June 2008 Archives

Keith Olbermann puts the straight talk back into John McCain.

If you're hungry for more, Steve Benen has compiled a thorough list of flip-flops by McCain.

I just figured out how to capture both audio and video from my own PC -- this is something that had been irritating me for a long time. The benefit is that I can now record non-downloadable videos without needing to play them through another computer and feed them into my capture card.

The problem I've had up until this point was capturing the audio -- capturing video from the screen was easy, but I couldn't figure out how to get the audio. (I'm on Vista, btw.) Then I realized a very simple solution: route the audio output from my PC right back into the input. (It actually loops through my receiver first.)

Anyway, this will make it a lot easier to capture some cool videos, so you actually might see the benefits down the line!

John McCain refuses to directly answer whether or not he questions Barack Obama's patriotism:

YouTube link

H/T: Greg Sargent who has the transcript.

Well this was a perfect day to take the afternoon off from political news, eh?

From what I'm reading so far, this was the most revealing day of the general election thus far.

On the one hand, you have John McCain's campaign using a swift boater to falsely accuse Wesley Clark of having swift-boated John McCain -- in short, resorting to old tricks.

On the other hand, you have the Obama campaign, taking the high road, distancing themselves from Clark's comments when they didn't have to, and offering a general vision of how patriotism ought to be handled in our political discourse.

In short, it was John McCain showing what's wrong with our politics, and Barack Obama showing what is right.

YouTube link

:::

A deep thought occurs to me: Barack Obama probably has deeper roots in the United States than do I. (Of my grandparents and great grandparents, only my great grandmother had family roots longer than two generations.)

That thought occurred to me because Barack delivered a speech today --- the tail end of which I caught live -- on patriotism in America. I haven't seen any video posted on YouTube yet, but from what I saw it's going to be another "must-see."

My favorite passage was probably this one:

Of course, precisely because America isn’t perfect, precisely because our ideals constantly demand more from us, patriotism can never be defined as loyalty to any particular leader or government or policy. As Mark Twain, that greatest of American satirists and proud son of Missouri, once wrote, “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”  We may hope that our leaders and our government stand up for our ideals, and there are many times in our history when that’s occurred.  But when our laws, our leaders or our government are out of alignment with our ideals, then the dissent of ordinary Americans may prove to be one of the truest expression of patriotism.

Full text after the jump.

YouTube link

If you're not familiar the controversy, consider yourself lucky. In short, Wesley Clark said on CBS yesterday that being shot down in a fighter plane was not a qualification for being president.

People twisted Clark's comment into being a slam on John McCain, but as I showed on this video, he was merely rejecting an attack on Barack Obama leveled by Bob Schieffer. Still, that hasn't stopped the media from pumping up the controversy.

I've posted video from MSNBC and FOX after the jump if you're interested in seeing what the media blowhards are spewing forth. (I warn you, it's not pretty!)

Today's Washington Post has another one of those "ZOMG, there's rumors about Obama" stories.

You already know the basic script: a Real American Town (tm), flags on every front porch, apple pie in all the windows, Leave it Beaver playing softly in the background. Just how the beltway punditocracy sees "middle America." And of course, Barack Obama has got a problem: those dang internet smears. Without even reading the article, you can pretty much guess the way the story went; we've seen a million of these before.

What interested me about this particular article was that it failed to mention one crucial fact about the town in which it was set (Findlay, Ohio, the seat of Hancock County): whether or not any Democrat could expect to do well there.

Not surprisingly, it turns out that the Findlay and its surroundings are actually pretty bad areas for Democrats. Here's numbers in Hancock County (I only got my hands on 2004 data for Findlay itself, but there wasn't a significant difference in the numbers):

• 1992: Bill Clinton won 25%
• 1996: Bill Clinton won 31%
• 2000: Al Gore won 29%
• 2004: John Kerry won 29%

So all the sudden, what WaPo implied to be a crucial issue for the Obama campaign no longer seems nearly as important: nobody should be surprised that in heavily Republican areas, Barack Obama isn't all that well-regarded.

It's hard, therefore, to escape the conclusion that the only reason the WaPo published the article was to continue pimping false rumors about Barack Obama.

At the same time, it did include one stunning piece of information that almost makes the article worthwhile: it turns out that even in Findlay, Ohio, the Obama campaign actually has a small but organized volunteer presence in the town.

In other words, Barack Obama is already organizing in towns where John Kerry couldn't even get 30% of the vote. Now that is nothing short of remarkable.

Number of articles on Google News (from 6/16 to posting time) including...

• ..."Obama" & "$150 billion" (re: energy R&D plan): 976
• ..."McCain" & "$300 million" (re: car battery prize): 2,251
• ..."Obama" & "public financing" (re: funding decision): 5,221

There were also 6,605 articles including "McCain" & "offshore drilling" but because many of those articles -- especially the recent ones -- focus on Obama criticizing McCain on the issue, I don't think that number is particularly illustrative of any sort of bias. (It is possible that the press wants to highlight Obama's opposition to expanding offshore drilling because it doesn't poll well; however, if that is the case, I think they are making a mistake, because Obama has a pretty good case to make.)

Tom Friedman's most recent column is the #1 most e-mailed story on the NYT website. Tragically, though, I fear that most of those who have e-mailed it approve of his words wholeheartedly. It's not that that I disagree with his most important conclusion:

My fellow Americans: We are a country in debt and in decline — not terminal, not irreversible, but in decline. Our political system seems incapable of producing long-range answers to big problems or big opportunities. We are the ones who need a better-functioning democracy — more than the Iraqis and Afghans. We are the ones in need of nation-building. It is our political system that is not working.

I continue to be appalled at the gap between what is clearly going to be the next great global industry — renewable energy and clean power — and the inability of Congress and the administration to put in place the bold policies we need to ensure that America leads that industry.

My problem is is that Friedman absolutely misses the point on why his conclusion is correct:

I do not believe nation-building in Iraq is going to be the issue come November — whether things get better there or worse. If they get better, we’ll ignore Iraq more; if they get worse, the next president will be under pressure to get out quicker. I think nation-building in America is going to be the issue.

The central problem here is that Friedman is at best glossing over the relationship between the war in Iraq and our economic problems -- and our energy security problems. These are not problems that can be compartmentalized; Iraq is not an irrelevancy.

Not only are we spending in the range of $150 billion per year on the Iraq war (the Senate just passed a $162 billion funding package for both Iraq and Afghanistan), but we've also severely diminished our international prestige and influence. We've also deprived our country of the men and women we need to help protect against natural disasters, whether its Hurricane Katrina, or flooding in Iowa.

Apparently Barack Obama is now being trailed by what the media calls a "protective pool." It sounds like it has something to do with his security, but it doesn't -- it's just a reporter assigned to go wherever he goes, just as happens with the president. The reporter changes each day, and makes his or her report available to every media organization that subscribes to the pool.

Without weighing in on the general practice of having a reporter present for every waking moment of Obama's life, the question I have is why hasn't the press corps insisted on covering McCain in the same way? After all, it's McCain, not Barack, who has been forced to defend himself from accusations of marital infidelity.

I've been waiting for something like this to happen -- the emergence of media-friendly personal character scandal about John McCain. It's not that I've been wishing ill-will on McCain -- rather, it's that I wanted to see how the media at large would respond.

And now it has happened, with the revelation -- ironically coming from Newsweek, an MSM staple -- that the McCains were in tax default on one of their properties, their payments delinquent by four years. I haven't watched the TV shows yet today, but I just looked through the print pages of the major newspapers and other than the initial report, there was not a single word, not a single mention, not a single story on the tax default.

Now I beg of you to consider, as Media Matters and debrazza have pointed out, that when John Edwards got a $400 haircut, that fact alone was used as a shorthand to describe his entire campaign.

But when John McCain, who has inveighed against Barack Obama as an elitist, has a tax default on one of his ten (or more) properties, total, complete silence.

It's a double-standard, and it's bad for America.

Inspired by the McCains' recent tax default, I decided to go on a little tour of their many homes across the nation. Enjoy!

YouTube link

p.s.: This is my first attempt at narrating a video. What do you think? Should I do it more often? Was it too long? Short? Would it have been better had I spoken backwards?

For four years, San Diego County officials tried unsuccessfully to secure delinquent property tax payments on the McCains' La Jolla, California condo unit. The tax bill has now finally been paid -- apparently by Mrs. McCains' family trust -- but only after NEWSWEEK raised questions about the overdue bill.

Here's some photographs of and from the condominium complex in which the McCains' have a unit on the third floor. As you can see, it overlooks the Pacific Ocean and as a real estate agent might say, it offers spectacular views of the water, especially when the sun is setting.

::: ::: :::

The McCains' unit is on the third floor
of this condominium (photo from Google Maps):

Sunset view (from a first floor unit
in the condo listed at $1.3 million):

Sunset view from same unit
(the thing in the middle is the window frame):

And the kitchen:

::: ::: :::

The LaJolla property is one of about ten of residences owned by the McCains.

Daily Kos diarist mindgeek has a must-read diary on the neuroscience of swift-boating. (It's worth noting that mindgeek is Sam Wang, a neuroscientist at Princeton University and author of Welcome to Your Brain. In other words, he is no intellectual slouch.)

Professor Wang's diary, which first appeared as an op-ed in The New York Times, delivers a brief overview of the neurological foundations of false beliefs. In short, if a false claim is repeated with enough frequency, over time the brain tends to forget the context which exposed the claim's falsehood, while remembering the claim itself -- in the process, forming a false belief.

This process of forming false beliefs leads Professor Wang to make a crucial observation:

Journalists and campaign workers may think they are acting to counter misinformation by pointing out that it is false. But by repeating a false rumor, they may inadvertently make it stronger. In its concerted effort to "stop the smears," the Obama campaign may want to keep this in mind. Rather than emphasize that he is not a Muslim, for instance, it may be more effective to stress his discovery of Christianity in his twenties.

This seems like very good advice. Instead of leading with the smear, lead with the truth, and turn the tables on the smear merchant. For example, on the "whitey tape" the FightTheSmears.com site could say:

The truth: There is no tape of Michelle Obama using the word "whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United, contrary to Rush Limbaugh's false claim.

The truth: Larry Johnson never posted "New and dramatic developments...by 0900 hours" despite his wild promises.

On the religion smear:

The truth: Barack Obama is a committed Christian and has never belonged to any other religion, despite anonymous e-mail smears claiming otherwise.

Instinctively, this approach makes a ton of sense to me; the fact that someone as brilliant as Sam Wang bases his argument for it on neurological foundations makes it all the stronger.

(As a side note, in early April Professor Wang co-authored another illuminating NYT op-ed on the way the mind works. It's definitely worth a read.)

This is super-hilarious. The WaPo today describes how Danielle Allen, a political theorist at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies, discovered the origin of the Obama-is-not-a-Christian smear (which she received by e-mail in January), even though "experts told her it would be impossible to trace the chain e-mail to its origin."

Allen discovered that theories about Obama's religious background had circulated for many years on the Internet. And that the man who takes credit for posting the first article to assert that the Illinois senator was a Muslim is Andy Martin.

As Ben Smith, notes, The Nation's Chris Hayes made the same discovery last October:

But even if the identity of the e-mail's author was unrecoverable, it was still possible to trace back the roots of its content. The origin proved even more bizarre than I could have guessed.

On August 10, 2004, just two weeks after Obama had given his much-heralded keynote speech at the DNC in Boston, a perennial Republican Senate candidate and self-described "independent contrarian columnist" named Andy Martin issued a press release. In it, he announced a press conference in which he would expose Obama for having "lied to the American people" and "misrepresent[ed] his own heritage."

A few days ago, I showed that despite John McCain's widely praised decision to accept public funding, about half of his general election budget will be funded privately with donations funneled through the Republican National Committee.

Even though the public finance system nominally limits McCain's post-convention spending to the $84 million he'll receive in public funds, those limits are relatively meaningless thanks to loopholes that allow him to spend RNC money as if it were his own.

When I wrote about this, I thought I was flagging something that the McCain campaign would have wanted to keep under wraps to avoid charges of hypocrisy. After all, individuals can give up to $28,500 to the RNC, more than twelve times as much as the $2,300 an individual is allowed to give to Obama's general election campaign.

It turns out that I was completely wrong -- for weeks now the McCain campaign has been publicly boasting that McCain-RNC fundraising activities are joint operations to raise money for McCain's general election campaign.

In fact, when McCain campaign manager Rick Davis gave a strategy briefing to supporters earlier this month, he explicitly noted that as far as the general election is concerned, there is no meaningful distinction between McCain campaign fundraising and RNC fundraising.

Davis argued -- correctly -- that to get a true understanding of who is leading the fundraising battle, one must look at the combined totals of each candidate and their party.

In other words, it's not the John McCain 2008 committee versus the Obama for America committee, it's McCain+RNC versus Obama+DNC.

And when you look at the numbers that way, the world turns upside down: John McCain is leading the fundraising battle, and it's not even close.

As you can see from this chart, John McCain and the RNC not only outraised Barack Obama and the DNC by more than 50% in May -- $45.9 million to $28.1 million -- they are also sitting on nearly twice as much cash-on-hand, $85.1 million to $47.1 million.

The bottom-line here is that the media have spun up a David and Goliath narrative about fundraising this campaign. They are partially right -- it is a David and Goliath battle, but they've got the roles reversed.

No matter what happened in the primary season, so far in the general election, it's John McCain whose got the fundraising advantage now.

And it's Barack Obama who is the underdog.

The McCain campaign, making up a new line of attack on Barack Obama's bipartisan credentials:

there is nothing in his record that demonstrates an ability to reach across the aisle

John McCain, praising Obama for supporting his immigration bill in May of 2006:

I also want to thank Senators Brownback, Lieberman, Graham, Salazar, Martinez, Obama, and DeWine for their shared commitment to this issue, and working to ensure this bill moved successfully intact through the legislative process.

Of course, it's also true that McCain capitulated to pressure from his own party on the immigration issue. So he doesn't support the bipartisan position he once held. Doesn't that make him a  *gasp* partisan?

Jake Tapper on ABC News last night:

The latest ABC News poll indicates one-quarter of Clinton supporters are thinking of voting for Senator John McCain, with Obama only winning 62% of them. He cannot win if that does not change.

