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Politico is reporting that GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been disinvited from an anti-Iran rally taking place Monday, "after Democrats protested that her presence would turn the event into a political rally."

Hillary Clinton had also been scheduled to appear at the rally, but the former presidential candidate dropped out after the announcement that Palin would be attending. Clinton suggested at the time that the rally had effectively become a political event.

"In order to keep the focus on Iranian threats and to ensure that this critical message not be obscured, the organizers of the rally have decided not to have any American political personalities appear," the Stop Iran Now coalition said in a statement.

Ben Smith writes that while all politicians have been disinvited from the rally, "the move was about Palin." More here.

UPDATE: John McCain has released a statement criticizing Barack Obama for not joining the rally before Palin was asked not to attend. After Clinton dropped out of the event, the McCain camp pressed Obama to take her place. The Obama campaign offered to send Congressman Robert Wexler.

"Governor Palin was pleased to accept an invitation to address this rally and show her resolve on this grave national security issue, regrettably that invitation has since been withdrawn under pressure from Democratic partisans," McCain said. "We stand shoulder to shoulder with Republicans, Democrats and independents alike to oppose Ahmadinejad's goal of a nuclear armed Iran. Senator Obama's campaign had the opportunity to join us. Senator Obama chose politics rather than the national interest."

(DENVER) John McCain’s campaign continues its counter-programming efforts with a new ad out the morning attacking Barack Obama on national security, specifically on Iran. Yesterday, on the morning of Hillary Clinton’s speech to the convention, the McCain campaign rolled out an ad using Clinton’s own ad and words against the presumptive Democratic nominee. The theme of today’s program here in Denver is foreign policy and national security.

“Iran. Radical Islamic government, known sponsors of terrorism,” the latest ad begins. “Developing nuclear capabilities to ‘generate power’ but threatening to eliminate Israel. Obama says Iran is a ‘tiny’ country, ‘doesn’t pose a serious threat.’ Terrorism, destroying Israel, those aren’t ‘serious threats?’ Obama – dangerously unprepared to be president.” Watch it:

Over the past few weeks, Barack Obama and John McCain have been squabbling over whether or not a president should meet with hostile foreign leaders – and, if he does, under what conditions.

Now a Gallup poll suggests a majority of Americans believe their president should talk to the leaders of enemy countries.

Roughly two out of three of those polled say such diplomacy is a good idea – including about half of those Republicans surveyed.

When asked specifically whether or not the U.S. president should meet with the leader of Iran, nearly 60 percent of those polled said yes.

Obama has said he would meet with leaders of hostile countries without preconditions, arguing that "strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries." (It should be noted that Obama's exact position on this issue is somewhat vague – he says there still need to be "preparations" before such a meeting were to take place, even if there aren't "preconditions.")

Both McCain and Hillary Clinton have criticized Obama for his position, suggesting it implies a naiveté and dangerous inexperience. President George W. Bush has implied that it amounts to the sort of appeasement that was employed in dealing with Nazis.

Appearing at a meeting of the Jewish lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee today, McCain said, "It's hard to see what such a summit with [Iranian] President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad would actually gain, except an earful of anti-Semitic rants, and a worldwide audience for a man who denies one Holocaust and talks before frenzied crowds about starting another."

Also today, Ahmadinejad once again suggested Israel "will soon be destroyed."

"I must announce that the Zionist regime, with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene," he said.

As part of her new strategy to go on the offensive against Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton has brought in someone who can speak with an air of authority: former presidential candidate and retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who endorsed Clinton earlier this year.

A new ad from the Clinton campaign, now airing in Iowa, features Clark dismissing the back-and-forth of the campaign while touting Clinton's ability to lead. "I see that Hillary’s opponents have started attacking her. That’s politics," he says. "What this country needs is leadership."


After mentioning his own record of leading U.S. forces in Kosovo, Clark says Clinton "has what it takes to end the war in Iraq, avert war with Iran, and restore our country’s standing in the world."

In a conference call announcing the new ad, Clark said that even though Clinton signaled she would step up her criticism of Obama on Monday, the race's increasingly negative tone isn't her fault. " I think it started with Barack advertising that he was going to go on the offensive and start attacking," he said. "I think it is clear who started the attacks and why."

