Marc Ambinder

Within 12 hours of the dramatic late-night arrest of Faisal Shahzad, the extreme pitch of politics already intrudes.

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NBC News first reported that members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested a man named Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen of Pakistani descent, in connection with the bombing attempt in Times Square. Faisal was arrested by Customs and Border Protection agents at J.F.K. airport, where he was being shadowed by FBI agents. Attorney General Eric Holder said Shahzad was boarding a flight to Dubai.

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What matters tomorrow ... tonight. Read it and sleep. Get it first on Twitter: @marcambinder

CBS News reports that investigators consider a Pakistani-American to be a "person of interest" in the Times Square incident. He was traced via forensics; his name is known to terrorism investigators.

Here is an unclassified document prepared by the Department of Homeland Security about the investigation: TIMES SQUARE 1MAY2010_final.pdf ... They've distributed it to DHS fusion centers across the country. ... Note the point about the Vehicle Identification Number. Someone, at some point, removed it from the dashboard of the vehicle. Remember: investigators were able to identify suspects from the first World Trade Center bombing when they found the dashboard VIN from a Ryder truck used in the bombing. This suggests two things: one, that the suspect may have studied the first WTC bombing, and two, the suspect aren't aware that the VIN can be found on at least a dozen other parts of the car.

The FBI and NYPD are acting like the FBI and NYPD in figuring out who gets to do what, when and where. The Washington Post triple bylined a story suggesting that investigators were focusing on foreign links, but other news organizations, including CBS and NBC, were more cautious, reporting that the suspect's telephone calls overseas may be nothing more than just that. NB: the possibility of any linkage to foreign terrorist cells moves jurisdiction of the case into federal hands. ...

Sens. Sherrod Brown and Ted Kaufman and other senators plan to hit the Senate floor in the 10 a.m. hour to present their amendment re: ending too big to fail "the right way."

Tweet from Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Weisman: "John Boehner said Gulf oil disaster proves need for GOP's all of the above strategy on energy. I'm not sure I follow, but there ya go."

Minority Whip Eric Cantor delivers a well-advertised speech on national security at Heritage Tuesday. Here are the main paragraphs:

America faces the twin threats of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Warning signs abound, whether they be the failed attacks in an airplane on Christmas Day or in a parked car in Times Square.  The goal in both instances was to take many innocent lives.  Yet with each close encounter, my fear is that the country goes on heightened alert only so long as the media covers it.   All too often that means hours and days rather than permanently.  Equally concerning is that the administration and other elected officials tend to give these warnings due attention only in limited spurts. Many of the same critics who groused about how we failed to connect the dots prior to 9-11 are today repeating the same pattern.   As a result, America is at risk of slipping into the type of false sense of security which prevailed before that September morning.

For our allies around the world, it's decision time.   Can they rely on America to keep them safe? Or should they develop their own nuclear weapons, or start to cozy up to Iran, China and Russia out of fear they will be attacked?   So we have arrived at a critical crossroads, with America's long-term security interests hanging in the balance.   My message to you today is this: Now should be the time for America to rededicate itself to the strategy of:  ONE) peace through strength, and TWO) recommitting ourselves to standing up for democratic and peaceful allies.

The White House will announce the winner of its Race To The Top high school commencement challenge at 11:00 a.m. ET Tuesday.

Watch for a more aggressive DCCC/White House effort to promote the notion that only Ed Case would be competitive against Republican Charles Djou in November's HI 01 election.  Democrats are circulating a poll by Ted Harstad  in an effort to less gently nudge State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa out of the race. The time for politeness is over, apparently. In any event, if Democrats lose the special election, they'll most likely regain the seat in November.

Primaries tomorrow. Republicans are hopeful that Senate candidate Dan Coats wins by a significant margin in Indiana. ... Democrats are OK with Coats because he's already been tagged and tainted, they believe.

In Ohio, Democrats know that Lee Fisher will win the Senate primary comfortably; he begins the general election with a poll showing him up four on Republican candidate Rob Portman. (Portman tomorrow gets a new press chief: Jeff Sadosky, vice KBH's office.)

