Since everyone is talking about how leak-prone the Obama operation has suddenly become, it seems worth making the distinction between two types of leaks.

There are strategic leaks, which are approved and designed for a particular purpose by Obama's central command. Then there are the unplanned leaks, which often come from more marginal players -- or even from people being considered for an Obama post -- and are designed to push a particular individual's agenda.

When news leaked late last night that Obama is "on track" to formally offer the Secretary of State gig, that had all the hallmarks of a planned leak. It was a shrewd and carefully crafted message. The "on track" language, which appeared in several news accounts, was deliberate: It doesn't make the offer official, but it does throw the ball back into the Clintons' court at a time when Hillary's people are leaking the notion that she hasn't made up her mind to take the gig.

The leaks that greeted the choice of Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff, meanwhile, were unplanned and made a big sloppy mess. This sort of stuff tends to come from opponents of the appointment -- others being considered for the gig, or people internally who oppose it. Or, alternatively, it comes from folks in the potential appointee's universe who've been briefed on his or her deliberations.

Since so many of these people are coming out of Congress, the primary leak spigot is the Hill. If the Obama operation now seems more leaky and its message tougher to control, blame the culture of the Hill for it more than the Obama operation itself.

Here's another wrinkle to consider in the wake of Henry Waxman's stunning ascent to the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Congressional insiders point out that Barack Obama, in a little-noticed move a few days ago, appointed as the top White House liason to Congress one Philip Schiliro, who has spent many of his past 25 years on the Hill working for (you guessed it) Waxman.

In the wake of Waxman's victory, this is significant. It means Waxman will be closer to the center of the action and will have a direct line into the White House. Congressional insiders also point out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is an ally of Waxman -- and hence, of Obama's liason to Congress.

Also, as Harold Meyerson points out, Waxman is perhaps the House's leading legislator on three key issues prioritized by Obama: Universal health care, global warming, and the need for strengthened consumer protections.

All of this presages better relations between the Dem administration and the House than the last Democratic President enjoyed, even while Congress was controlled by Dems. This isn't a terribly surprising prediction, but it's another sign that Obama is extremely well positioned to make big things happen rather quickly once he takes power.

This is big, big, big. In a victory for the Democratic left, Rep. Henry Waxman has just successfully ousted Rep. John Dingell from his longtime perch as head of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office confirms to us the vote count in the Democratic Caucus moments ago: Waxman 137 votes, Dingell 122 votes.

The defeat of Dingell is a major victory for environmentalists, removing a key obstacle to real energy reform just as a Democrat with climate change high on his agenda takes the Presidency.

Dingell, who first entered the House way back when Eisenhower was president, had been the head Democrat on this committee ever since 1981. But many of the more liberal members over the years came to view him as too friendly to Michigan's auto industry and hostile to environmentalists -- especially on issues like climate change and carbon limits.

It also shakes up Congress' seniority system and is yet another sign that the political momentum is squarely in the camp of aggressive Dems. Waxman played a lead role in staking out a far more aggressive stance towards the Bush administration than many other more cautious Dems would take.

Waxman used his House Oversight chairmanship to grill the administration over its scandals and incompetence, making him a hero to many Democrats and a viable candidate for change over Dingell.

Now his victory stands as a harbinger of just how much change is coming.

Late Update: More on what Waxman's ascent means here.

Did the FISA cave-in cause Congress' approval numbers to drop even lower than they were before?

We can't promise that it's because of FISA, but the new Gallup poll now has Congress at its lowest approval rating ever in the firm's 34 years of tracking this stat: Approve 14%, Disapprove 75%.

And get this: The poll, like several others before it, also finds that the group now most likely to approve of the Democratically-controlled Congress is Republicans, at 19% approval. Only 11% of Democrats and 14% of independents approve.

With accomplishments like the FISA cave and unconditional war funding, what's not to like about Congress if you're a Republican?

Obama And Clinton Today: Unity In Unity
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will hold their first public campaign event together since Hillary dropped out of the race -- an important step in sending the right message to any disaffected Hillary voters out there. The location has been much remarked about: The small town of Unity, New Hampshire, where the two candidates tied exactly in the primary.

McCain In Ohio Today
John McCain will be visiting a General Motors plant in Warren, Ohio, today. Ohio is of course a crucial state for Republicans -- no GOP candidate has won the presidency while simultaneously losing Ohio, and George W. Bush's narrow 2004 victory here was crucial to his reelection. Currently, polls show Barack Obama taking the lead here.

Poll: Obama Leads McCain By Five
The new Time Magazine poll gives Barack Obama a narrow lead over John McCain of 43%-38%, with a ±4% margin of error. Obama beats McCain 44%-37% on who is trusted more with the economy, while McCain wins 53%-33% on the issue of national security and terrorism.