The retired general also suggested Iowans would be receptive to the ad's message, even though he decided to skip Iowa when he sought the Democratic nomination ahead of the 2004 elections.

"I've come back to Iowa many times. I've been extremely warmly received here," he said. "Mistakes are mistakes. We shouldn't have bypassed Iowa in 2003."

From CBS News' John Bentley, on the campaign trail with Fred Thompson:

Fred Thompson had more harsh words for the National Intelligence Estimate report on Iran today.

“It's awfully convenient for a lot of people: the administration gets to say its policies worked; the Democrats get to claim we should have eased up on Iran a long time ago; and Russia and China can claim sanctions on Iran are not necessary,” said Thompson in Anderson, SC, today. “Who does it help out most of all? Iran.”

He went to say that sanctions against Iran are still necessary, and told the crowd to keep one thing in mind: “Remember what your mama told you – if something appears to be too good to be true, it probably is.”

Thompson also repeated his stance that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) area of Alaska should be opened for drilling “so we’re not so reliant on bad parts of the world,” but admitted that it is “a relatively small part of the solution.”

And since he was left out of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” discussion concerning gay servicemembers at the last debate, Thompson said he was in favor of the program. He explained that he supported it because it is a military issue, not a social issue.

“I depend on those who’ve spent a lot of time in the military and the people that I’ve talked to say it is a policy that is working,” he said.

Rudy Giuliani has a new ad out, "One Hour," in which he approvingly cites Ronald Reagan and suggests that Iranian mullahs released American hostages in the early 1980s because Reagan was inaugurated.


"Iranian mullahs took American hostages and they held the American hostages for 444 days," Giuliani says in the spot. "And they released the American hostages in one hour, and that should tell us a lot about these Islamic terrorists that we're facing. The one hour in which they released them was the one hour in which Ronald Reagan was taking the Oath of Office as president of the United States."

Adds Giuliani: "The best way you deal with dictators, the best way you deal with tyrants and terrorists, you stand up to them. You don't back down."

The ad, which will run in New Hampshire and Boston, comes at something of an odd time in the campaign. Just two days ago, the National Intelligence Estimate report suggested that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, news that seems likely to make Iran policy a less significant factor in the presidential race.

And the implication that the mullahs released the hostages simply because Reagan was being inaugurated is misleading. As the New York Times' Bernard Gwertzman notes, “While it is certainly true that the hostages were not freed until a half hour after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 1981, their release was negotiated over a period of months first in Bonn, and then in Algiers by Warren Christopher."

Though there was speculation at the time that the mullahs held the prisoners in order to keep President Jimmy Carter from claiming credit for their release, Christopher attributed a delay in their release to difficulty rounding up the hostages – and suggested to Gwertzman, who was the Times' diplomatic correspondent at the time, that the timing of their release was coincidental.

Was last night's Democratic debate a trick or a treat for those seeking to unseat the front-runner? The eight candidates on stage did their best to cast Hillary Clinton as the scariest candidate in the race – for fellow Democrats, that is. John Edwards, Barack Obama and, to a lesser extent the rest of the field, tried to put a George Bush mask on Clinton's candidacy with at least some effectiveness.

To nobody’s surprise, the field came out swinging at the front-runner, openly questioning Clinton’s honesty, credibility, integrity, fealty to the party’s values, ties to the Washington establishment and positions on issues ranging from Social Security to Iran. It was a tag-team match between six candidates and the New York senator and while Clinton left firmly planted on two feet with another solid performance, some cracks in her armor may have started to widen a bit.

Clinton’s approach to the war in Iraq, and foreign policy in general, has been more pragmatic than what most Democratic activists are looking for. She appears to have put to rest early unrest about her refusal to apologize for voting for the Iraq war authorization in 2002 but that same uneasiness looks to be seeping back in on the issue of Iran.