In North Carolina, Democrats hope that one of the three candidates (but really only Sec/state Elaine Marshall and Iraq vet Cal Cunningham) gets above 40% to avoid a June 22 run-off. Polls show Republican incumbent Richard Burr ahead of any Democrat by a half of a dozen points, but his approval ratings are worrisomely low for Republicans.

There are several competitive House primaries as well -- looking specifically at the GOPers battling Dan Burton in Indiana and the Democratic upstart who is challenging Larry Kissell in  North Carolina. ... The AP's Sidoti summarizes the night as one where the establishment is facing challenges from upstarts.
 
Key factoid in the NYT/CBS poll: Obama's net approval rating among independents is +9, the highest is a while. And independents are now evenly split as to how they assess his handling of the economy.

There may be no smarter way to start your day: Ezra Klein's Wonkbook, published at 7:10 a.m., is pretty amazing. Signing up for the e-mail is arduous and confusing. But it's worth it.

The government's decision to release the size of the nuclear stockpile is an important milestone in the history of nonproliferation. It is more than a symbolic gesture because the U.S.'s refusal to acknowledge the number of weapons it has has been regularly given as an excuse for why other countries aren't fulfilling their international obligations. (Update: 10-05-03_Fact Sheet_US Nuclear Transparency _FINAL.PDF)

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Not content to judge the administration's response to the Gulf oil spill on its own merits, the scribbling class is trying to come up with a metaphorical framework to issue its grade. On the right (and to some on the left like Bill Maher), the oilpocalypse is nothing short of Obama's Katrina -- an unmitigated disaster that highlights the failure of the federal government to effectively contain an enormous crisis. Moderate author Eldrod calls it Obama's Three Mile Island, in that it will convince the administration to abandon its plans for offshore oil drilling. Both analogies are faulty.

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Submit your questions. I'll start responding at 11:00.

What matters tomorrow ... tonight. Read it and sleep.

President Obama's weekly schedule is in flux. His midweek trip to New Jersey has been canceled, although NOT to due to any security reasons; the full presidential package had to be diverted to Louisana and couldn't be reset in time. ... The chance for a Supreme Court nomination announcement this week is possible but unlikely. ... White House's Gibbs describes administration's approach to BP as keeping the "boot to its throat."  ... NOAA bans commercial fishing in waters off the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and part of Florida ... WH forwards words of approval from commercial fisheries associations in Louisiana. 

NYPD and US officials are skeptical of the claim from Terik-i Taliban Pakistan, (TTP) that the failed Times Square attack  was connected to any recent coalition action; terrorism officials picked up no chatter indicating an imminent plot, according to Sen. Chuck Schumer; the intelligence community has not SURGED or PULSED up resources to respond to this particular threat (although the nominal resource level is already high). NBC reports that the TSA quietly enhanced security at airports on the East Coast ... AP reports that the 100 lbs of fertilizer was not capable of exploding, suggesting that the device was not ready.

The combination of the arrival of Mahmood Ahmadeinjad to New York, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty conference and the heightened terrorism alert are a recipe for anxiety among New Yorkers. Protests are expected around Ahmadinejad's host hotel, the Millennium. The NPT conference kicks off Monday with a series of opening statements from principal-level people. The real work doesn't begin until Wednesday or so, after they've all left. Monday and Tuesday are mostly for show.

Debate starts for real on the Wall Street reform bill in the Senate on Tuesday. GOP strategy is TBD: try to kill the bill, try to add painful amendments, or cooperate. House Democrats will hold a forum with outside economic and budget experts on the condition of the economy, jobs, and long-term growth "and the action taken so far to move us in the right direction and suggestions for continuing and maintaining that growth," a spokesperson says.

Will Saul Anuzis, Michigan businessman, former state party chair, be the next chairman of the RNC? This weekend, he was elected to the national committee. He remains an informal adviser to the current chairman, Michael Steele, and even though he is said to have ties to Mitt Romney's presidential orbit, he might be an acceptable compromise candidate should Steel decide not to run for reelection in November. Anuzis has NOT expressed any interest in running for chair again ... so far.