Clinton To Donors: Give To Obama
At last night's joint event with Barack Obama in front of her own top donors, Hillary Clinton repeated her call for her supporters to raise money for Obama. "We are a family," Clinton said, "and we have an opportunity now to really demonstrate clearly we do know what's at stake, and we will do whatever it takes to win back this White House." No word yet on whether she asked them to go to BarackObama.com.

NRCC: Damaged GOP Brand Has Lost Us Special Election
An internal report at the National Republican Congressional Committee has identified a key reason why they lost special elections for red districts in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi: The poisonous political environment hurting the whole Republican brand. "None of the candidates nor their allies successfully established themselves and their local brand in contrast to the negative perception of the national GOP," the report says.

Bush Pastor Launches Pro-Obama Site
Here's a funny item to start your morning. Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, the Methodist minister who officiated at the wedding of Jenna Bush and Henry Hager, has launched a new pro-Obama Web site, JamesDobsonDoesntSpeakForMe.com. Caldwell previously spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2000, and still considers Bush a friend, but is now reaching out to religious voters on Obama's behalf.

This just in: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has yanked the Senate FISA renewal bill containing telecom immunity off the floor. That means it won't be debated until next year.

Senator Chris Dodd had planned to filibuster the bill this evening, and it didn't look as if the other Senators running for President -- Hillary, Obama, Biden -- would lend support for the filibuster in person. Now the question's moot -- until January.

Why did Reid pull the bill now? "Sen. Reid refused to jam this bill through the Senate because he believes it’s an important bill that deserves to be debated thoroughly," a Reid aide told us.

But Dodd aides expressed satisfaction, saying that the Connecticut Senator's filibuster threat was what stopped the bill for the time being. They vowed that he'd be back to fight it again in January.

Recently we learned that Dem Senate leaders are contemplating getting rid of their call for withdrawal timelines in order to pass a December bill funding the next leg of the Iraq War.

This has prompted many people to start looking to House Dems to take a stand and draw a line against more funding. House Dems have been making noise about standing firm. But now the White House and GOP campaign to portray Dems as unwilling to fund the troops has kicked into gear, no doubt spooking some Dems, particularly those of the Blue Dog variety.

So what will House Dems do? What's their next step?

Well, today House Dem leader David Obey, who's insisting on withdrawal timelines, was asked this question at a presser. His answer: We won't fund the war without withdrawal dates. Take a look:

Transcript:

QUESTION: Mr. Obey, the rhetoric from the president is just going to get worse as the holidays approach. Are you going to continue to maintain the stance that you have of providing these conditions on war funds if he's to get the money?

OBEY: Of course.

I mean, we have provided the money. I will repeat that 50 times. We have provided the money. The money is not the issue. The issue is that the president is simply refusing to accept the conditions under which the money is provided.

This document says that that's the proper role of Congress. If you look at Article I, Section 8 and Article I, Section 9, they define the authority of the Congress to determine what policy is supposed to be financed and in foreign affairs, and we're simply -- we're simply following that document to the letter.

Pretty tough talk. The question now is whether House Dems will hold the line in the face of the propaganda barrage from the White House and GOPers, who have already started to paint the Dems as unwilling to fund the troops, even though it's the Republicans who are blocking the funding by refusing to support any funding bill that doesn't permit for war to continue forever.

Obey says House Dems will hold the line, and as chair of the Appropriations Committee, Obey is in a good position to help enforce this. We'll see what happens.

Okay, some really interesting stuff just went down in the Senate this morning with respect to Iraq war funding: GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell tried to pull off a tricky maneuver that would have slipped no-strings-attached war funding passed Senate Dem leaders -- but it flopped.

The Senate GOPers did, however, succeed in killing a Dem bill that would have provided funding for the war but also had a provision containing withdrawal from Iraq as a mere goal.

Read more »

This is pretty big. As some people have been speculating today, aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have confirmed to me that the version of the FISA bill that was just reported out of the Judiciary Committee does not -- repeat, does not -- contain retroactive immunity for the telecom companies.

And a source close to Reid says that this is "most likely" the version that the Majority Leader will file a motion to proceed on. The aide declined to comment when this might happen, however, saying that it could happen next month.

All in all, it looks like a big victory for opponents of telecom immunity.

Late Update: Here's a bit more detail on what happened on the Judiciary Committee today. Sources say Senator Russ Feingold offered an amendment that would have stripped telecom immunity from the bill, but it was defeated. Then Senator Arlen Specter, the ranking GOPer on the committee, offered a "compromise" amendment saying that in these lawsuits the Federal government, and not the telecoms, would be the defendants.