The front-runner was hit early and often over her vote on a non-binding Senate resolution which urged the Bush administration to designate part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization (which they since have done). Clinton stood her ground, arguing that it’s part of what is necessary to do in order to sanction Iran and then pursue diplomatic means designed to stop that nation from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Obama, and more effectively Edwards, used Clinton’s defense to make a connection between Iraq and Iran by claiming that her vote could be seen as one to give President Bush the rationale to attack Iran. It’s a connection that could well raise concerns about Clinton once again among a large segment of a party still unsure about her dedication to ending the war in Iraq.

As a woman candidate seeking to become commander-in-chief, Clinton has long struggled to straddle the line between meeting her party’s base on Iraq and the need to look like a strong leader. That line was even thinner last night.

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News that the Bush administration is set to impose new sanctions on Iran is almost certain to be a major campaign focus today for a campaign that has recently been more about Iran than the war in Iraq. And Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton will be in her primary opponents' sights.

Barack Obama, John Edwards and others have harshly criticized Clinton for her support last month of a Senate resolution urging the administration to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. They argue that her vote only serves to provide the administration a rationale for taking military action against Iran. The new sanctions will indeed designate the military force as a profilerator of weapons of mass destruction, reports the Washington Post.

The newly-announced sanctions will also bring a renewed focus on the Republican candidates, particularly Rudy Giuliani. As we pointed out earlier this week, Giuliani's advisors include some of the most hawkish when it comes to Iran, including Norman Podhoretz, who has openly called for military strikes against Iran. While Republicans have been adamant about the need to deny Iran a nuclear weapon, they are also quick to say it is the last option. "The use of the military option against Iran would be very dangerous, and it should only be taken if every other possibility is exhausted," said Giuliani.


Thompson's Immigration Push: Fred Thompson will discuss immigration today, an issue that remains potent for many Republican primary voters. It's also one which has exposed most of the top-tier candidates to some extent. John McCain infuriated a large segment of his own party with his high-profile support for an immigration reform bill which would have allowed many illegal immigrants an eventual path toward citizenship. Rudy Giuliani has been criticized for his policies as mayor of New York City. Both he and Romney have been criticized for presiding over "sanctuary" cities and states.

It's fertile ground for Thompson, whose proposal will include a policy to take federal funds from cities which do not report illegal immigrants and will oppose any kind of amnesty for the millions of immigrants already in the United States.

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To say that Fred Thompson's candidacy has failed to live up to its early hype is one of the great understatements of the campaign. But, for all the poor reviews and stumbles in the early weeks of his entry into the race, the former Tennessee senator looks to be righting the ship in recent days.

Thompson's early appearances found him wanting. He has seemed unprepared to answer questions that should be automatic for a presidential candidate, such as his views on drilling in the Florida Everglades and how he felt about the Terri Schiavo case. He looked nervous and spoke in broad generalities in his first debate, his fundraising has been on par with other Republicans but not breaking any records and his habit of taking days off at a time hasn't done anything to dispel questions of his drive and work ethic.

But in the past week, Thompson has emerged as something of a statesman in the Republican field. He has resisted the urge to make Hillary Clinton the centerpiece of his party's nomination process, saying, "I don't think we need to worry about Hillary Clinton as much as we need to worry about ourselves." His message of less government and tough choices has begun to meld together with his my-way approach to the campaign.

In an interview yesterday, Thompson said there was a reason he did not want to talk about the political upheaval that surrounded the death of Terri Schiavo, likening it to the death of his own daughter, Betsy, who died six days after being brought to the hospital after an accidental overdose.

"Obviously, I know about the Terri Schiavo case. I had to face a situation with that in my own personal life with my own daughter," Thompson said, according to the Associated Press. I know this is bandied about as a political issue, and people want to make it such and talk about it in the public marketplace a lot. I am a little bit uncomfortable about that because it's an intensely personal thing. These things need to be decided by the family, and I was at that bedside, and I had to make those decisions with the rest of my family. … I will assure you one thing, no matter which decision you make, you will never know whether or not you made exactly the right decision. So making this into a political football is something that I don't welcome. And this will probably be the last time I ever address it."

Thompson has been criticized in some quarters for being something of an empty suit. His personal story reveals that there is more to Thompson's poltical message than focus-group tested soundbites and wedge issues. It's a style that may yet wear well in the weeks to come.

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