Except the same exact ABC News poll cited by Tapper also shows Barack Obama leading John McCain, 48%-42%.

And I would have to respectfully submit to Mr. Tapper that John McCain cannot win if that does not change.

YouTube link

Everybody knows that FOX News has a conservative tilt to its coverage, making the network an easy target for those of us who aren't on the right. But while we may disagree with FOX's perspective, at least we know that it has one.

ABC, on the other hand, is nowhere near as overt as FOX about its own biases, and given that 8 million people watch its news broadcast each evening -- an audience about 5x larger than FOX's total primetime viewership -- ABC's negative impact could be both more insidious and more impactful.

I haven't performed any kind of rigorous analysis, but based on the ABC broadcasts I've watched, the political coverage has been heavily slanted against Barack Obama and has been far more charitable to John McCain. (And who could forget the debate in Philadelphia.)

Anyway, I thought tonight's coverage of the Clinton-Obama unity rally was a particularly good example of how ABC is negatively biased against Obama. In fact, compared to ABC, the FOX News report seemed positively glowing to me. I've posted both reports after the jump if you care to subject yourself to the torture of watching them.

Full video of event on YouTube

Earlier this month, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis bragged that John McCain is now outraising Barack Obama for the general election.

Instead of getting mad about McCain's campaign finance hypocrisy, let's get even: show your support for Barack Obama by going to donate.barackobama.com and making a contribution today.

YouTube link

Substantively, the issue here is that even though McCain says he's foregoing private financing for the general election, he's actually not. About fifty percent -- probably more -- of his general election campaign budget will come from private sources funneled through the Republican National Committee. It's all completely legal -- and it's what Barack means when he says the system is broken.

Whether you've got the time to volunteer or the resources to contribute, the Obama campaign needs your help now more than ever.

Please tell a friend about this video (links: jedreport.com | YouTube), and, if you can afford to, don't forget to make a contribution donate.barackobama.com.

Yes we can!

The event in Unity, NH seems to have gone of perfectly, and the visual imagery, as always with Obama, was flawless. As Ben Smith notes, even the shade of Obama's tie and Clinton's suit were a match.

1. My beef isn't with people who disagree with Obama's decision, or who criticize the decision. My beef is with those who week to create a negative narrative about Obama from that decision, or who take their criticism of him and lose all sense of proportion, going way beyond what's reasonable given that he has but one vote in the Senate. Steny Hoyer did this deal, and Nancy Pelosi supported it.
2. FISA hasn't passed the Senate yet. I agree that it seems likely to pass without telco immunity, but until it does pass, and Obama votes for it, it seems that a more intelligent investment of resources would be rallying people behind the efforts to stop the legislation, or at least the telco immunity provisions.
3. To that at end, whatever the merits of the argument that supporting the FISA deal is a sellout, making that argument won't win any votes. Perhaps if all the energy that has been spent focusing on Obama were instead focused on a money bomb against FISA (without supporting Ron Paul or his candidates), and advancing cogent arguments against its passage, more good would be accomplished.
4. I've seen people argue that Obama's move was a Sista Souljah moment. Without disputing that his viewpointn is at odds with many of his supporters, I don't see much evidence if any to show that he took this position precisely because it would be at odds with his supporters. Remember, when Bill Clinton slammed Sista Souljah, what he was really doing was publicly humiliating Jesse Jackson to send a message to white voters that he wasn't captive to African-Americans. (Somehow Bill Clinton made it seem courageous to stand up to someone who was talking about murdering police officers.)
5. Anyone who thinks Obama is inevitable should remember that so was Hillary Clinton. I do think there are big differences and that Obama is in a much stronger position than she was, but it's also worth remembering that while he was done well in most polls, spectacularly well in some, for 3 straight days the Gallup tracking poll has had the race tied.

I just posted them over on Daily Kos:

President McCain just got elected, but that's okay

I'm driving to work, here in Las Vegas. The traffic is bad, mostly on account of the sun, which has has just risen, nearly blinding me and my fellow road warriors. Between my sunglasses and squinting, I can barely make out the road, but I've been down it before, I know where I'm going.

I've got the radio turned on. President McCain is about to give his first press conference after his inauguration earlier in the week. They're saying he's planning on talking about his legislative initiative for the first hundred days, but that's okay.

I mentioned I'm driving; it's expensive. Gas prices are now over five bucks a gallon and going higher. McCain in his inauguration announced a bold new initiative to lower gas prices -- building a long-term base in Iraq, near the border with Iran. He's also fast-tracking his offshore drilling plan.

The press conference comes on. The first question is about reports that one of the liberal members of the Supreme Court is in poor health and is about to retire. McCain wishes the justice well, and promises to meek a replacement that is in keeping with the constitutional traditions of the country.

I figure he means someone to the right of Roberts and Alito. Something like that.

But that's okay.

I didn't want McCain to win. In fact, I voted for Obama. But I didn't lift a finger to help Obama because he voted for something that I disagreed with him on. Maybe in part because of my apathy, John McCain won the November election.

But that's okay -- because I sure showed Barack Obama.

And now he's the one paying the price.

Anyway, back to the road. I can see it a little more clearly now, the sun is a little higher in the sky. I sure do hope that the traffic begins to move. It's expensive sitting here on the beltway, doing nothing.

You just can't make this stuff up: Larry "Wide Stance" Craig and David "Just a Massage" Vitter are now original co-sponsors of the new Federal Marriage Amendment (aka Marriage Protection Amendment).

h/t: Steve Benen

YouTube link

Remind you of "Mission Accomplished"?

On a housekeeping note, I'm replacing The Daily McBush with a generic daily video (snazzy title TBD) so that I can focus on a broader range of subjects...McSame gets boring.

Maybe Las Vegas wasn't the best place for John McCain to propose building 45 more nuclear power plants -- after all, he wants to bury the high-level radioactive waste they produce right here in Nevada. The issue dogged him on each of the major local news broadcasts.

YouTube link

By the way, isn't it interesting how local political coverage tends to focus on real issues, whereas national political coverage tends to focus on the meaningless stuff? I wonder what Dean Broder has to say about that.

I think this helps explain why Barack manages to do so well in so many state and national polls despite having a national media that is in love with Teflon John.

Is CNN morphing into FOX? Or has it already morphed? Last night alone was a tour de force of Barack Obama smears.

First, we have Campbell Brown (h/t: debrazza):

Hi, everybody. Tonight, a story that everybody is going to soon be talking about. It is a new line of attack on Barack Obama led none other -- led by none other than Karl Rove. There are those who say, though, that Obama brought this on himself. We're going to look at this from both sides tonight.

Why does she think that everybody is going to be talking about this? Because that's the only way she can justify putting such a filthy discussion on the air? As debrazza suggested, if we're really going to have this kind of discussion, then let's have a 30 minutes discussion on whether or not John McCain is in full control of his faculties.

Next we've got Anderson Cooper:

Look out Imus. Now it's Ralph Nader's turn. He's mixing race and politics targeting Barack Obama accusing him of trying to talk white, in his terms, and ignoring problems in what he calls the ghettos. Did he cross the line? Does he even have his facts straight? We've got the facts so you can decide.

WTF? Not only is Cooper cribbing FOX's "We report, you decide" line, he's also spending 10 minutes of airtime talking about an absurd comment made by crank candidate, simply because he thinks it's controversial.

And finally, when CNN isn't talking about Barack Obama, they trying to boost John McCain's campaign. TPM posted video of a report by CNN's Tom Foreman, taking a look at the extent to which Bush and McCain agree on the issues. Here's an excerpt from the transcript:

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Democrats are trying to make the case. And "Keeping them Honest," John McCain does share many policy points with the president. Arguing for expanding off-shore oil production for example, the president said, it was environmentally safe and the senator echoed.

MCCAIN: It's safe enough these days. Not even hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coast of New Orleans and Houston.

FOREMAN: On many issues, the two generally agree. They oppose abortion rights and gay marriage. They want a strong border and immigration reform. McCain wants to keep the Bush tax cuts and free trade.

Both men put faith in market forces rather than government for helping people with healthcare and retirement. But there are also real differences.

Notice what's missing? Iraq and the GWOT. As Josh noted in the video, Foreman eventually touched on Iraq, but mostly to argue that McCain saw things differently than Bush.

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Let me conclude by saying there are two reasons why I'm posting this.

One reason is obviously to call out CNN for its overt bias against Barack Obama and for John McCain. Everybody knows how biased FOX is, but CNN at times can be just as bad. In fact, because some people take CNN more seriously than FOX, it can actually be more harmful.

The other reason has more to do with Democrats and those of us on the left, particularly those who are upset over FISA. Here's an example from the Murdoch-owned WSJ:

"There's an element of distrust now," Matt Stoller, a liberal activist and co-founder of the blog OpenLeft.com, said Monday at an Internet politics conference in New York.

Mr. Stoller said that Sen. Obama's position on the spy bill may not alienate the majority of his supporters, but the issue gives activists "a strong reason not to trust him or give him the benefit of the doubt."

Stoller subsequently penned a stern post titled "The Obama Accountability Movement Begins."

To which I respond: that is both too late and too early. Too late because the primaries were the time to be critical. I say this as someone who was critical of Obama at times (when Edwards, my preferred candidate, was still in the race). Too early because he hasn't been elected president yet.

Chris Bowers today wrote that he was "relieved that Obama flip-flopped, and stabbed progressives in the back, on telecom immunity and FISA." Why?

I am relieved because it seems to have finally done the job is causing the effects of the kool-aid to wear off in blogosphere comment sections. Now, rather than commenters criticizing bloggers for criticizing Obama, the general sentiment is that Obama isn't great, but we need to work to get him elected anyway.

I'm fully confident that Bowers understands it would be completely unacceptable for John McCain to win this election; our country could not possibly make a worse statement than to reward the Republican Party with four more years after the terrible job they have done managing our national affairs.

The only way I can make that square with his other sentiment is that there must be a general sense that Obama has this election in the bag. It sure seems easy to believe that he does, leading by 15 points in not one but two national polls. But on the other hand, on back-to-back days Gallup has had this race tied.

I tend to think that Barack Obama is a dominant favorite, perhaps prohibitively so. But even if there is a 5% chance of McCain winning (in truth, it must be higher), that is 5% too high.

I'm not saying people shouldn't be critical of decisions Obama makes between now and November; if you think some part of Barack Obama's campaign is misfiring, and that it's something that can be fixed, say so. If you disagree with him on some policy, say so.

But those crticisms should not -- must not -- designed to develop a negative attack narrative about Barack Obama, especially not one that plays into conservative hands. It's one thing to criticize him for being too moderate; but attacking his trustworthiness is not cool, not right now, especially when such attacks rely on comic strip characterizations of Barack, and it's even worse to suggest that his supporters didn't really know him, and are just beginning to see who he really is now. (Plus, it's wrong.)

So my bottom line is this: avoid the indulgence of developing narratives against Barack Obama until after the election. Assuming he wins, there will be plenty of time and room to criticize.

But for now, we've got an election to win, and failure is not an option. And if you spend even five minutes watching CNN, you'll realize just how heavily the deck is stacked against us.

I'm no economist, and I understand there was a tech bubble in the late 1990s, but this still can't be a good thing:

• Today's market close: June 25, 2008: 11,453.42
• 8.5 years ago: December 28, 1999: 11,476.71

Update: I should also note that it's not the first time in 8.5 years that the Dow has been below 11,453.42; the previous time was on September 11, 2006.

Update 2: I rechecked the numbers and it turns out the Dow closed above today's levels as far back as December of 1999 -- not January 2000 as I had first posted.

The presidential debate commission is recommending that all the debates be podium-free. In two of three debates, the candidates would be seated at a table, and in the third, a town hall debate, they would have stools and be able to walk around to interact with the audience.

This format would yield Barack's height advantage in 2 of 3 debates, but what it really brings to mind is a quirky little observation that I've had: Barack seems to do much, much better when he's sitting at a table than when he is standing behind a podium.

In 2008, there were five debates at tables (New Hampshire, Las Vegas, Hollywood, Austin, and Cleveland) and two with podiums (Myrtle Beach and Philadelphia). Other than his New Hampshire debate, I think Barack won all of the sitting debates, though the Austin one might have been a draw. He got pummeled in both of the standing debates. (Actually, South Carolina had a portion that was seated, and during that portion Barack was at his best.)

So my advice to whoever works on these things: give up that height advantage and keep 'em sitting!

Update: debrazza offered a convincing dissent in the comments:

I think a podium would actually be a major advantage for Obama. This is a clear advantage for McCain. While Obama did look more relaxed sitting down, particularly with the "reject and denounce" line, I think the moment that won him Iowa was when he was standing up and Hillary was cackling and said, "I'd like to hear that" in response to a question about why he has so many ex-Clintonites advising him and he said, "And I look forward to you advising me too Hillary". In my mind, that moment sealed the deal for his whole candidacy and he was standing up.

McCain is dead wood standing. If Obama is bad standing, McCain can only be worse. I think this is a bad idea for a number of reasons, but first and foremost, Obama needs to present himself in more formal settings, not less formal settings. Having BBQ cookout debates out the back of a wagon wheel only helps McCain because it plays to his strength and does not give voters the opportunity to see Obama is a highly presidential setting against his opponent. Behind a podium who looks better and more presidential, Obama or McCain?

Two big SCOTUS decisions today: one on handguns, one on the "Millionaire's Amendment" to the BCRA. I'm no constitutional lawyer, but both rulings, it would seem to me, give lie to the notion that somehow only so-called "liberals" can be judicial activists.

To me, the ruling striking down the "Millionaire's Amendment," which raises contribution limits for candidates who face wealthy challengers, is the weaker of the two rulings, but that's probably because I'm more sympathetic to the handguns argument on policy grounds.

My point isn't really to engage in any detail on the constitutional merits of either ruling; I'm not exactly qualified to do that. But from my lay perspective, it sure does look like the political views of the justices guided their votes and opinions, not the other way around.

I'm not necessarily lamenting this fact -- I'm just a little bored of hearing from conservatives about how liberal judges are big bad activists. But I'd much rather hear their complaints than be put in the position of constantly complaining myself, and that's just another reason why it is so important to elect Barack Obama to be our next president.