The biggest uncovered story last week was the House vote on Puerto Rico's statehood referenda. (There'd be two votes, provided the Senate allows them too.)  Here's why PR might not want to be a state.  ... Charlie Crist, now I-FL, says he might vote for a Democrat as majority leader. (Maybe Rahm should have taken that call?) ... Line from the CA GOP gubernatorial debate: Meg Whitman calls herself a "Main Street executive, not a Wall Street executive." ... WashPost says the DCCC hired ex-Clinton adviser Robbie Mook to head its independent expenditure campaign; ex-DCCC executive director John Lapp will be a senior adviser to the IE operation.

What matters tomorrow ... tonight. Read it and sleep.

President Obama plans to visit the catastrophe zone off Louisiana's coast within the next 48 hours as SecDef Gates mobilizes the Louisiana National Guard and WH convenes a principal-level homeland security response meeting. Republicans begin to question speed of Obama's response. Hannity: "They did nothing for nine days."  ... Why is this oil spill unlike other oil spills? Ecologist Willy Bramis notes that there's no ship hull here to limit the amount of oil that's spilled... the oil is just seeping into the water from its natural source. Bramis calls it the ecological catastrophe of our generation. ... Chances Obama misses tomorrow's White House Correspondent's Association dinner?  Even senior administration officials don't know just yet. VP Biden is already booked for a dinner in Arizona (!) and the president's schedule is open on Sunday. ... BP is under major investigative scrutiny already as Congress readies hearings.

Obama has now interviewed three Supreme Court justice candidates, including, today, Elena Kagan, per Newsweek. ... WH signaling announcement late next week or early the week after.

Gay rights activists note with alarm Pentagon brass letter to House Armed Services Cmte chair Ike Skelton, urging Congress not to pass Dont Ask, Don't Tell legislation until the DoD finishes its review in December. Speaker Pelosi reacts by asking administration to place a moratorium on dismissals until the review has been completed. White House insists that repeal is on track but doesn't push back against Gates/Mullen letter. Human Rights Campaign reacts strongly.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation tonight to clarify the racial profiling part of the immigration bill. At the same time, a suspected illegal alien shot an AZ deputy in a traffic stop.

I don't have a horse in the Derby, but Mitch McConnell does: "I'm for Super Saver -- more than a name, it's what government should be doing in Washington and Frankfort," he says.

Obama will give the commencement speech to the University of Michigan tomorrow. History watch: LBJ detailed the Great Society for the first time at the '64 Michigan commencement where he spoke (JFK announced the Peace Corps idea there as a candidate in '60). Michigan Wolverines in the administration include: Ken Salazar, Valerie Jarrett, Melody Barnes, Rand Beers, Eugene Kang, David Katz (photog), Lisa Konwinski, Cecilia Muñoz, and Daniel K. Tarullo, whom Obama nominated to the Federal Reserve last year.

There are six cyber security bills in Congress now, but the one with the biggest chance of making it to the floor first is the Senate Commerce Committee's, authored by Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe. The two want to trademark the developing arena of cyber law in the name of  commerce and industry, rather than security and warfare. One of the more interesting provisions of the Rockefeller-Snowe bill takes the form of a public-private partnership. When you hear that phrase used in government, it usually means that neither the private sector nor the public sector wants to take full responsibility for whatever it is they're partnering on, and hard goals often don't get met. The goal of the cyber legislation is simple with regard to business: companies that play critical roles in American commerce and national security must be as secure as possible. Rather than mandating or imposing government standards, the bill...well, here's what Rockefeller said today to the Business Software Alliance in Washington, which has expressed concerns with parts of the legislation.

The bill also creates a dynamic cycle of market-driven innovation in professional training and cybersecurity products and services.  Companies that excel will be recognized for their excellence, and companies that fall short will implement a remediation plan driven by the market and facilitated by the government.  I know some groups have had concerns about these proposals.  