But because of a procedural difficulty Specter's amendment wasn't voted on -- and Senator Patrick Leahy, the chair of the committee, essentially went around Specter's amendment and moved to have a vote to report the bill out of committee without any telecom immunity in it. That passed along strictly party lines. And that's where we are.

So it looks as if national Dem strategists are planning a major political offensive against House Republicans on the subprime mortgage crisis -- an issue Dems think will help them capture more House seats in 2008. And the polls appear to suggest that there's plenty of voter angst out there to speak to.

In an interview with Roll Call, DCCC chief Chris Van Hollen made it clear that national Dems think the issue could play out as a winner for them and knock Republicans onto the defensive heading into next year's elections. “You are already hearing candidates talk about it,” Van Hollen said. Roll Call adds that House Dems will bring a big mortgage overhaul bill to the House floor today that has considerable support from rank-and-file House Repubs but is opposed by Republican leaders.

House Dem leaders think this will give them a big opening to paint the GOP leadership as in the pocket of mortgage industry groups and callously out of touch with the American people on the issue -- and feed their argument that the GOP is indifferent to the economic squeeze felt by the middle class.

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Here's some more on what exactly happened in the negotiations that led up to the rushed confirmation of Michael Mukasey yesterday.

According to sources inside and outside the Democratic leadership, Harry Reid allowed a vote on Mukasey because in exchange the Republican leadership agreed to allow a vote on the big Defense Appropriations Bill, which contains $459 billion in military spending but doesn't fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Reid had wanted to get this bill passed before the end of this week, and in fact, the defense bill did come up for a vote late last night and was passed after the Mukasey vote.

One key reason Dem leaders wanted this defense approps bill passed, sources tell me, is that they wanted to be able to argue that they had sent a bill to the President funding the military, if not the war itself. The idea was that doing this would allow them to protect themselves in the days ahead when the battle over Iraq funding heats up and Republicans inevitably charge that Dems are refusing to fund the troops.

"This lets us argue, `Hey, we just sent $450 billion to the military," one leadership source tells me.

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A new Pew poll released today shows a clear jump in the number of Americans who want the Dem Congress to get tougher with Bush in ending the Iraq War.

The survey finds that nearly half -- 47% -- say that Dems aren't doing enough to challenge the President over Iraq. That's a seven-point jump from last spring. In contrast, barely one-fifth think Congress has gone "too far." And tellingly, nearly half of independents -- 48% -- want more action from Congress on ending the war, too.

The poll also contains some bad news -- but also some good -- for the Dem Congressional leadership. While overall approval of the whole Congress has fallen to 31%, a solid majority of 54% says they remain happy that Dems won control last year, suggesting that GOP claims that the Dems have blown it with the public are not supported by the numbers.

Thirty Senators, led by Jim Webb, have just released a letter they sent to the President. The message: Stop trash-talking about Iran. Key quote:

We are writing to express serious concerns with the provocative statements and actions stemming from your administration with respect to possible U.S. military action in Iran. These comments are counterproductive and undermine efforts to resolve tensions with Iran through diplomacy.

We wish to emphasize that no congressional authority exists for unilateral military action against Iran.

Intrestingly, as The Huffington Post reported today, one Senator who didn't sign the letter is Barack Obama, apparently because he disagrees with the letter's assertion that Kyl-Lieberman "should in no way" be seen as a predicate for war with Iran.

"It will take more than a letter to prevent this administration from using the language contained within the Kyl-Lieberman resolution to justify military action in Iran," Obama spokesman Bill Burton told us. "This requires a legislative answer and Senator Obama intends to propose one."

The full letter, and a full list of signers, after the jump.

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Sen. Ted Kennedy has announced that he will not support Michael Mukasey for attorney general. Meanwhile, John McCain has been publicly defending Mukasey.

We have now updated our vote-count chart:

John Kerry has issued a statement opposing the nomination of Michael Mukasey to be attorney general, bringing the number of Senators opposed to the nomination up to nine.

The full statement from Kerry is available after the jump.

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Okay, now that more Dem Senators are coming out and opposing the confirmation of AG candidate Michael Mukasey, it's looking like we may end up with a real confirmation battle here.

So we thought we'd make it easy for you to follow which Senators are where by creating a handy chart to help you keep track of what's going on. It's below.

It tells you which Senators have come out and declared their opposition to Mukasey, which are undecided, and which are for him. A quick note on methodology: We're starting with the assumption that GOP Senators who haven't said otherwise are likely to vote for Mukasey. If any come out and say the contrary, or express doubts about him, we'll move them to the appropriate category.