As he said in a diary on Daily Kos in 2005:

There is one way, over the long haul, to guarantee the appointment of judges that are sensitive to issues of social justice, and that is to win the right to appoint them by recapturing the presidency and the Senate.

Barack, who was explaining his decision to not support a fillibuster of John Roberts, continued:

And I don't believe we get there by vilifying good allies, with a lifetime record of battling for progressive causes, over one vote or position.    I am convinced that, our mutual frustrations and strongly-held beliefs notwithstanding, the strategy driving much of Democratic advocacy, and the tone of much of our rhetoric, is an impediment to creating a workable progressive majority in this country.

I found those quotes from another diary written a few days ago discussing Barack's approach towards FISA. It's a great diary, and makes a compelling case (one which I absolutely believe) that Barack's approach towards Roberts and towards FISA have been utterly consistent.

And as Barack himself explained in the diary there's an important lesson when a ruling or political vote doesn't go your way: keep your eyes on the prize. That's something that I think a lot of my friends ought to keep in mind these days.

We are in the process of removing from power one of the most destructive political machines in the history of the United States; the notion that the process would unfold smoothly and without compromise is foolish and naive. Hopefully, today's rulings are a reminder to those who are so up in arms about FISA that there is a larger picture here, and if by some chance Barack Obama does not become the next president of the United States, then FISA will be the least of our worries.

John McCain has a confusing energy plan timeline.

YouTube link:

Two items from Mark Halperin's to-do list for John McCain:

11. Spend a day (or two) in New York meeting with the columnists, publishers, anchors, executive producers, and news division presidents you have known and have cultivated for more than two decades — and remind them why they have always liked and respected you. (a.k.a: rejuvenate the base)

12. And/but recognize that your relationship with the press is different now, and it can’t ever be again like it was in the old days.

I wonder if those are meant to be messages for the media, or for McCain? Either way, they are damning, but damning of who depends on how you read it.

This was probably the silliest line from John McCain's "major" energy speech here in Las Vegas today:

Since I am not president, I cannot say the buck stops here -- but I will say that it must stop now.

Tough talk, eh?

As for the speech itself, he didn't offer anything new other than a name for his plan "Lexington Plan" or somesuch and a timeline for achieving what he calls "strategic independence" from foreign oil.

In a world of hostile and unstable suppliers of oil, this nation will achieve strategic independence by 2025.

Keep that target date -- 2025 -- in mind when you read this next sentence from the speech, a rehash of one of McCain's longstanding proposals:

If I am elected president, I will set this nation on a course to building 45 new reactors by the year 2030.

Okay, so 45 new nuke reactors by 2030. But his plan will achieve independence by 2025. Help me out with the math here. 2030 comes after 2025, right? Is he already announcing a five year delay? Or is his plan just terribly confused?

Update: I posted video of this here.

In brief:

• McCain campaign co-chairman and VP hopeful Tom Ridge lobbied the U.S government on behalf of Albania
• The former Pennsylvania governor and HHS secretary failed to register his nearly-$500K contract for two years (federal law requires registration to occur within 10 days)
• The McCain campaign is defending Ridge. A spokesman says Albania is "an important European ally" and "the governor is in full compliance with the McCain campaign’s lobbying policy"

It's clear that John McCain was linking the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan to oil and gas prices in his comments on Monday. What's not clear is exactly what he meant, and resolving that is going to require someone from the media to ask him or his campaign.

McCain 2007 [video]:

“I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."

McCain 2006:

McCain on the possibility Alito would vote to overturn Roe: "I've never agreed with Roe v. Wade so it wouldn't bother me any."

McCain 1999:

"I am pro-life. I have a moral belief that life begins at inception. I believe that we should work to repeal any law or any provision concerning abortion in my view." Then he added: "I'm for the repeal of Roe v. Wade."

McCain 1993: (this is the one that still baffles me): McCain votes against legislation to protect abortion clinics from right wing domestic terrorists. Only 30 Senators opposed the new law -- all radical anti-choice extremists.

Senate Passes Abortion-Clinic Crime Bill
By ADAM CLYMER

The Senate voted overwhelmingly today for a Federal law to prohibit bombings, arson and blockades at abortion clinics, and shootings and threats of violence against doctors and nurses who perform abortions..

The vote was 69 to 30. Twenty-eight senators who voted against Federal financing of abortions six weeks ago supported the measure, seeing it as a law-and-order matter rather than as an abortion issue.

The benefits of offshore drilling will be psychological -- but that's not the only thing that's in your head.

Please digg the YouTube link:

This appears to be a classic Kinsley Gaffe:

YouTube link

I noticed McCain's comments earlier today while watching video of his town hall yesterday in Fresno. A local woman asked him a question about gas prices, and McCain answered by making the case for his gas tax holiday. He then added this:

I also want to make sure that we will take concrete steps towards eliminating our dependence on foreign oil. And I am confident that uh, the, the conflicts that we are in in both Iraq and Afghanistan have also a bearing on that.

It's not entirely obvious to me what exactly he was trying to say, but however you slice it, this is the most explicit connection McCain has made between our current war policies in Iraq and Afghanistan and oil and gas prices.

Last month, McCain also connected war policies and oil, but his campaign dubiously argued he wasn't talking about current policies, but rather past and future policies. The media largely accepted this interpretation -- an interpretation that his latest comments should cause them to reevaluate, especially in light of the recent news that U.S. oil companies are now returning the country.

(I've also posted an extended video of his comments, including the entire question he was asked, and a transcript of his comments.)

H/T: Fresno Bee for the raw video.

CNN's Dana Bash reports in late December that John McCain said Benazir Bhutto's assassination in Pakistan could help his presidential campaign.

YouTube link

Key McCain quote: "I'm the one with the experience, the knowledge, and the judgment, so perhaps it may serve to enhance those credentials."

Thanks to read MC who sent in the tip!

Yesterday in Fresno, John McCain finally delivered some straight talk on his offshore drilling plan, admitting it wouldn't provide "immediate relief" on gas prices. So if it would take years to see any impact from offshore drilling, why the sudden urgency to rush it through Congress now without also passing a comprehensive long-term energy plan?

"Exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial," he said.

YouTube link

Full transcript:

"I don't see an immediate relief, but I do see that exploitation of existing reserves that may exist -- and in view of many experts that do exist off our coasts -- is also a way that we need to provide relief. Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial."

H/T: Fresno Bee for raw video, MSNBC for transcript.

Obviously the most egregious and contemptible thing about Charlie Black's comment that a terror attack would help John McCain's campaign was the hint that he was actually hoping for such a terrible thing to occur.

But the comment was wrong on more levels than just that -- here are three examples:

1. It was an invitation for attacks: As Keith Olbermann and Richard Clarke pointed out tonight on Countdown, for those terrorists who would prefer McCain to win, Black's comments was signal that attacking the United States before November could influence the election.
2. It was crying wolf: Clarke also made the case that Black's comment would serve to weaken the public's trust in the terror alert system, especially in the wake of Tom Ridge's admission that the alerts were gamed to influence the 2004 election.
3. It contemplated rewarding failure: John McCain himself has said that his top priority since 9/11 has been preventing another terrorist attack. The assumption that another attack would help McCain is predicted on the belief that failure would be rewarded; that is an unacceptable mindset on this of all issues.

I'm getting sick and tired of the circus of advisers being fired from campaigns for saying unpleasant things, but if there ever was an example of a comment that crossed far beyond the lines of decency -- this was it.

Charlie Black should go.

Only John McCain could dumb down an idea from George Bush. Bush proposes additional funding for research on car batteries; McCain says screw the research, just offer a $300 million prize to whoever develops one first.

YouTube link

USA Today actually did a little reporting on McCain's proposal and tracked down a company which says it will have such a batter on the market next year. I wonder who they are voting for. I've also heard some talk about an new lithium-ion battery from Toshiba. What about you? Got any $300 million ideas?

Leave aside for a moment the fact that John McCain's campaign lied to the media about a loan using public funding as collateral, and leave aside the legality of him withdrawing from the public finance system after having secured that loan. Also, leave aside the fact that John McCain would have had a $9 million spending edge over Obama if Obama took public financing.

Leave those aside for the moment because they aren't the only double-standards John McCain is seeking to enjoy in this public financing debate.

The other big double standard is probably the biggest one of them all: John McCain is portraying himself as an advocate for eliminating private funding from the general election when truth is that about one-half of his general election campaign will be financed by private sources.

I'm not talking about independent outside groups like 527s or PACs -- I'm talking about spending by John McCain and the Republican National Committee, the GOP's presidential election committee.

The New York Times hinted at this when McCain announced his decision to accept public funding:

The McCain campaign has long struggled to raise money, and was out-raised by several of his Republican rivals in the primary and vastly out-raised by Mr. Obama. But in recent months the campaign’s decision to raise money in tandem with the Republican National Committee, which is far richer than its Democratic counterpart, has yielded results.

The McCain campaign hoped that by accepting public financing – which will yield it more $84.1 million – and relying on the deep-pockets of the Republican National Committee, it will be able to stay competitive with Mr. Obama.

So the question is, how much private funding will be funneled into the McCain campaign by through his joint fundraising efforts with the Republican Party?

Inspired by debrazza, a frequent commenter on this blog, I pulled together the following datapoints which demonstrate the extent to which John McCain's campaign will be privately funded.

Public funding sources and limits:

• Public funding: $84.1 million

Private funding sources and limits:

(See FEC's Campaign Guide [.pdf] for definitions of each category.)

• Coordinated expenditures with RNC: $19.1 million
• Independent expenditures by RNC: unlimited (RNC spent $17.9 million in 2004)
• GOTV operations by RNC and state parties: unlimited (GOP spent $35.2 million in 2004)
• Signage and literature by state parties: unlimited

Minimum estimate of total campaign spending (from public and private sources), assuming at least 2004 levels for GOTV and independent expenditures:

• $156.3 million ($84.1 million public + $72.2 million private)

Conclusion: At minimum, nearly half of McCain's general election budget will come from private sources.

McCain will have no problem raising the money he needs. The RNC already has $40.6 million cash-on-hand, compared to $4.4 million for the DNC.

On top of the numbers above, John McCain has already raised more than $100 million in private funds for his 2008 campaign. Consequently, by the time November rolls around, it is nearly certain that 75% of John McCain's expenditures will have been raised from private sources.

So the bottom-line is that while John McCain rips Barack Obama for deciding to fund his campaign from private sources, the reality is that John McCain himself is planning on relying on private funds to run his own campaign.

Yet we hear nary a word of this in the press, which instead focuses on Barack Obama's change of position on using public financing for the general election. I'm not saying that the media shouldn't report his switch as a reversal; it was.

St. John McCain is claiming moral purity on this issue, but unless he affirmatively states that he will not use the private financing vehicles that are his disposal, his attacks ring hollow and reek of hypocrisy.

The McCain campaign is pushing back hard against Barack Obama's proposal to close the so-called "Enron loophole," blaming Bill Clinton for having signed into law:

The McCain [campaign] quickly fired back by noting that the Enron Loophole was supported by many Democrats, including ex-President Bill Clinton, and that McCain had long spoken out against it -- and had voted in 2003 to close the loophole.

"The truth is Barack Obama is following John McCain's lead to close a Wall Street loophole that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton," said campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds.

There's a problem with the McCain campaign's response, however. If they are going to attack Bill Clinton for signing the Enron loophole into law, it's only fair to point out that John McCain himself supported its passage in the first place.

The legislation in question is H.R. 4577, which unanimously passed the Senate on December 15, 2000. Clinton signed it into law on December 21 of that year. The Enron loophole itself (H.R. 5660) is actually an amendment to H.R. 4577, which was an appropriations bill for the labor, health, and education departments.

Given the omnibus nature of the legislation, I probably wouldn't have aggressively attacked McCain for supporting passage of the Enron loophole, but now that his campaign is attacking Bill Clinton for signing it into law, it is completely fair game to attack John McCain for putting it on Clinton's desk.

The larger problem for McCain, who has at times supported efforts to close the Enron loophole, is that nobody is more responsible for the loophole becoming law than his national campaign co-chairman and economic adviser, former Texas Senator Phil Gramm.

Obama is pushing for the closure of the so-called "Enron loophole" as part of his plan to lower gas prices. The loophole permits unregulated energy futures trading in electronic markets and is likely a contributing factor in the high price of oil.

Today, John McCain kicked off a two week initiative to offer his "bold" vision to "break our strategic dependence on oil." (This is the same plan that he promised will "prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.")

McCain spoke in California and focused on the transportation sector. Here's my summary of his key points (full text here).

(1) We must produce more oil, use less of it, and develop alternative energy sources. [This is the standard GOP policy framework.]

(2) Auto fuel efficiency standards (CAFE) are not effective because they are enforced by small fines. [He offered no specifics. Moreover, even though he's supported some new CAFE standards, he has opposed the toughest standards which he seems to be demanding now.]

(3) Expand usage of alcohol-based fuels by eliminating tariffs on Brazilian sugar-based ethanol and ending subsidies for corn-based ethanol. [The NYT hit Obama pretty hard on this issue today, with some justification.]

(4) Replace all existing incentives programs for energy-efficient cars with a sliding scale tax credit topping out at $5,000 per car for a zero emissions car. He calls this a Clean Car Challenge and the tax credit would be available to every car purchaser.

(5) Offer a $300 million prize for the first person to develop a battery that "has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

I have to say that this all strikes me as pretty lame. Points 1 and 2 are essentially meaningless. I tend to agree with point 3 and would be interested in exploring point 4.

His fifth point, which is really the centerpiece of his proposal, seems remarkably stupid though.

First, it's rewarding the development of a specific kind of power source rather than the development of a power source that meets a specific objective. If the goal is independence from foreign oil and zero emissions, why not just reward a zero emissions, fuel efficient motor that may or may not include a battery?

Second, without even looking at the data, I'm sure that anyone who could develop a revolutionary technology for powering vehicles would make more than $300 million in the marketplace from that invention. The problem is getting the capital needed to conduct the research in the first place, and McCain's plan doesn't address that.

McCain has said he'll be spending next two weeks detailing his vision, but so far he's off to a fairly weak start.

John McCain promises a new energy policy that will "prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East."