But here's the truth: the government will not be choosing winners and losers, nor will it be laying down arbitrary standards from on high Instead, we want to empower the private sector, to develop the standards of excellence that best suit your business or sector.  Once you set those standards, we will hold you to them.  That's not regulation; it's a 21st century imperative - both for markets and for national security. 

 Some have criticized our proposed independent audit process as inflexible and burdensome.  And yes, we do recognize that "compliance" is not always the same thing as security, and that audits can be costly and time-consuming.  However, I think we can all agree that effective cybersecurity simply is not possible without a reliable mechanism to evaluate performance.  We have yet to be presented with a viable alternative.  

So, we have built on the audit-based framework already used by many in the private sector.  We expect that if the private sector takes the lead as laid out in our bill, the standards and certification will be flexible and dynamic, not bureaucratic and burdensome. For those who are still unhappy with our proposal, I welcome your ideas and alternatives.  

You must know genuine accountability is non-negotiable - and for the system to work, any standards must be credible.

The way to the heart of a Florida voter is through the stomach. Bread and butter issues like taxes and the economy tend to work well. A three-way race scrambles the conventional dynamics in ways that even a molecular gastronomist would appreciate.

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What matters tomorrow ... tonight. Read it and sleep.

1. Gaggling on AF1 tonight, Obama sounds skeptical he'll see immigration bill this year; says there "may not be an appetite" in Congress ... praises Lindsey Graham by name ... gives hints of new federal border protection measures. ... Senate begins debate on final reg reform tomorrow. ... weeks of work ahead.

2. Here first: Charlie Crist, soon to be independent Senate candidate from Florida, tried to reach White House chief of staff Emanuel through intermediates. WH refuses to take the call. Dems plan big talent/money blitz for Kendrick Meek. BTW: Obama's approval rating in FL is in high 40s, per internal Dem polling.

3. AFL-CIO gathers 10,000 to rally on Wall Street tomorrow; streamed live at www.aflcio.com/wallstreet . Start time is 4:00 pm. ... Obama names three to Fed; two are monetary policy newbies: Sarah Bloom Raskin of MD state gov't. and Peter Diamond of MIT. Third is San Francisco Fed's Janet Yellen, who is bullish on recovery.

4. Ahmadinejad wants a visa to attend nuclear talks in NYC next week.

5. Important events: Sen. Jay Rockefeller to address Business Software Alliance on his and Snowe's CYBER legislation, which is gaining traction and might pass this summer; USecState Tauscher at Center for Am. Progress on NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY, previewing the administration's position going into talks. ... NRSC chair Cornyn does Christian Science Monitor meal to rebut DNC chair Kaine's rosy Democratic "results" message.

One of the reasons I'm fairly optimistic that childhood obesity rates can be reduced is that policy entrepreneurs of all types are overflowing with ideas.  Former beverage industry executive Hank Cardello, author of a new book about obesity wants to provide positive encouragement for industries to reduce the amount of calories they produce. 

One initiative I am advancing is the "20 by '20" program, designed to reduce the supply of calories 20 percent by the year 2020. It would offer all packaged food marketers and restaurant chains a straightforward quid pro quo: keep your tax deductions for advertising in exchange for lowering the number of calories per serving you sell. Specifically, food manufacturers and restaurant chains must lower their calories sold by 2 percent each year for 10 years in order to retain their deductions for advertising. And those deductions are formidable, with $15 billion spent annually. So if the makers of items like Pepsi, Lunchables, and Monster Thickburgers lower their calories by 2 percent per year, they get to keep their deductions. If they lower them by 10 percent or more in a given year, they receive a 25-percent bonus on deductions. But do less or spew more calories on the consuming public, and companies will see a reduction in their precious deductions.