Also, our tally below is based on the best information we've been able to find, so if you know of a Senator who has said something more definitive on this, please let us know and we'll update the chart appropriately. We'll be keeping this constantly updated for you and we'll be linking back to it regularly. Enjoy:

Buried in today's piece in The Hill on AG nominee Michael Mukasey and the Senate Judiciary Committee's review of his candidacy for the post is this:

A senior Senate Democrat told The Hill Tuesday that Mukasey’s nomination had no chance of passing the Judiciary Committee if he declined to classify the interrogation technique, which simulates drowning, as torture.

Mukasey has already twice declined to classify waterboarding this way, and it doesn't look like he plans on changing his mind anytime soon, so it'll be interesting to see if this pans out and if Dems stick by it.

The latest Fox News poll illustrates the problem of reading too much into Congress' political fortunes on the basis of the institution's overall approval.

On the one hand, the approval rating stands at 25%, with 54% disapproval. But on the other hand, the poll asked this question: "How about your representative — do you think he or she deserves to be reelected? The result was 50% in favor of reelecting the incumbents, versus only 29% who want somebody news.

In short, it'll take a lot more than even the current disapproval to actually cause major shifts in the House. The current approval/disapproval ratings appear more to be a product of general frustration with the status quo than any desire to change who gets sent there.

Some liberals think House Dem leader Steny Hoyer is weak on the telecom immunity issue, but it needs to be said that he has now delivered a speech in which he said some very forceful stuff in opposition to keeping telecom immunity in the revised FISA bill:

"Finally, this legislation is silent on the issue of retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that possibly violated privacy laws in turning over consumer information – because Congress does not have full access to information about what the companies did.

"Simply stated, it would be grossly irresponsible for Congress to grant blanket immunity for companies without even knowing whether their conduct was legal or not. And, importantly, this view is shared by the Chairman and Ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Until we understand what legal authorities were used to justify the terrorist surveillance program, there does not appear to be any practicable way to include retroactive immunity in this bill."

Though he appears to be suggesting that his opposition to immunity might be tempered if he gets access to the White House documents that the Senate intel community reviewed before producing a bill containing immunity, this is nonetheless some pretty toughly-worded opposition. The question, as Atrios says, is whether he'll back these words up with legislative action.

Susan McCue, a longtime loyalist to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, has just returned to his inner circle in the Senate, a move that is being celebrated by top antiwar leaders who hope that she will be able to steer the Senate in a more aggressively antiwar direction.

"Susan has deep roots in [progressive] communities and they trust her," a Democratic aide tells the Huffington Post. "She's long been Reid's eyes and ears in those and other liberal groups."

Reid had better hope she yields results, as the Senate's failure to halt the Iraq war has caused Congress' popularity to plummet among liberal Dems. It'll be interesting to see whether she can turn things around.

The House just failed by a 196-173 margin to censure Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) for his remarks last week that Bush was sending American troops to Iraq to have their "heads blown off for the president's amusement." The resolution stated that Stark “by his despicable conduct, has dishonored himself and brought discredit to the House and merits the censure of the House for the same.”

Moments after the vote, an emotional Stark apologized for his comments.

"I want to apologize to my colleagues, many of whom I have offended," Stark said. He also apologized to "the president and his family" and "the troops."

"I hope that with this apology, I return to being as insignificant as I should be," he finished in an emotional, breaking voice.

"It'’s amazing to me that the President expects to be taken seriously when he says we cannot afford $20 billion in investments in education, health, law enforcement and science, which will make this country stronger over the long term, but he doesn’'t blink an eye at asking to borrow $200 billion for a policy in Iraq that leaves us six months from now exactly where we were six months ago."

-- Dem Rep. David Obey, responding in a statement to the news today that President Bush's request for war spending will total nearly $200 billion.

Looks like Senator Pat Leahy, the chair of the judiciary committee, is adding his voice to the growing clamor of criticism of the deal that the intel committee has reached to include telecom immunity in the Senate FISA renewal bill.

Leahy has just come out and sharply criticized the reported deal, saying that it's a sign that the Senate is "about to cave."

Leahy, who hasn't seen the actual legislation, was reacting to reports this morning saying that the intel committee has reached a deal with the White House to provide retroactive immunity to the telecom companies for their role in warrantless wiretapping undertaken by the Bush administration after 9/11.

Leahy's criticism -- and Chris Dodd's promise today that he will put a hold on the bill -- signal that any legislation containing immunity for the telecoms is all but certain to hit major road bumps on the way to the Senate floor. That's because the bill has to clear Leahy's committee on the way to passage. It's getting interesting.