YouTube link

McBush quickly offered an unconvincing clarification, saying that when he was talking about war for oil he meant the first war in Iraq, not the second one. But his remark came just after making the claim that if we withdrew our forces form Iraq now we would have to return when violence flared up again. In other words, the reason we are in Iraq today is oil.

Chevron CEO David O'Reilly from yesterday's NYT (emphasis added):

Q. President Bush this week called for lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling. What impact will this have on future oil supplies in the United States?

A. It is a good thing. The president is going in the right direction here. But I would have gone even further and lifted the moratorium with a presidential order. But you also have to remember that the lag time between exploration and first production is still in the range of eight to 10 years. Still, it would send a very strong message to the world that U.S. energy policy is shifting and is going toward a little more supply.

Q. How much more oil can be produced in these regions there?

A. That’s really impossible to know until we have more exploration. But I know the chances are pretty good it would expand our supply. Let’s suppose that we expanded production by one million barrels a day 15 years from now. At over $100 a barrel — remember this is a hypothesis — that would still mean $3 billion a month less in oil imports. That would have a demonstrable impact.

I'd be open to expanding drilling in the context of a credible long term energy policy, but we'd be crazy to do this as a one-off. (O'Reilly's notion that Bush should have done this by fiat gives you a sense of just how much respect he has for the democratic process.)

December 2006 was the fourth deadliest month of the Iraq war for American military forces -- there were 112 casualties. At the time, however, according to a WaPo/ABC survey, just 34% of the public thought we were winning, while 52% thought we were losing. Nonetheless, 48% wanted to stay, and 48% wanted to withdraw.

Flash forward 18 months to June 2008 and casualties are way down -- 18 so far this month. Overall, 38% now think we are winning and 46% think we are losing, shrinking an 18 point gap to 8 points. Nonetheless, just 41% want to stay compared to 55% who want to withdraw.

Enthusiasm for the candidacies of Obama and McCain, from the recent WaPo/ABC News poll:

• Obama: 55% enthusiastic, including 28% very enthusiastic (44% unenthusiastic)
• McCain: 42% enthusiastic, including 9% very enthusiastic (57% unenthusiastic)

Nate Silver points to the problem Republicans have if their campaign strategy is to paint Obama as liberal:

In a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted last week, 67 percent of likely voters described Obama as liberal, including 36 percent who described him as very liberal. By contrast, only 45 percent of voters described John Kerry as liberal in May of 2004, and 53 percent by November, 2004.

(snip)

If their strategy is to say "Hey! Hey! Barack Obama is a liberal!", the American public's reaction is likely to be "Well, no shit! We're voting for him anyway."

Nate also points out that Obama's personal favorability numbers (net positive of 25) are far higher than John Kerry's were in 2004. Given the fact that voters already see Obama as a liberal (for better or for worse), that pretty much leaves McCain with character-based attacks as their only option.

The problem for McCain is that if his campaign aggressively pushes such attacks, it could end up hurting him more than Barack -- just as those attacks hurt Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries and caucuses.

Update: The ABC/WaPo poll asked the ideology question somewhat differently, yielding a different result. That poll found that 36% felt Obama was too liberal while 52% thought he was about right (5% thought he was too conservative). There would seem to be room to grow that 36% number. (Ironically, 19% thought McCain was too liberal, while 34% thought he was too conservative -- just 40% thought he was about right.)

As I noted late Friday night, the McCain campaign raised the question of whether or not Barack Obama's new stage prop was illegal -- punishable by up to six months in jail.

The issue at hand is the similarity of the prop to the presidential seal. The funny thing is that it turns out the GOP has been using its own modified version of the seal to raise money for Senate candidates. Obviously, nobody is going to jail, nor should they, but it is another good example that they need to get themselves some folks with a higher IQ over there at the McCain headquarters.

Village Idiot David Broder:

“McCain benefits from a long-established reputation as a man who says what he believes,” writes Broder. “His shifts in position that have occurred in this campaign seem not to have damaged that aura. Obama is much newer to most voters, less familiar and more dependent on the impressions he is only now creating.”

Broder asserts this as if it were some naturally occuring phenomenon, not the result of a lazy press corps hopelessly in love with Teflon John McCain. C&L has more of Broder's inane ravings.

The Jed Report presents A Don't Throw Stones Production:

Please digg the YouTube link:

In the thirst for power, patriotism was their weapon -- but they could not meet their own false standards. They were the legacy of Karl Rove and George Bush, and they trapped themselves in a glass house of their own making.

Change is coming November 4, 2008.

A couple of quick items:

First, I just logged onto my YouTube account and noticed that its traffic had crossed another milestone of sorts -- there have now been 4,000,999 videos played from the channel, almost all of them over the past four months. Thanks to everybody whose watched the videos and sent them around to friends and others!

Second, a bit of bad new / good news: I won't be posting a Daily McBush today, but I will be posting another video later today, probably around noon Pacific time. It's a trailer-style video like the ones I did in the primary campaign (Hillary in Tuzla and Bosnia and Back Again), but now the focus is on John McCain and his campaign's attacks on Michelle Obama.

Update @ 1:41PM: Well, it's taken me a bit longer than I had expected to finish the trailer. I'm uploading it now and will post it soon, hopefully it will finish processing by 2 o'clock.

So AP's David Espo offers what at first seems to be a reasonably harsh critique of the McCain campaign, but then at the end of the article...he takes back everything he just said:

And in truth, no candidate can expect to make it through a grueling presidential campaign without suffering one or two self-inflicted wounds -- the most grievous of which are far worse than anything that has happened to McCain.

For example, writes Espo, let's talk about "bitter-cling":

Obama himself spent days in the Democratic primary race trying to explain away remarks he made at a closed-door fundraiser that small-town Americans who were bitter over their economic plight turned to religion.

Republicans took notice of that one, and Obama can expect to hear more about that moment in the fall.

Espo is not telling the truth here -- Obama was explaining political behavior, not religious behavior -- but that doesn't stop him from saying that compared to Obama's "bitter-cling" moment, John McCain is gaffe-free:

Arguably, McCain has yet to make that kind of gaffe despite enduring a candidacy of remarkable adversity in which he went from front-runner to the campaign cellar and back again.

Well, to the extent that Espo is right, the reason isn't that McCain hasn't tried -- it's that the media has given grandpa a free ride.

The rude awakening that these reporters will face in this election is that their power has faded: they are no longer the gatekeepers. The internet is changing all that, and we're not going to put up with their bull any longer.

Update: Over at Daily Kos, DanK is Back noticed the same thing. Update 2: debrazza also noticed the same thing here as well, way earlier in the day.

The pooper scooper is so yesterday: tomorrow is here today. (At first, I thought this was a joke, but apparently a store at Amazon.com actually sells the stuff.)

Late last year, the FEC approved $5.8 million in public funds for John McCain's presidential campaign. That sounds simple enough, but there's a hitch: even though the money was approved in December, it wasn't actually scheduled to be disbursbed until March.

Therefore, if McCain wanted to use the money, he need to take out a loan from a bank, using the FEC's approval as collateral. Such loans are standard operating procedure. (John Edwards did exactly this.)

McCain, however, wanted to preserve the option of not participating in the public financing system, so on December 20 (that date is important) his spokesman told Politico's Ken Vogel that he hadn't taken out any such loans.

Campaigns have traditionally taken out bank loans against FEC certifications of matching funds like the ones issued Thursday. ... McCain, an Arizona senator, has “not made a decision on matching funds,” said spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker, who added the campaign hasn’t borrowed against anticipated matching funds.

So to recap so far:

1. McCain was authorized for $5.8 million in public funds
2. If he wanted access to any of that before March, he needed to take out a loan using the funds as collateral.
3. On December 20, 2007, a McCain spokesman told a journalist that McCain had not taken out any loans using the funds as collateral.

Here's where the lie comes in: John McCain did take out a loan using the funds as collateral, and he took it out before December 20, 2007. The Washington Post broke the news in mid-February (h/t: Mark Schmitt):

John McCain's cash-strapped campaign borrowed $1 million from a Bethesda bank two weeks before the New Hampshire primary by pledging to enter the public financing system if his bid for the presidency faltered, newly disclosed records show.

The original loan agreement (h/t: Mark Schmitt) is dated November 24, 2007. On December 17, 2007, another $1 million was added to the loan -- using public funds as collateral. Here's the key part of the agreement:

Borrower will...grant to Lender, as additional collateral for the Loan, a first priority perfected security interest in and to all Borrower's right, title and interest in and to the public matching funds program.

You cannot get any more clear than that. According to the amended agreement, John McCain used public funds as collateral for the loan. The amendment was dated December 17 and was signed by Rick Davis,  his campaign manager, on December 18.

Yet two days later, the McCain campaign spokeswoman told the media the campaign had entered into no such loan agreement.

So now the question is: where is the media's outrage at the McCain campaign's bald-faced lie about public financing?

It's too bad the press is utterly incapable of offering (or unwilling to offer) context. The point here is that John McCain flip-flopped on the 2008 public financing system in February, yet there was zero outrage from the media. Here's a post I wrote about the issue before Super Tuesday:

Mon Feb  4,  9:56 PM
McCain opts out of public financing system

This is good news for Barack Obama, who has said that if the Republican nominee abides by spending limits, he would too. Obama has far more ability to raise money than McCain, and now that McCain has abandoned the primary campaign public financing system, Obama shouldn't even consider abiding by the general election public finance system.

No public funds for McCain By: Jeanne Cummings Feb 4, 2008 08:47 PM EST

With the Republican presidential nomination within reach, John McCain is reshaping his campaign to press on without public financing that could limit his spring spending, senior advisers say.

McCain's flip-flop was far more nefarious than Obama's and as Joe Sudbay explains, might even have been illegal.

In simple terms, what he did was enter the public financing system during the primary with the intent of withdrawing from it if he determined that he could raise more money outside the system than in. In other words, he got the best of both worlds: the potential for vast sums from private interests, with a guaranteed base amount of money from the public.

Mark Schmitt explains it in more detail.

I don't really have a problem characterizing Obama's decision on public financing as a reversal from his 2007 position, but it's been clear for a long time that he was going to change course. For example, here's the NYT on February 15:

Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign said Thursday that it stood by a year-old pledge made with Senator Barack Obama that each would accept public financing for the general election if the nominee of the opposing party did the same. But Mr. Obama’s campaign refused to reaffirm its earlier commitment.

Given that what he did on earlier this week was entirely consistent with what he had said he would do in the middle of February, it seems to me the media has gone a bit haywire over the past few days.

Jake Tapper runs through the list of 15 questions asked to Obama at his press conference yesterday and finds that a mere 20% focused on his change of heart on public financing.

I'm willing to bet that if you divided the questions into those coming from the national press versus the ones coming from the local Florida press, all the public financing questions came from national press.

From The American Conservative Magazine blog:

He Shall Kill

Posted on June 19th, 2008 by Freddy Gray

In attempting to expose Barack Obama’s “confusion and indecision” over bringing terrorists to justice, John McCain gets all bloodthirsty,

Let me be clear, under my administration Osama bin Laden will either be killed on the battlefield or executed.

Quite a promise. Does he really think bin Laden can be found on a battlefield?

Good question.

John McCain: "I do not support Roe v. Wade. It should be overturned."

If you know any pro-choice voters thinking about supporting John McCain, please get this video in front of them. Other than that, open thread.

I guess the McCain campaign's new credo is that when team Obama tests out a dumb idea, they need to come out with one that is even dumber.

Today's example: the Obama campaign tries out a quirky new faux presidential seal emblazoned with the Latin words vero possumus ("yes we can"). It was at least in part tongue-in-cheek, but still it wasn't a good idea; besides being ugly, it is easy fodder for the humorless.

Which brings us to the McCain campaign. Instead of taking an easy layup, they treated the issue like it was a matter of national security, suggesting that someone (perhaps Barack himself?) might have to go to jail because of the new prop.

Seriously (they even include the proper section of U.S. Code - emphasis by McCain campaign):

Is the Great Seal of Obama even legal?

Whoever, except as authorized under regulations promulgated by the President and published in the Federal Register, knowingly manufactures, reproduces, sells, or purchases for resale, either separately or appended to any article manufactured or sold, any likeness of the seals of the President or Vice President, or any substantial part thereof, except for manufacture or sale of the article for the official use of the Government of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

LOL. What a bunch of tools.

This must mean they want to lock up The Ramones, Aaron Sorkin, Martin Sheen, and even Rupert Murdoch? Hell, even the Bush Administration isn't as extreme as McCain when it comes to protecting the presidential seal. When Bush & Co. got annoyed that The Onion was using it, they sent a cease and desist letter. McCain would have sent out a SWAT team or something, I guess.

Hypothetically speaking, if Barack Obama were to have participated in the public finance system, here's how much money he would have been allocated over the last two months of the campaign: $75.5 million. John McCain, meanwhile, would have been allocated $84.2 million -- $8.7 million more than Barack Obama.

The reason? A peculiar quirk in federal election law declaring that the general election begins at a different time for each candidate -- after the Democratic convention for Obama, and after the Republican convention for McCain. Although both candidates would receive the same total sum, allocated on a daily basis, McCain would actually receive 11% more money than Obama.

This problem was even more acute in 2004, when John Kerry had just under $48 million to spend over the last 2 months of the campaign, compared with $75 million for Bush -- whopping $27 million, 57% edge.

Just another item for the list of things things lawmakers must resolve when they finally get around to fixing the presidential election financing system (if they ever do).

Just when you thought McBush's campaign couldn't get any more moranic (sic), he takes his message of economic growth...to Ottawa.

I love Canada, but seriously, when the economy is your worst issue, this is the very last image you want to project:

It's not a Photoshop (h/t: Avi Zenilman)

Maybe he would have been better off if he had stuck with familiar green screen background:

Okay, this is a Photoshop

Update: Joe Sudbay has more on McBush's economic plan for Canada.

First the good news:

Barack's Bounce

A new NEWSWEEK Poll shows that he has a substantial double-digit lead, 51 percent to 36 percent, over McCain among registered voters nationwide.

There's no doubt that this poll accurately reflects Barack's bounce, and there's no doubt that he's leading.

As for whether he's actually leading by 15 points -- color me skeptical.

Remember that there's an element of dumb luck in every poll, measured by margin of error. (There's another type of error that comes in with survey methodology and likely voter modeling, but that's a different story.)