This is a morally unsatisfying proposal for those who blame the food companies for doing their part to create and encourage the crisis. But if it works, it works. And reducing obesity, not satisfying one's craving for emotional revenge, is a better goal. How this would all work is something Cardello addresses in his book. This is an experiment of the sorts that Santa Clara County is known for, and it is a gentle one at that -- there are plenty of places in the county where kids can still get toys with their food. I don't doubt for a minute that the restaurant industry is culpable of manipulating the impressionable brains of young children by tying consumption to toys. This would sever the link, at least in part. It's not clear whether the county can actually do this legally, so the court fight will be interesting. I'm not against an idea like this, but I'd be very wary of exporting until we know whether it works, or whether it simply a way to demonize the fast food industry without reducing obesity.

Here's the type of mobile application from the federal government that can actually make a difference: m.fema.gov, the new mobile disaster response site from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

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And other questions come to mind. Gov. Charlie Crist will announce his decision tomorrow at 5:30 pm ET. All signs point to an independent bid, including the noises emanating from his inner circle. The location Crist chose -- his home city -- suggests an event that will try to cleanse the slate. If he runs as an independent on the No Party Affiliation line, building a campaign team will be difficult. No Republican or Democratic consultant would want to jeopardize future business by associating with him, even though he has a strong chance to win. Same with younger field operatives and many fundraisers. His will be a free-media-reliant campaign, which suggests to me that he's going to be quite mavericky in the months ahead.

Alexi Giannoulias did not meet Barack Obama at Harvard, as I wrote yesterday. They met 10 years ago in Chicago. Giannoulias would have been in his teens when Obama was at law school.

New York Times columnist/ex-colleague/current friend Ross Douthat makes the following observation:

So if Ambinder wanted to argue that the most prominent right-wing criticisms of this White House have sometimes been cynical and less-than-persuasive, I'd say fair enough. (Tellingly, that's where his follow-up post ends up going, via a critique of Newt Gingrich.) But in the post quoted above, he's talking about the world of columnists and bloggers as well as talking heads, and here I will happily pit any roster of "trenchant" liberals that Ambinder wants to draw up, from Klein and Cohn on down, against the work of Manzi, Tyler Cowen, Reihan Salam, Ramesh Ponnuru, Tim Carney, James Capretta, David Frum, Yuval Levin, Arnold Kling, Will Wilkinson, Nicole Gelinas, Stephen Spruiell and (ahem!) Ambinder's own Atlantic colleague Megan McArdle. And that's just a top-of-my-head reading list ...

Actually, I'm arguing something slightly different than what Douthat has me arguing and/or wants me to argue: I'm saying that the party itself prizes the untethered voices. The elite media may, or may not be party to the decisions to cover the loudest, most repeated voices, but who can blame them? Manzi, McArdle, Carney, Ponnuru, Frum and the rest often offer very salient criticism, but it is not the type of criticism that is valued within their party, and it almost never rises above the din.

To repeat myself, the incentive structure favors illogical and often ridiculous arguments and rhetoric. There are plenty of silly voices in the Democratic Party, but the party's incentive structure right now provides an unprecedented opportunity for activists with a cause to make their arguments heard and see their arguments change the way that the party's leaders act. Yes, the Democrats are the party in power, but there's no reason why Ross's roster of conservatives can't be the go-to thinkers for 2012 candidates, Tea Party leaders, and top members of Congress. They aren't.

When I say that Keith Olbermann was effective in changing (elite) minds on health care, I mean it: his show, whatever else you think about it, helped to keep the public option debate alive (he lost that one) and helped to keep the reconciliation possibility open (he won that one). It worked; it was effective. The White House listened; Democrats listened; policy was changed. What follows from this observation is that the LEFT is keeping the Obama administration on its toes.

My media diet consists of reading as many if not more conservative thinkers than even Ross (!), but if no one in their own party's leadership structure values their ideas, if their presidential candidates constantly shrink from the responsibility to lead, if reactionary forces -- the forces of unreality -- continue to triumph, it's not my fault that James Capretta isn't on the phone daily with Republican leaders.

My definition of trenchant, by the way, is the traditional one: keen + effective.

Courtesy of -- or blatantly stolen from -- Mike Allen's Playbook, here are two passages from Laura Bush's upcoming memoir that I find fascinating:

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