures, fake “pro-Kaine” phone calls, etc.). And it’s this last factor that, for me at least, makes Kaine’s victory so very sweet. You could make a pretty good case that Jerry Kilgore would have won yesterday if he hadn’t gone negative on Kaine and introduced divisive cultural wedge issues. He had a geographical advantage, being from a region of the state that had been crucial to Mark Warner’s victory in 2001. He had a united party behind him. He was ahead in most of the polls right down to the last few weeks. With a lighter touch, he could have drawn attention to Kaine’s unpopular views on capital punishment and even exploited the immigration issue, while maintaining a positive campaign. But he and his handlers just couldn’t resist the opportunity to go medieval. Kilgore’s infamous death penalty ads achieved a sort of evil perfection in their shock value and production qualities. You can easily envision Jerry and a roomful of Young Republican rottweilers sitting around watching that first tape, and being overwhelmed by its “kill” potential.And that’s why in the end it was an election where the winner earned his victory, and the loser richly earned his defeat. God’s in His heaven, and all’s right with the world.

As voters go to the polls in Virginia today, the major buzz among pundits involves George W. Bush’s last-minute appearance for Jerry Kilgore in Richmond last night, which represents a bit of a gamble for both men.Steve Ginsberg and Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post win the prize for the most delicious and malicious framing of a candidate quote in the entire campaign, in this morning’s WaPo account of the Richmond festivities:

The president “is very popular in Virginia. And he’s coming off a successful South American trip,” Kilgore said of Bush’s overseas visit, which drew violent protests.

Funny as it is, this is a serious point. Can W., who’s stumbled through the last several months like a sleepwalker, actually work some turnout magic for ol’ Jerry? Is the late-breaking happiness among conservative activists in Washington over Bush’s surrender to them on the SCOTUS nomination communicable to actual voters?Beats me, but Bush’s decision to zoom into Richmond directly from the dispiriting chaos of his Latin American trip guarantees that the results, whatever they are, will be viewed as in part a reflection of this red state’s attitude towards the man who’s won its electoral votes twice.

Check out this hilarious, Onion-esque lede from Saturday’s Washington Post article about the official White House response to the Fitzgerald indictments and investigations:

President Bush has ordered White House staff to attend mandatory briefings next week on ethical behavior and the handling of classified material after the indictment last week of a senior administration official in the CIA leak probe.According to a memo sent to aides yesterday…. “[T]he White House counsel’s office will conduct a series of presentations next week that will provide refresher courses on general ethics rules, including the rules governing the protection of classified materials.”

That’s just great. Nearly five years after Bush was elected president on a pledge of “restoring honor and dignity to the White House,” the Bushies are going to get some On-the-Job Training on how to obey the law.But why stop there? Why not order up a “refresher course” on military strategy and post-war reconstruction for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his staff? Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could use a briefing on the evolution of the Western tradition against torturing prisoners. Surely there is a middle-school math teacher in the D.C. area willing to volunteer a few hours to instruct the staff of the Office of Management and Budget in the mysteries of Basic Arithmetic. And everybody in the White House, especially the president, could benefit from a few hours listening to a clinical psychologist discuss the value of Getting Out of Denial and Recognizing Painful Truths.Bring on the flip-charts, the Power-Points, and if necessary, the hand puppets. It’s time to school the White House.

If you’ve been following the Virginia’s gubernatorial contest, which has entered its final stage, you have probably noticed that Republican candidate Jerry (Never Met Him) Kilgore has returned with a vengeance to a message warning Virginians that illegal immigrants are flooding the Commonwealth, spreading gang violence, promoting al Qaeda, and speaking foreign tongues and so forth.It’s certainly predictable. Ol’ Jerry’s losing ground in virtually every poll. His try-em-and-fry-em Death Penalty ads have largely backfired. His party and his president are like millstones around his neck. And he appears to be losing support most lethally in Northern Virginia, where earlier polls had him running neck-and-neck with Democrat Tim Kaine.So not surprisingly, Jerry’s handlers have decided to stake the ranch on the belief that concerns about illegal immigration in Northern Virginia can give their candidate the crucial boost he needs.I’ve written about this issue in the Viriginia campaign here and here, and won’t repeat that analysis today, but if you want to understand why immigration is suddenly a hot topic in the South, and especially in suburbs and exurbs in the South, check out this new article by Clay Risen on The New Republic’s site. As Clay explains, some of the highest percentage increases in immigrant populations are in southern states, including those far from any border. And it’s no surprise that southern Republicans are leaping on this issue in state after state–a trend that will definitely accelerate tremendously if ol’ Jerry wins and the post-election analysis shows anti-immigrant demagoguery was a factor.The main thing I’d add to Clay’s analysis is how risky the deployment of this issue is for the GOP. Ol’ Jerry’s rhetoric (other than the absurd claims of al Qaeda connections) isn’t that far from the kind of talk that backfired on Republicans in California during the 1990s, making their candidates anathema to Latino voters. And it certainly doesn’t fit in well with Karl Rove’s famous focus on these voters as a potential building-block for a Republican majority. But here’s the deal: the southern states where immigrant-bashing is spreading like topsy are places where immigrant populations are large enough to be conspicious, but have not developed into a serious political force of their own.Thus, politicians like ol’ Jerry believe they can use this toxic issue to wedge exurban and rural voters without paying any serious price elsewhere. And without question, Republican pols in the rest of the region will be watching the results very closely, with cookie-cutters in hand.So, my fellow Virginians, if the prospect of four years of lousy and hyper-partisan government isn’t enough to motivate you to get off your butts and send ol’ Jerry into retirement, consider your responsibility to the rest of the country for punishing demagogues and putting the fear of God into those who will otherwise use every nasty tactic that seems to work.