This poll's margin of error is 4 points, but that doesn't mean that the poll will never be off by more than 4 points. What it means, technically, is that the poll will accurate within 4 points 95% of the time (2 standard deviations). In other words, 5% of the time, it will be inaccurate. (Even if it's outside the 4 points however, it's more likely to be closer to the 4 points than further.)

:: :: ::

For context, I took a look at all the 2004 national polling that I could get my hands on -- a total of 270 polls, including Rasmussen's weekly averages.

Kerry's largest lead in any poll was 12 points and came in CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken in the middle of February, right about when he wrapped up the nomination.

Bush's largest lead in any poll was 16 points and came in a Pew Research survey from September 8, right after the GOP convention.

As for Newsweek itself, the largest lead they showed for Kerry was 7 points after the Democratic convention, and the largest lead they showed for Bush was 11 points after the GOP convention.

So I think we can fairly say that this poll absolutely confirms Barack Obama's lead, but I also think it would be a mistake to assume that his lead is actually 15 points wide.

Not quite Shermanesque, but this is good enough:

“My position has not changed,” Mr. McCain said here on his campaign bus.

“People have said to me, ‘I’m going to bring you new information about ANWR, how environmentally we can make it safe,’” he said. “I’ll be glad to
accept new information but my position has not changed.”

Politically, this is important for three reasons: (1) it deepens the wedge between him and his conservative base; (2) now that he has reaffirmed his opposition to drilling in ANWR, it takes away a potential advantage for him against Barack Obama in Alaska, a state which Barack might be able to put in play; and (3) if he does ever flip-flop on this issue, his statement yesterday will make the flip-flop even bigger news.

In light of St. John McCain's claim to moral superiority over Barack Obama on the issue of campaign finance, it's worth taking another look at the case of the Vets for Freedom PAC, the organization behind a swiftboat style attack on Barack Obama.

The notable thing about Vets for Freedom is that the messages in their ad are the exact same messages being used by John McCain himself -- and his campaign is closely tied with the organization. It's illegal for a campaign to coordinate message activity with a PAC, yet there's been virtually no coverage of the story.

Here's a video I put together a few weeks ago on the issue:

Update: If you haven't yet seen John McCain saying "I really didn't love America until I was deprived of her company", here's video from Dan Abrams' show including McCain's comments:

:: :: ::

McCain's most recent formulation of "I really didn't love America" came in March during a one-hour interview on Sean Hannity's show on FOX News Channel. Here's a transcript:

HANNITY: You spent two years of this five-and-a-half-year period in solitary confinement. What does that do to a person, to spend that much time in solitary confinement?

MCCAIN: I think it makes you a better person. Obviously, it makes you love America. I really didn't love America until I was deprived of her company.

Obviously, there's absolutely nothing wrong with what McCain said to Sean Hannity. (Edit: I put this in bold to make sure people get the point that the issue here is the hypocrisy of attacking Michelle, and FOX News' exclusion of the comment from their transcript.)

But it does create a bit of a problem for Hannity and the rest of the GOP freakshow,  because McCain's comment was essentially identical to Michelle Obama's comment about being "really proud" of America.

Combined with McCain's concession that "it's tough" to be proud of America, his comments on Hannity's program pretty much eviscerate the right-wing attack machine's ability to go smear Michelle Obama.

I probably should not have been surprised when I discovered that the FOX News' transcript of the interview does not contain any reference to the exchange whatsoever. Nada.

Fortunately, even though FOX excluded the remarks from its transcript, the transcript on RealClearPolitics.com does contain a full transcript of the exhange -- otherwise McCain's remarks might never have come to light.

I suppose there might be some innocent explanation for how FOXNews.com somehow managed to erase that politically damaging exchange from their website, but I'll bet the odds of that explanation being true are less than 1%. Probably far less.

Everybody already knows that FOX is conservative, but doesn't doctoring the transcript -- as they seem to have done -- violate every journalistic standard an MSM organization should have?

John McCain managed to step in it twice yesterday during his trip to tour Iowa's flood zone.

First, the state of Iowa asked him not to come, fearful that his presence would siphon off needed law enforcement officers. Iowa officials had made the same request of Barack Obama, who respected their wishes, but McCain ignored their request:

Patrick Dillon, Culver's chief of staff, said the governor was concerned that McCain's trip would divert local law enforcement from the flood recovery effort to provide security for McCain.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama canceled a scheduled visit to eastern Iowa last week at the request of state officials.

Second, McCain's opposition to legislation that would boosted funding for Iowa's flood control projects earned him a rebuke from a State Senator.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain opposed legislation last year that included money for flood control in Des Moines, which shows he is wrong to push for reforms to the congressional earmark system, a Democratic lawmaker charged Thursday.

State Sen. Jack Hatch of Des Moines said the earmarked money was needed to relieve water problems on the city's north side, which were magnified over the weekend when a levee break forced an evacuation of the Birdland area and ruined several dozen homes and businesses.

Well done, McBush!

I decided to rename "Your Daily Moment of McCain" to "The Daily McBush" because it's shorter, and because it's fun to type McBush.

Open thread.

Mark Halperin points to some incredibly harsh commentary by AP's Liz Sidoti on Barack Obama today. Halperin says that AP is "objective," which must be a joke, because Sidoti's hit piece was anything but objective.

Sidoti hearts McCain...
...with doughnuts.

It opens by emphatically declaring that "Barack Obama chose winning over his word" and concludes with the bitter observation "so much for being a straight shooter."

Normally, I wouldn't waste my time or yours with Sidoti's nonsense, but there's an amusing story to tell involving her that's just too good not to share. It goes back to April 14, when both John McCain and Barack Obama appeared at an event for newspaper editors hosted by the AP.

At the event, the head of AP addressed Barack as "Osama" while John McCain was given a box of Dunkin' Donuts -- with sprinkles. And coffee, with a little cream and a little sugar. By none other than Liz Sidoti.

One of Ben Smith's readers makes an interesting catch: the Obama campaign will air Barack's first general election ad in four states that the campaign hadn't previously signalled as targets, and dropped three states that it had. Added: AK, IN, MT, and ND. Dropped: OR, NJ, and WA.

I don't know what the internal deliberations are inside the Obama campaign, but here's some external validation that they are doing the right thing: when Nate Silver assessed Obama's initial target list, he identified IN, MT, and ND as states that should be added, and FL, GA, OR, and WA as states that should be dropped. Nate then subsequently made the case for putting AK in play.

That means there's an overlap in six of the seven changes made by the Obama campaign (NJ is the only exception). I don't know if the Obama camp reads Nate's blog or not, but I do know that Nate is a smart guy, and it's a good sign that the Obama campaign and he have identified more or less the same set of states. (The biggest gap is probably on Georgia -- I've been meaning to write a little about that and will get to it soon.)

New York Times, September 13, 2002:

President Bush has formally changed the face of America's primary enemy from Osama bin Laden, whereabouts unknown, to Saddam Hussein, an old nemesis who cheated both Mr. Bush's father and President Clinton out of fulfillment of the terms of surrender that ended the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

(snip)

Senator John McCain, the Republican from Arizona who contested Mr. Bush for the nomination in 2000, made a point of saying today on Capitol Hill: ''I am very certain that this military engagement will not be very difficult. It may entail the risk of American lives and treasure, but Saddam Hussein is vastly weaker than he was in 1991.''

Mr. McCain also said it was possible that military action may take place before Congress comes back in January.

He appeared with the Senate's Republican leader, Trent Lott, to express strong support for the president's call to arms. They said they would work to convince the Democrats, who control the Senate, to pass a resolution authorizing military action against Iraq before Congress adjourns for the November midterm elections.

Now John McCain blames George Bush for failing to capture bin Laden, and his advisors make up hypothetical attacks on Barack Obama (oddly enough, those attacks suggest McCain assumes that Barack will capture bin Laden, unlike Bush and McCain).

Jake Tapper allows the McCain campaign to mock itself:

McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann today on a conference call noted that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said he didn't want to make Osama bin Laden a martyr.

"The last I checked, a martyr is someone who dies for a cause or someone who is killed for a cause," Scheunemann said. "It seems that Senator Obama is ruling out capital punishment."

Needless to say, as Tapper explains, Scheunemann's remark was false -- Obama supports the death penalty for bin Laden.

But Scheunemann's attack was also stoooopid in the extreme. If you take his words as literally as he was trying to talk Obama's, then the following conclusion is inescapable:

 John McCain wants to turn Osama bin Laden into a martyr.

If McCain can catch him, that is.

Sometimes you look at what is occupying the attention of the campaign-o-sphere and you just have to yawn.

Today's example: Barack's decision to allow his supporters to fund his campaign directly. (Was there any suspense about this?)

I checked the last 10 posts at each of the 4 MSM campaign blogs that I regularly follow and 22 focused on the decision. That's 22 of 40. Yawn.

Mostly it's McCain barking about how Barack Obama made a political decision or something like that.

Newsflash! It's true! Barack is making a political decision. Just like you're supposed to do in political campaigns.

Now, by getting all yappy and outraged by Barack's decision, John McCain is also acting just like a politician -- a losing one.

A commenter just brought this new website to my attention:

John McCain has LOTS of experience with women, and if you're looking for women's issues, John McCain has got TONS of issues! John McCain will win when voters go to the polls in January. Never surrender!

http://www.womenforjohnmccain.com/

The more women (and men who care about them) see the website, the more issues McCain will have, so check it out!

In the face of withering criticism from right-wing Republicans, John McCain is now signaling his willingness to get behind another key element of George Bush's energy policy:  oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Just six months ago McCain's opposition to drilling in ANWR was unequivocal:

I believe that ANWR is one of the pristine areas of the world, and I have opposed it. And I also believe that the amount of energy that could be recovered from that area is not that impactful, and I certainly wouldn't want to see another Exxon-Valdez.

And now McCain is pledging that he "will go back and look at it again."

I have opposed drilling there, but as I say, I will look at all policies that I have in light of this changed economic environment and the challenge the United States of America. I will go back and look at it again, and I've looked at it many times, and I will be more than happy to examine it again. But right now, and for a long period of time, that's been my position.

So the question is: will John McCain cave in to his party's right-wing and embrace Bush's policy on ANWR, or will he hold on to his principles and attempt to salvage the last vestiges of his brand?   

Update: And what would the impact be of drilling in ANWR be on gas prices? $0.02 per gallon. In 2025.

Apparently, talk is cheap - so open thread.

David Lightman of McClatchy Newspapers demonstrates once again why McClatchy is so much better than its MSM competition:

McCain's call for offshore oil drilling won't bring relief soon

WASHINGTON — Opening America's coastal waters to oil drilling, as John McCain urged in an address Tuesday, is unlikely to provide Americans with more oil for at least seven to 10 years.

That's the estimate from the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade group.

(snip)

The Interior Department offered a wide range of estimates of how much oil might be within reach of U.S. offshore drilling in a 2006 report. It estimated that the Outer Continental Shelf could hold 115.4 billion barrels. However, it also estimated that recoverable reserves off U.S. coasts in areas now banned from production probably hold only about 19 billion barrels.

(snip)

One thousand million barrels equals 1 billion, so if there are 19 billion barrels in the areas McCain would open to drilling, that's enough to provide about 920 days, or about 2.5 years, of current U.S. consumption.

Despite all this, John McCain cheerfully lies to the American public, claiming "short term" benefits if his policy proposal is adopted. The funny thing is that it's not just McClatchy and other reasonable people who are contradicting John McCain: it's also John McCain himself, who said just three weeks ago that it would "take years" to see the benefits of expanded offshore drilling.

Jake Tapper outlines the political box McCain wants to paint Obama into on habeas corpus, closing with the following question:

What do you want to hear from a candidate when asked about Osama bin Laden's rights?

Here's what I want to hear: "We got him."

Until John Bush McCain can say that, it's time for him to STFU. Failing that, McCain certainly shouldn't cite bin Laden during his attacks on political rivals.

:: :: ::

John McCain, June 16:

Providing additional incentives for states to permit [oil] exploration off their coasts would be very helpful in the short term resolving our energy crisis.

John McCain, May 29:

But I also have to tell you, with those resources, which would take years to develop, it would only postpone or temporarily relieve our dependency on fossil fuels

The St. Petersburg Times resolves the dispute between the two McCains (emphasis added):

Short-term help? Leave aside that current oil prices are being driven more by escalating world demand and speculative market trading. Oil doesn't just squirt out of the sea and fuel up gas tanks. Under the best of circumstances, new oil resources take a decade to bring to the market.

(I've updated and bumped this post with a new video.)

h/t: HuffPo's Sam Stein for catching the flip-flop. Sam also notes that McCain's position is at odds with a government study indicating expanded drilling wouldn't have an impact on prices until 2030.

I hate getting all sentimental, but it there was something moving about the fact that at the Russert family's request, John McCain and Barack Obama sat next to each other today at Tim Russert's funeral.

Wolf Blitzer and CNN's Washington Bureau chief described the scene. Video here, but you have to watch an ad first.

Paul Krugman catches a couple good ones.

First, McCain rips Obama for wanting to increase the top estate tax rate to 55%. Truth? Obama wants exempt the first $3.5 million entirely and the top rate would be 45%.

Second (keep in mind that Obama's tax plan would impact 479,000 small business owners, not 21 million):

So John McCain makes a typically Bush-like conflation: there are 21 million small business owners; there are small business owners in the top two tax brackets; therefore, Barack Obama plans to raise taxes on 21 million small businesses. It was nonsense, of course. (Most living things are microbes; men are living things; therefore, most men are microbes.) But sure enough, McCain’s claim is being reported as a fact.

You know what? I agree with Susan Rice on this one.

Even if you don't watch the whole thing, the first 55 seconds of Michelle Obama on The View are awesome.

Politico's Jen DiMascio reports that the GAO upheld Boeing's protest of the the USAF decision to award a $40 billion contract for aerial refueling tankers to Airbus.

Almost instantly, Boeing backer Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) was ready to declare victory.

“COMPLETE VINDICATION,” his spokesman, George Behan, said in an e-mail.

I get a tingly feeling when I hear that Norm Dicks and George Behan were happy about the decision.

The background here is that the USAF awarded a huge contract to Airbus -- a decision made possible only by John McCain's personal intervention in the process. McCain, of course, is surrounded by Airbus lobbyists who supported his efforts and now work or worked on his campaign.

Update: Here's the Seattle Times on the story. The GAO decision is not binding, but it is a huge defeat for the process McCain wanted, and will put enormous pressure on the USAF to reopen the decision. Also: Everett Herald, Seattle PI, and New York Times.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was interviewed by the NPR affiliate in West Virginia for a report on John McCain's peculiar decision to seek and out and then tout Icky Frye's endorsement. The report has now been filed and you can listen to it here.

Unfortunately, the audio is missing the first couple of paragraphs of the story, so I'll post them here:

McCain appreciates support of 'prominent' Democrat Phillip 'Icky' Frye

By Scott Finn

Remember Phillip "Icky" Frye? In 2003, he accused his wife, a state employee, of having an affair with then-Governor Bob Wise. In 2004, he ran for governor, with the slogan, "Phillip Frye for Governor: He’ll do his job, not his staff."

Well now, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain has picked Frye as one of 30 prominent Democrats and Independents nationwide who support his campaign.

Frye, a musician, repairman and professional fly-tier, is best known for blowing the whistle on his wife and Governor Wise. Wise then decided not to seek re-election.

Listen to the report from Scott Finn of West Virginia Public Broadcasting (.mp3 / 2:53)

By the way, as a teaser, by listening to the clip, you can find out a couple of things about me that you might not have known, such as my full name and the name of the U.S. Senator for whom I used to work!

One other thing: I sort of detected a hint of a southern accent in my voice. Did you hear the same thing? (I was born and learned to talk in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, even though I mostly spent my childhood in Seattle, NYC, and Philly.)

I don't know much about energy policy other than I think it is important, so I poked around a bit and and came across a few statistics that you might find interesting:

• The United States consumes about 7.5 billion barrels of oil each year
• Domestically, we have about 21 billion barrels of proved oil reserves, enough for 3 years. (Proved oil reserves are known reserves that can be extracted in an economically viable manner.)
• We have about 4 billion barrels of proved offshore oil reserves, enough for about 7 months, and last year produced 431 million barrels from them.
• Without considering economic factors, we probably have about 86 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil in the nation's outer-continental shelf, enough for 11 or 12 years. (Presumably most of that would economically recoverable at current prices; the report didn't even consider the possibility of prices above $80 a barrel, and they are now closing in on twice that amount.)

I also read John McCain's energy speech from earlier today, and I was struck by how closely it hewed to the Republican orthodoxy on energy policy. He did reference needing to gain independence from oil, and promised to deliver a plan to do that within the next two weeks, but other than that his speech was utterly conventional, basically dig, drill, burn, and nuke.

I'm not rigidly opposed to more domestic oil production or nuclear power production, but only if it comes in the context of a broader plan for economic growth, energy security, and environmental protection. I think George Bush could have comfortably given McCain's speech, and I'm not just saying that for rhetorical purposes.

We'll see if McCain offers a credible plan for energy alternatives over the next couple of weeks, but I'm skeptical.

The only reason why we are even having this discussion about habeas corpus rights for bin Laden is because George Bush has been unable to kill or capture him, and if past is prologue, questioning what a McCain administration would do with bin Laden is an entirely academic question.

It's remarkable that they deflect attention from their failure to find bin Laden with false attacks on Barack Obama when after nearly seven years, they haven't even been able to find bin Laden themselves.

And it's galling that McCain's campaign is willing to invoke the Nazis in such an attack.

Over at The McCain Report, official McCain campaign blogger Michael Goldfarb tells another lie:

Kerry: Obama Will Give bin Laden Habeas

Missed this the first time around, but as reports of the call make their way into print, we now learn Kerry made clear that an Obama administration will grant habeas corpus to Osama bin Laden.

Here's what really happened: a reporter asked John Kerry about assertions by McCain operatives that Obama "would want to give Osama Bin Laden habeas corpus rights." Kerry's response:

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that they have those rights -- this is not Barack Obama, this is the Supreme Court of the United States. If John McCain were president he'd have to give them those rights. This is a phony argument.

Kerry's point was that the Supreme Court ruling is binding no matter who wins the presidency.

Instead of accurately reflecting the plain meaning of Kerry's words, Goldfarb invented a statement that Kerry never made.

Goldfarb then used that invented statement to make the case that Kerry was staking out a policy position unique to Obama, in the process demonstrating the continued validity of Godwin's Law:

The Nazis were given no such rights, but under an Obama administration, Osama bin Laden will be.

So there you have it -- Michael Goldfarb, a leading voice in John McCain's "respectful" campaign.

:: :: ::

Update: It's worth noting that this entire discussion is purely hypothetical precisely because nearly seven years after 9/11, they still haven't caught bin Laden.

As I wrote on Sunday, John McCain is touting an unlikely name in his list of "prominent" Democratic supporters: Phillip "Icky" Frye of West Virginia.

Just who is Icky Frye? Well, he's a TV and VCR repairman who decided to run for governor of West Virginia after discovering that his wife was having an extramarital affair with then-Governor Bob Wise.

Icky Frye (right) after his divorce hearing. Photo: Charleston Gazette.

Icky said his campaign "was fueled by revenge" and that he "wanted to embarrass Wise," who he called a "little weasel-faced bastard" and a "typical Democrat."

During the campaign, Icky told a West Virginia TV station that he didn't have any qualifications to serve as governor but wanted "to be a sheer nuisance to Bob Wise."

Icky's campaign slogan ("He'll do his job...not his staff.") was a reference to the affair between his wife, a state employee, and the governor

Not suprisingly, Icky finished in 7th place of out 8, winning just 1% of the vote.

Despite all this, according to the McCain campaign, Icky is one of the nation's most "prominent" Democratic "leaders and activists", and is one of the most important members of John McCain's effort to win over Democratic voters.

And now, according to a front-page report in The Charleston Gazette, the McCain campaign is defending their claim that Icky is a "prominent" Democrat.

Hilarious!

Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a long-time opponent of off-shore drilling, totally supports John McCain's flip-flop on the issue:

Crist likes McCain's drilling plan, wouldn't rule it out for Florida

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist tells Buzz that he loves Sen. John McCain's idea to lift the federal moratorium on off-shore drilling and let individual states decide whether to allow oil and gas exploration. He also said he wouldn't rule out letting Florida opt to drill off-shore.

Crist, of course, has been touted as a potential veep for McCain.

Update: Crist's about face has been swift. Here he is on June 10 according to a report from WCTV, the CBS affiliate in Tallahassee (yes, their the grammar is atrocious):

When asked point blank if he would support drilling. He said no, and turned the topic to conservation and alternative sources such as ethanol from sugarcane.

To give you an idea of just how extremist John McCain's foreign policy would be, even the Bush Administration won't adopt his dangerous opposition to diplomacy:

Rice Visit Signals Support for Power Deal in Lebanon

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Lebanon on Monday, the first by a senior American official since an agreement last month that handed decisive new powers to Hezbollah, the militant Shiite group that the United States considers a terrorist organization.

Ms. Rice met with government leaders from both the government majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition, signaling her support for a compromise that appears to have stabilized the country — at least for the short term — even as it delivered another setback to American allies in the region.

It's remarkable that the Bush Administration's foreign policy is less radical than John McCain's.

Open that thread!

You don't hear much talk about it, but I think the chances of John McCain being dumped by the Republican party before their convention are growing by the day. (Edit: Just to be clear, I think it's unlikely to happen, but I do believe that GOP operatives would be smart to quietly consider the possibility.)

Yes, this pic is for real.

Although the polls still show a relatively close race (at least compared to 1984-sized landslide), they still carry some pretty serious warnings signs.

Consider the fact that 45% of Republicans say they are not satisfied with McCain as the GOP nominee and would have preferred someone else in his place. (This is according to a Diageo/Hotline poll conducted June 5-8 -- three full months after McCain secured the GOP nomination and mostly before Hillary Clinton endorsed Barack Obama.)

According to the same poll, only 52% of Republicans say they are satisfied with McCain as their nominee. Meanwhile, 68% of Democrats say they are satisfied with Obama.

And keep in mind, that's according to a poll conducted mostly before Hillary Clinton officially ended her campaign and endorsed Obama!

Update: I'm bumping the post with video of Barack's speech in Flint today. It's long, almost 50 minutes, but I think it's worth watching when you have the time.

:: :: ::

Original post:

I still haven't seen Barack Obama's speech on American economic competitiveness today in Flint, Michigan, but I've now read it, and I'm very pleased. It was actually much better than I thought it would be.

Going into the speech, there were two things I was hoping to see. First, would it offer a credible vision for long-term job growth and expanded opportunity? Second, would the speech convey Barack's personal commitment to making that vision become a reality?

I think he nailed it on both fronts, at least on paper. Substantively, the speech was coherent. He made a case for his economic plan, explaining not just what he wants to do but why he wants to do it. It wasn't a list of promises; it was an argument for how the United States economy can thrive in a global marketplace.

Rhetorically, the speech avoided the clinical language that has plagued earlier speeches. In past speeches, it sometimes sounded as if he was saying what he would do for us; today, he broke down that artificial barrier by talking about what we all must do together.

Several years too late, the Seattle Mariners have fired Bill Bavasi, their hapless general manager. Bavasi probably wasn't as bad as the Mariners' record suggested, but he was supremely mediocre.

Only morons cling the notion that the best way to field a team is with old-school GMs who rely on old-school scouting methods, and for the most part, Bill Bavasi was that kind of GM. Fortunately, most people in baseball are morons, so the if the Mariners learn their lesson and pick a new-school GM, they could become competitive quite quickly.

Since this is a political blog, let me float a name: Nate Silver from 538, the developer of PECOTA. (Yes, I'm just kidding around, but I'm also 100% sure he would make an outstanding GM, and he'd probably do it at a fraction of the price of whomever they hire.)

I agree wholeheartedly with Chris Bowers that Sam Nunn would be a terrible selection for VP. But I also agree with Atrios -- it's not worth worrying about, because there's approximately a 0% chance of Nunn being selected.

So why is Nunn on a short list then? If he's not going to get the nod, why not remove his name from consideration?

Well, I don't know all the reasons, but I'm sure one of them is this: to keep John McCain guessing. The broader the range of VPs that Barack Obama indicates he might select, the more contingencies the McCain campaign needs to plan for. Why give them a stationary target when it's just as easing to keep it moving?

NBC's First Read has more. Let's hope Barack doesn't get mixed up like McCain did at during his trip to Iraq in March:

By the way, doesn't the double standard expressed by George Will in that video clip just make you want to scream? Why on earth should we accept as a given that John McCain knows what he's talking about?

The Obama campaign just announced a slate of new hires for the general election campaign. One name popped out at me (full list after the jump):

Chief of Staff to the Vice Presidential Nominee: Patti Solis Doyle

Patti Solis Doyle, of course, was Hillary Clinton's campaign manager until Maggie Williams took her place. At a superficial level, some people might see her appointment as a sign that Hillary will be joining the ticket.

But I actually think the opposite is true: this is as clear a sign as you'll get that Hillary Clinton won't be the VP nominee.

By choosing the VP chief of staff now, the Obama campaign is making it clear that the real power in the campaign resides at the top of the ticket. And without knowing anything in particular about the situation, I can almost guarantee you that Hillary Clinton would not accept Barack Obama making her staffing decisions.

What makes the move brilliant is that he picked a Hillary Clinton confidant for the role. It boxes her in; on the one hand, she must realize that Obama is making a clear statement about who is in charge and who will be in charge, but on the other hand, she can't complain about it because of who he picked.

Update: Ben Smith had the same read.

Update 2: HuffPo calls it a "bad omen" for HRC's VP chances and the NY Observer quotes an anonymous Clinton bundler saying it's the biggest "f*** you" ever to Clinton.

It turns there is a recording of John McCain's concession that "it's tough" to be proud of the United States.

The point here isn't to criticize McCain -- it's that his honest (if politically boneheaded) statement should quash GOP's ability to get any traction whatsoever out of the anti-Michelle Obama smears.

Game, set, match.

This day was bound to come: Paul Krugman, going after the wingnuts, supporting Barack Obama. He questions one aspect of Obama's proposed FICA tax hike, but on that point, Krugman's actually right.

The real point is that Paul Krugman is back. Meanwhile, David Brooks is off somewhere looking an Applebee's with a salad bar.

RandyH mentioned that my mashup from yesterday reminded him of "Great Moments in Presidential Speechmaking" from Letterman.

That gave me an idea: Your Daily Moment of McCain, and here's the first one. I don't know how long I'll be able to put them out before I start needing to recycle material, but at least for a couple of weeks, I think I have enough.

I'll try to post them around 6AM every day and I'll keep an archive of them in the sidebar.

Other than that, open thread!

As good as Barack's speech was yesterday, today he has what is arguably a much tougher challenge -- presenting a compelling vision for long-term job creation and American economic strength.

He'll be giving a major speech on the economy at 11:45AM Eastern time in Flint, MI. (Flint = perfect symbolism, by the way.)

This isn't a make or break affair; if he gives forgettable speech, it's not the end of the world. But if he can finally nail it on the economy it would be huge; I still feel as if his jobs creation message needs honing.

Barack Obama's Father's Day speech was extraordinary, certain to become another YouTube sensation. One of the things that made it so amazing was that it was a speech that could have easily descended into a fit of triangulation, but somehow Barack managed to avoid that trap. While he challenged all fathers, particularly African-American ones, to do better jobs as dads, he did not have -- nor did he seek -- a "Sistah Souljah moment." He wasn't repudiating anyone or any group; instead, he was calling for a new ethic.

Although the passages on responsibility and excellence will no doubt drive the headlines and soundbites about the speech, the part I felt was most powerful -- and most revealing of his political philosophy -- was Barack's discussion of empathy.

The second thing we need to do as fathers is pass along the value of empathy to our children. Not sympathy, but empathy – the ability to stand in somebody else’s shoes; to look at the world through their eyes. Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in “us,” that we forget about our obligations to one another. There’s a culture in our society that says remembering these obligations is somehow soft – that we can’t show weakness, and so therefore we can’t show kindness. 