This is one of those days when I opened up the Washington Post and found a large, greasy combo platter of interesting political stories, so I thought I’d do some micro-blogging on a few of them, using the Post headlines and subheadlines.1. Food Stamp Cuts Are Proposed: House Plan Would Affect 300,000.My colleague The Moose is right; this proposed House GOP budget “savings” package should be viewed as the formal tombstone for “compassionate conservatism.” Needing $50 billion in budget cuts, the House Budget Committee went after food stamps for legal immigrants; child support enforcement resources; foster parenting; and school lunch eligibility. They didn’t feel the need to take a second look at five-year costs of $106 billion in new tax cuts; $60 billion in corporate subsidies; $42 billion in congressional-district-specific pork and transportation earmarks; or $23 billion in oil and gas subsidies. It will be interesting to see how many Republican “moderates” refuse to go along with this outrage.2. Rove’s Future Is Debated: White House May Seek Fresh Start In Wake of Leak. This is one of those classic Washington stories where somebody’s lying: The Post’s “sources” say:

Bush’s top advisers are considering whether it is tenable for Rove to remain on the staff, given that Fizgerald has already documented that Rove and Whie House official spokesmen once emphatically denied–that he played a central role in dicussions with journalists about Plame’s role at the CIA and her marriage to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a critic of the Iraq war.”Karl does not have any real enemies in the White House, but there are a lot of people in the White House wondering how they can put this behind them if the cloud remains over Karl,” said a GOP strategist who has discussed the issue with top White House officials.

A bit further down in the story, there’s this graph:

White House communications director Nicole Wallace said there have not been any White House meetings t4o discuss Rove’s fate, and that the senior adviser is actively engaged and “doing an outstanding job.” She said “there is no debate” over Rove’s future.

Hmmm. It appears that either the White House is aflame with a debate about Rove, or there’s no debate at all. Like I said: somebody’s lying, and if I were Rove, I wouldn’t be particularly comforted by official assurances that he’s doin’ a heckuva job.3. Norton Ex-Aides Clash on Lobbyist’s Influence: Lawyer Says He Accused Griles of Aiding Abramoff. Ah, yes, another chapter in the Casino Jack Ambramoff scandal, this time in hearings before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. And it’s another somebody-must-be-lying story, with the Interior Department’s former legal counselor claiming the agency’s former deputy secretary was very involved in advancing the interests of Casino Jack’s tribal clients, and the former deputy secretary saying he did no such thing.4. Consultants To Virginia Candidates Linked To Indicted Lobbyist. In still more fallout from Casino Jack’s troubles, check out this lede from the Metro section: “Two key campaign consultants for Virginia attorney general candidate Robert F. McDonnell established a nonprofit group five years ago that its director now says was used almost exclusively to secretly fund political efforts — including one organized by indicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.”McDonnell, long a darling of the theocratic Right, has been getting some negative attention for the shadowy sources of his suddenly massive media expenditures in the down-ballot race. It’s beginning to look like he just doesn’t keep very good company.Speaking of Virginia politics:5. Wilder backs Kaine, plays down differences over 2004 tax package. This headline is actually from the Richmond Time-Dispatch, but it’s potentially a big deal. Former governor and current Richmond mayor Doug Wilder, the first African-American to be elected governor of any state, is one of the country’s craftiest politicians, and deliberately held back his endorsement to the moment of maximum impact. His endorsement of Mark Warner four years ago was definitely a factor in Warner’s narrow win, and his refusal to endorse Don Beyer eight years ago helped bury Beyer.The Wilder endorsement also draws attention to one of the X-factors in the Virginia gubernatorial election next Tuesday. African-American Virginians, who have often given GOP candidates a higher percentage of their vote than in other southern states, might go massively for Kaine to send a message to Jerry (Absolutely No Relation) Kilgore’s buddies across the Potomac in recognition of their fine conduct during the Katrina relief and recovery operation.All in all, it’s been a good day for political junkies and a bad day for the GOP.