But our young boys and girls see that. They see when you are ignoring or mistreating your wife. They see when you are inconsiderate at home; or when you are distant; or when you are thinking only of yourself. And so it’s no surprise when we see that behavior in our schools or on our streets. That’s why we pass on the values of empathy and kindness to our children by living them. We need to show our kids that you’re not strong by putting other people down – you’re strong by lifting them up. That’s our responsibility as fathers.   

And by the way – it’s a responsibility that also extends to Washington. Because if fathers are doing their part; if they’re taking our responsibilities seriously to be there for their children, and set high expectations for them, and instill in them a sense of excellence and empathy, then our government should meet them halfway. 

It is striking that even though Barack mostly emphasized themes that conservatives would happily embrace, in the end, the core message his speech communicated was that we're all in this together. And that is a very progressive message, indeed.

This is good to hear:

STEVENS POINT, Wis. (AP) -- The Wisconsin Democratic Party is trying to strip a woman of her position as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. That's after she told a newspaper she would vote for Republican Senator John McCain for president in November.

...When Clinton bowed out of the race last weekend, she urged her supporters to do all they can to elect Obama. But Bartoshevich told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Clinton was treated unfairly by the party and she has deep reservations about Obama's experience, so she'll vote for McCain.

The report caused quite a stir at the state Democratic convention. The party members voted to ask the national party's credentials committee to refuse to seat her at the convention.

Obviously, given John McCain's consistent opposition to women's reproductive freedom, I think Bartoshevich is making a tremendous mistake by endorsing him. Hopefully she eventually changes her mind. But in the meantime, it would be absurd to include her in the DNC, and I can't imagine that anyonen on the credentials committee would disagree.

Here's my newest mashup, featuring John McCain trying to live up to George Bush's lofty standards as a presidential communicator:

digg link for the video itself

Isn't it time for a change?

Yesterday, John McCain proudly announced that thirty "prominent Democratic and unaffiliated leaders and activists" had endorsed his campaign and along with Joe Lieberman would "rally Americans of all political parties to support John McCain's candidacy."

A button from Frye's failed campaign

Notwithstanding Joe Lieberman, it sounds impressive until you find out that one of John McCain's thirty most "prominent Democratic and unaffiliated" supporters in the country is Phillip "Icky" Frye, a television and VCR repairman from West Virginia who decided to run for governor to seek revenge against then Governor Bob Wise, who had engaged in an extramarital affair with Frye's wife, a state employee. (Their affair was a media goldmine, complete with an e-mail trail.)

McCain brags that Frye is a "former Democratic gubernatorial candidate" from West Virginia. That's technically true, but Frye never won the Democratic nomination. He didn't even come close, in fact. In the 2004 primary, he finished in 7th place -- out of 8 candidates. He received 2,892 votes -- good enough for 1% of the vote. (The winner took 149,362 votes.)

This e-mail I received this morning was just too awesome not to share:

SUBJECT: Morans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you brain dead idiot, if you dont like john mccain get the hell out of this country, favoring a piece of shit that you morans think can keep this country safe.

He must use the same spell-checker as this guy:

Frank Rich:

Now, there’s no question that men played a big role in Mrs. Clinton’s narrow loss, starting with Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Mark Penn. And the evidence of misogyny in the press and elsewhere is irrefutable, even if it was not the determinative factor in the race. But the notion that all female Clinton supporters became “angry white women” once their candidate lost — to the hysterical extreme where even lifelong Democrats would desert their own party en masse — is itself a sexist stereotype. That’s why some of the same talking heads and Republican operatives who gleefully insulted Mrs. Clinton are now peddling this fable on such flimsy anecdotal evidence.

The fictional scenario of mobs of crazed women defecting to Mr. McCain is just one subplot of the master narrative that has consumed our politics for months. The larger plot has it that the Democratic Party is hopelessly divided, and that only a ticket containing Mrs. Clinton in either slot could retain the loyalty of white male bowlers and other constituencies who tended to prefer her to Mr. Obama in the primaries.

This is reality turned upside down. It’s the Democrats who are largely united and the Republicans who are at one another’s throats.

Definitely one of Rich's better columns.

Al Giordano has moved his popular blog The Field to a new web address under his control. In his inaugural post, Al explains that he decided to move after an essay he had written was censored "because it mentioned 'Saul Alinsky,' 'Andrew Kopkind,' and 'Rules for Radicals.'" Of that censorship, Al says:

I reject and denounce it. I will not be party to it. I disassociate myself from those that have engaged in it. And therefore I have moved The Field to this address: http://narconews.com/thefield.

As well he should. I've updated my blogroll and bookmarks and am looking forward to more good stuff to come from him!

I've been hoping that Barack would do something like this for the past several days, and I'm really pleased, both on a political level, and also on a substantive level, that he decided to go to Quincy today.

It's easy to be cynical about photo ops, but I think in cases like this, it's less important why you've done something than that you've done something. No matter how many sandbags he personally fills, today Barack Obama undoubtedly inspired many others to support the flood preparation and relief efforts. (Via BarackObama.com, the campaign is urging supporters to offer their help through the American Red Cross.)

Update: Here is a new video from the Obama campaign.

In one fell swoop, John McCain has neutralized one of the most potent lines of attack against Michelle Obama, telling a questioner at a town hall event that he feels "it's tough, it's tough in some respects" to be proud of his country. Jonathan Martin delivers the goods (emphasis added):

So a man finally got a question into McCain and he had a very different sort of question.

The questioner noted that he had been educated at Princeton and Harvard and made more than $300,000 a year.

"How can I be proud of my country?" he asked.

Get it — he was mocking Michelle Obama and her statement earlier this year that her husband had for the first time in her life made her proud of her country.   

Well, McCain either missed the joke or decided to ignore it and answer the question literally. I think it was the former because the individual asking the question had a thick accent that sounded to be either Indian or Pakistani, perhaps suggesting to McCain a recent immigrant grappling with America's image abroad.   

"I’ll admit to you that it’s tough, it’s tough in some respects," McCain said, seeming to lend credence to Michelle Obama's observation.

McCain said America needed to be "more humble, more inclusive."

What an idiot. The rightwing nutjobs must be furious!

Update: When I say the attack against Michelle Obama is potent, in no way am I suggesting that it's accurate or that I agree with the attack -- I obviously don't.

Somehow I missed this video from TPM on McCain's lies about Social Security privatization -- but it really is incredible.

First, McCain supported privatization -- he said that Social Security would collapse without privatization.

Then, he said anyone who had accused him of having ever supported privatization was a liar.

The curious thing is that this wasn't a flip-flop, at least not substantively. McCain has held the same position in favor of Social Security privatization all along.

As TPM's video shows, however, he's changed how he describes it. Positively Orwellian.

Whatever your views on Social Security privatization, shouldn't John McCain tell the truth instead of making up new words to describe his policy views?

By the way, I opposed Social Security privatization -- relative to GDP, Social Security spending has been far more stable than most pundits admit and eliminating poverty among senior citizens is a good thing.

First, the McCain green screen debate video made it onto the front page of digg -- looks like it's doing pretty well over there. Thanks for giving it a push!

Second, and I admit this might only be of interest to me, but the Obama campaign linked to the video in a press release earlier this morning . I obviously thought that was pretty cool -- after all, I edited the video. But it also shows how the internet has democratized the media -- even though I'm just a random guy in Las Vegas, I've still had more than 3.5 million videos played from my YouTube channel. Who would have imagined such a thing would be possible, even in 2004?

Remember The Muppets? Someone suggested adding these guys to one of my next McCain videos. Oh, the possibilities.

AP reports:

QUINCY, Ill. (AP) - Senator Barack Obama plans on touring the Illinois community of Quincy to see flooded areas along the Mississippi River for himself.

The Democratic presidential candidate is scheduled to visit the area Saturday afternoon to tour the region and help fill sandbags.

Quincy's 1 of several communities that have been threatened by the rising river waters. Volunteers have been feverishly stacking sandbags around several businesses and the water treatment facility.

The campaign itself is urging supporters to help the American Red Cross relief efforts. (More on the floods here.)

Update: Here's a great post over at TPM by an Obama supporter who received an appeal for help by email from the campaign.

Yesterday, John McCain cancelled his attendance at a fundraiser with Clayton Williams, who gave the following advice to rape victims: "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

McCain's campaign cited that remark as the reason for his cancellation.

But it turns out that Williams had already raised $300,000 for McCain -- and now McCain says he is keeping it all.

What he should do is take that $300,000 and donate it to a violence against women crisis and prevention center.

By taking the cash, McCain is exposing himself as a total fraud -- clearly, the only reason he cancelled the event was to avoid bad press. Will the press let Teflon John get away with another slick move?

:: :: ::

Update: Clayton Williams made his comments during his unsuccessful bid for Texas governor against Anne Richards. This TV ad opposing his candidacy will give you an idea of what Clayton Williams is like.

My most recent video -- a mashup of McCain debating himself on his support for Bush -- is starting to make it's way out into the interwebs. Watch it, and, if you like it, please help give it a viral push by digging it up:

It's also in the vodpod if you haven't seen it yet.

Is junk media making you sick?

I missed this when it first came out six months ago -- thanks to reader SQ for sending it in!

Michael Reagan somehow manages to find a way to generate sympathy for 9/11 conspiracy theorists: on his radio show, he calls for their murder.

It's just so hard resisting the temptation to screw around with John McCain. Here he is debating himself on his support for George W. Bush. I wonder if he'll figure it out by the time he loses the election?

BTW, I'm working on a couple more video projects that I hope to roll out in the next few days. If you have any favorite clips of John McCain either making a fool of himself (like the beer or dehydrated babies remarks), or you have a favorite clip of him flip-flopping on Iraq or Bush, send me an e-mail or post a comment. I've already assembled a bunch of the clips, but I'm sure I'm missing stuff, so any ideas you have are welcome!

ABC News reports that earlier today John McCain "abruptly canceled" his attendance at a fundraiser scheduled for Monday at the home of Texas oilman Clayton Williams.

Apparently, St. John is afraid of a backlash from offensive remarks uttered by Williams during his 1990 campaign for governor. Making a comparison with weather, Williams said his advice to rape victims was that “As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

Whatever you think about holding someone to account for remarks made eighteen years ago, McCain's reaction was to distance himself from Williams. "These were obviously incredibly offensive remarks that the campaign was unaware of at the time this event was scheduled," said a campaign spokesman.

Nonetheless, even though McCain won't attend the fundraiser, the spokesman indicated McCain may still accept money already raised by Williams -- including $300,000 on Tuesday alone.

Is McCain is canceling to avoid bad publicity...or is he sincere in his rejection of Williams? That question, my friends, demands some straight talk.

I thought it was pretty cool earlier this week when Jeannie Moos included a couple of my videos in her CNN report on John McCain's green screen moment, but this is really cool: 538's Nate Silver himself, live on CNN this morning.

Both are also in the vodpod.

In the closing days of the 2004 election, the New York Times Magazine ran an article by Ron Suskind alleging that at a closed-door fundraiser George Bush had told an audience that he would push for Social Security privatization as soon as he won re-election.

''I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in,'' Bush said, ''with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security.'' The victories he expects in November, he said, will give us ''two years, at least, until the next midterm. We have to move quickly, because after that I'll be quacking like a duck.''

Bush's team denounced Suskind's report as a lie and when John Kerry aired a television ad based on the report, the Washington Post called it "misleading." Kerry quickly pulled the ad.

Of course we all know that the only person who was lying was George W. Bush -- to the public. What he said behind closed doors was accurate: as soon as he took office, George Bush pushed to privatize Social Security.

May he rest in peace.

Barack Obama, today, with a great line:

“You know, John McCain has proposed a series of debates, and I’m looking forward to having them. But when it comes to Social Security, he might want to finish the debate with himself first.”

And here's John McCain in 2008 saying that he's never supported Social Security privatization...and in 2004 saying that Social Security will collapse unless we privatize it.

McCain has actually supported Social Security privatization as recently as 2008, telling the Wall Street Journal: "As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it -- along the lines that President Bush proposed."

It's hard to believe that McCain and Obama are already going at it on debates.

Most of this is being driven by John McCain, of course. The campaign behind in the polls is always the one who is making the push. But it's June! This is normally a tactic used in October, and is almost always reserved for the candidate facing certain defeat.

No doubt, McCain thinks he can portray himself as a scrappy fighter by pushing for these additional debates...but I think he tends to come off more like a loser. After all, this is what losers in politics do: they push for debates.

For what it's worth, Obama has agreed to five debates already. I don't think any presidential campaign in my lifetime has had five debates between general election opponents.

Also, as a side note, I like the idea of town halls more than debates -- I think Obama will face more scurrilous questions from debate moderators like George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson than from ordinary Americans.

Another quirky observation: I've also observed that Obama's best debate performances have come while he was sitting rather than standing. I have no idea whether that's coincidental or not.

I just noticed it's Friday the 13th. Don't worry, as long as George Bush doesn't declare martial law or something, we'll be fine. (Okay, just when I was about press the button to publish this post, my neighbor's dog started howling...he never howls. Hmm.)

In 2005, John Bush McCain said he was "totally in agreement" with Bush on policies like Iraq. Now he just whines about it when people say he's running for four more years. Well, he can try to run from his record -- but YouTube won't let him get away it:

h/t: Sam Stein at HuffPo for the 2005 video.

Bumped at 7:22PM

Here's a screen shot of FOX's 'news' story about their town hall for McCain. It really is nothing more than a 527.

More on this at AMERICAblog.

This is pretty stunning material from the New York Times:

The issue of foreign lobbying has flared up in the current presidential campaign because of past dealings abroad by several former lobbyists working for Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

For instance, a lobbying firm owned by Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager, has worked in recent years for a Ukraine politician, Viktor Yanukovich. Both Mr. McCain and the Bush administration supported the opponent of Mr. Yanukovich, who had close ties to Vladimir V. Putin, then the president of Russia and now prime minister.

During this time, however, Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, never registered as a lobbyist for Mr. Yanukovich even though Paul Manafort, Mr. Davis’s business partner, had met with the United States ambassador in Kiev on Mr. Yanukovich’s behalf.

In a related development, Mr. McCain may have first become aware of Davis Manafort’s activities in Ukraine as far back as 2005. At that time, a staff member at the National Security Council called Mr. McCain’s Senate office to complain that Mr. Davis’s lobbying firm was undercutting American foreign policy in Ukraine, said a person with direct knowledge of the phone call who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A campaign spokesman, when asked whether such a call had occurred, referred a reporter to Mr. McCain’s office. The spokesman there, Robert Fischer, did not respond to repeated inquiries.

Such a call might mean that Mr. McCain has been long aware of Mr. Davis’s foreign clients. Mr. Davis took a leave from his firm at the end of 2006.

What are the odds this becomes a campaign issue?

(h/t: Ben Smith)

Update, 6/12 @ 12:15PM Pacific: Ben reports that the McCain campaign is refusing comment on the NYT's allegation.

Forget just how amazing it is that the presidential election this year is between Barack Obama and John McCain. Instead, consider the incredibly irony of these two facts, given the type of campaign the political right wants to run:

1. Only one of these two candidates was born inside the 50 United States. That candidate? Barack Obama. Yet he's the one who was forced to produce his birth certificate.
2. Only one of these two candidates has a campaign manager who has been accused by the Bush Administration of undercutting American foreign policy by representing foreign agents...and that candidate is John McCain.

Update: Here's an article about John McCain's place of birth, the Panama Canal Zone. He is, of course, every bit as American as Barack Obama, and anyone who argues the McCain is somehow less American than Barack by virtue of having been born overseas is spreading a scurrilous rumor.

On Wednesday morning, Marc Ambinder offered what seems to have quickly become the collective wisdom of the media on John McCain's statement that it's "not too important" when troops come home from Iraq. The essence of his post: Obama surrogates should have been nicer to their opponent and probably should have left him alone altogether. Not surprisingly, the McCain campaign heartily agreed.

Obviously, I'm not on the same page as Ambinder -- or McCain, for that matter. Here's why, taking his post point-by-point.

Keith O., of course, covered McCain's "not too important" statement about troop withdrawal in great depth, and promises a Special Comment tomorrow night. He had John Kerry as his first guest, and Kerry sure did deliver:

Seriously, he was so good I started thinking that maybe it's not so crazy to be considering him as a veep.

In other news, both NBC and ABC broadcasts did include references to McCain's comment about troop withdrawal not being important. ABC actually was slightly more critical of McCain than NBC, but both networks only gave it a few seconds.

Still, that's a lot better than I thought would happen, so I guess I'm marginally pleased.

If know Barack is trying to focus on the economy now, but sometimes you gotta' strike in the moment, and if he chooses to womp McCain on this statement, I think that tomorrow the media would give him another bite at the apple.

I hope he goes for it -- McCain has teed himself up, all Barack has to do is get off a decent swing.

On May 29, John Bush McCain said Mosul was quiet on the same day that car bombings ravaged the area...yet two months earlier on March 25, he had said that Mosul was a raging battleground.

A couple weeks ago I reported some stunning news:

And now, via Ben Smith, it appears that the powers-that-be in Chicago are erasing any evidence of Barack Obama's Martian connections.

I stand by my original report.

Before the day is done, we're going to know a lot more about how the MSM intends to cover this campaign.

The issue is John McCain's absurd statement this morning on The Today Show that "it's not too important" when our troops come home from Iraq, made even worse by his campaign's false accusation that his quote had been taken out of context. This on the heels of having just said that he'll send however many troops are needed to Iraq, and having misrepresented the number of troops that are actually there right now.

At the very least, McCain's comment minimized the sacrifice of our troops. Even if you accept the ridiculous idea that our troops could ever be in Iraq without facing any risk whatsoever, these men and women, many of them reservists, have been separated from the families for months, even years.

I dare say if you asked any military family if it was important to them to know when their loved one would come home from Iraq, the reply would be a resounding "yes."

Moreover, our military is stretched thin, and every single soldier and reservist in Iraq could be used elsewhere in the world, or right here at home. We have priorities other than Iraq, and it matters when we can begin addressing them.

So when the troops come home really is important, not just to the families, but also to the nation at large. It's quite relevant, no matter what John McCain might say.

Given all that, if you didn't know better, you'd expect the media would be all over this like bitter on cling.

But so far today, nothing in the NYT. (Update: The NYT is now covering this, albeit indirectly, couching it in the context of a meta story about campaign strategies.) Nothing in the WaPo. Nothing on CNN. NBC and ABC have blog items questioning the Obama camp's use of the word 'confused' to describe McCain's statement. AP's headline focuses on McCain's desire to reduce causalities.

The day is still young, but it doesn't look good. It looks like the media is going to sweep this one under the rug, covering up again for Teflon John McCain.

I hope I'm wrong. But I fear that I'm right. If I am right, the good news is that we've at least been reminded of this: we're going to be facing a tough, long hard campaign. And in this campaign, we're going to be fighting a lot more than just John Bush McCain.

Please, don't have a heart attack -- I'm not actually voting Republican, it's just brilliant satire. Here's a link directly to the video.

The Obama-DNC message machine is kicking into gear quite nicely on John McCain's "it's not important" when the troops come home gaffe, forcing a super-weak response from the McCain campaign. Jonathan Martin:

Naturally, McCain's campaign has responded with the time-honored "distract by saying it's a distraction from the other guy" technique.

“The Obama campaign is embarking on a false attack on John McCain to hide their own candidate’s willingness to disregard facts on the ground in pursuit of withdrawal no matter what the costs," said Tucker Bounds.

The McCain camp's core problem isn't spin, however. It's their candidate, who has said:

• He willl put in as many troops as are needed to win in Iraq.
• He will withdraw most troops by 2013.
• It's not important when the troops come home.
• It's okay if troops are there for 100 years, as long as that is after we win.
• He won't say what it means to win.

And that's just for starters.

On the Today Show, Matt Lauer asks John Bush McCain: "Senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?"

McCain to Lauer: "No, but that's not too important."

McCain then made his typical argument about how the only thing that mattered was causalities, which almost sounds good until you realize that we could be in Iraq forever until causalities get down to whatever he thinks is an acceptable level, and even then, we'd still have American forces and reserves stationed in Iraq, stretching our military thin.

So in the past few days, John Bush McCain has:

1. Gotten the troop levels wrong in Iraq (thinking we were at pre-surge levels), and then lied about the gaffe
2. Pledged an unlimited number of troops to the war ("however many are required")
3. And now, said the it's "not too important" when they come home

Let's see if the media hold him to account on this one. I'm not holding my breath.

I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of this "who is Barack Obama?" meme, which is the "respectable" version of the Muslim smear campaign. (It comes to my mind because a friend of mine's girlfriend received a smear e-mail today; she issued a smackdown to the sender and explained to the other recipients that it was a smear.)

Here's the thing: if you really wanted to play the "who is he?" game, on the merits John McCain presents a much riper target -- and I'm not referring to the scurrilous, unfounded rumors about his personal character, I'm talking about his wildly inconsistent public record as a politician.

The fact is that for all his blather about straight talk, John McCain can't keep his story straight.

A couple months ago, Steve Benen put together a comprehensive list of McCain flip-flops. It turns out just about the only thing he's stuck with over the course of his public life is his name and his political party. Everything is up for grabs, big and small.

Here's a Cliff's Notes version of the flip-flops that Benen cataloged:

• pledging not to raise taxes
• whether he considered joining Kerry's ticket in 2004
• cigarette taxes
• balancing the budget
• housing crisis response
• Social Security privatization
• torture
• a long-term presence in Iraq
• immigration reform
• lobbying reform
• whether or not Iraq would be a hard fight
• whether or not he criticized Donald Rumsfeld
• Roe v. Wade
• Henry Kissinger
• gay marriage
• Jerry Falwell
• Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy
• Bob Jones University
• honoring MLK; and
• the Confederate Flag.

Now I know and understand that John McCain is grandfatherly and looks like every other president (except for Warren G. Harding!). I understand that except when he's trying to read, he speaks with a calm and measured and sincere voice. I know it sounds like he's talking straight, but the fact his that he's changed his position on things more times than Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights.

So when the media puts up with his lies and deception, they are doing the American voter a great disservice. We are left with one great unanswered question: just who the hell is John Sidney McCain?

I was just doing some dishes and listening to a panel discussion on MSNBC about Obama's 50-state strategy. The assumption of all four panelists seemed to be that Obama was trying to put a head-fake on McCain, luring McCain in a direction that Obama never intended to go. To the panelists, the question was whether or not McCain would fall for Obama's bluff, wasting resources on a state that he's already got locked up.

Doesn't that completely miss the point, though? Sure, if Obama puts up ads in Utah and McCain buy $5 million of ads on Salt Lake TV, then McCain's dumb as a brick. But we're not really talking about Utah -- we're talking about states like Mississippi that could go for Obama if everything aligned perfectly.

By investing his resources in states like that, Obama is forcing McCain to follow suit. Assuming that McCain does allocate resources to these states, he'll probably end up winning them, but that doesn't mean that he'll be falling for a trick. McCain's problem is that if he does not defend these states, he'll probably end up losing 1 or 2 of them, even in a moderately close election, and he really can't afford to do that and still expect to win.

This isn't a case of a head-fake -- it's a case of spreading the field, and Obama, with his resources, will be able to dictate the way the election plays out in a way that no presidential candidate in recent history has.

Update at 12:35AM, 6/11: mlhradio makes an important point in the comments, that the 50-state strategy will have a huge impact on downticket races, and any shot we have of picking up a supermajority (i.e., filibuster proof majority) in the senate is dependent on it.

Here's a simpler version of the table I posted earlier summarizing the SurveyUSA vice presidential pairings poll data.

This table summarizes polls taken in 17 states from May 16 to June 3.

I've also posted a table with more details, including matchup-by-matchup performance.

NBC's Chuck Todd and Domenico Montanaro take a look at Barack Obama's "very long" VP short list:

Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Evan Bayh, Kathleen Sebelius, Ted Strickland, Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, Jim Webb, Bill Nelson, Jack Reed, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Tom Daschle, and Sam Nunn. You'll notice a few names NOT on this list (that's not my exclusion -- hint hint).

Conspicuously absent: Bill Richardson. Update: Also, Wes Clark and Brian Schweitzer, both of whom would be interesting picks. (I especially like Schweitzer.)

Meanwhile, Kent Conrad tells CNN there are about 20 names on the list.

Since May 16, SurveyUSA has conducted polls in 17 different states testing the strength of eight different potential running mates, four for each candidate. While each poll is interesting on its own, I was curious the different tickets performed on average across all states, so I took all their results, dumped them into a spreadsheet, and built the table in this post.

John Bush McCain, surrounded by lobbyists at a fundraiser last night:

“I’m gonna thank some corrupt unscrupulous lobbyists that are destroying America as we speak, everything we stand for and believe in,” McCain said, which got the crowd laughing. “You can’t even eat a piece of apple pie any more without being corrupted.”

h/t: Jonathan Martin

Have you ever seen a sweeter swing than that of Ken Griffey, Jr.? My only regret is that his 600th home run didn't come in a Mariners uniform.

Oh -- and the headline about Barack isn't too bad either.

Update: The Rasmussen bump isn't bad either -- Barack +8 over McCain (+7 w/leaners).

On NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams asks John Bush McCain about Iraq. "Will your support be there for however many U.S. troops are required?" McCain answers emphatically: "Yes."

In other words, John McCain isn't going to change a single thing on Iraq -- it's just going to be four more years of George W. Bush.

Update, 10:50PM Pacific: HuffPo now has this story on their homepage.

Here's the complete video from Raleigh (full text here):

Short version: Reporter asks McCain about something he said during his lime-green speech. McCain says he never said it. Video tape proves McCain wrong. Here's the longer version and this is the video:

Oliver Willis has a video up of John Bush McCain calling Russian President Vladimir Putin the President of Germany. (It's also in the vodpod.)

Certainly adds to the "WTF?" factor for McCain, doesn't it?

In other news, despite my reaction to the prepared text of Barack's speech in Raleigh, the press coverage so far seems right on message: It's Barack Obama versus John McCain and George W. Bush on the economy.

More David Horsey here -- I recommend this one in particular on the veepstakes.

You gotta' wonder...maybe McCain really is a dolt after all. I mean what else would possess him to return to the gas tax holiday?

Although it's popular among Republicans, it's not that popular among Democrats -- and among Independents it's downright toxic: according to a CBS/NYT survey from early May, 60% of independents thought the gas tax holiday was a bad idea. Just 32% thought it was good.

Then again, 32% is higher than Bush's approval rating, right?

Update: It's worth remembering that there is a key difference between McCain's plan and Clinton's plan. Clinton's plan paid for itself with a windfall profits tax. McCain's pays for his plan by taking money from the interstate highway fund. In the comments, SeattleAJ noted that some Clinton supporters might be sensitive to any criticism of the gas tax plan; highlighting this distinction should help avoid any issues.

I've now read the economic speech Barack delivered today in Raleigh three times. I haven't seen video, nor have I seen much other reaction to it other than a glowing diary at Kos. So these are my unformed thoughts, and I reserve the right to modify them.

On balance, I was underwhelmed. His framework was that in this speech he would talk about short-term solutions, and that next week he'd talk about long-term solutions. But he didn't spend much of the speech talking about those short-term solutions.

Unless I'm missing something, there are two elements to his short-term focus: a stimulus package and a housing crisis relief initiative. While there's probably loads of good stuff there, he didn't really detail it beyond a couple of sentences, and he didn't translate it into the real impact it would have in people's lives. He spent more time talking about health care and tax code reform, both of which are important, but neither of which are really about the short-term.

This last point really gets at my largest concern with the speech. Other than the criticisms of Bush and McCain, which I thought were excellent, at least on paper, the speech seemed clinical and even a bit detached. To see what I mean, read the speech and look at every usage of the word "we." Invariably, when he says "we" he's talking about the government or the nation and what it can do for "working families" or the people who need help. Now logically there is nothing wrong with that, but rhetorically it separates him the people who he really is trying to reach with this message.

There is one passage of the speech that I really liked that I want to highlight. It's a bit prosaic, but it's the only point in the speech where Barack actually talks about creating jobs. The thing that makes it compelling is that it is also believable.

One place where that investment would make an enormous difference is in a renewable energy policy that ends our addiction on foreign oil, provides real long-term relief from high fuel costs, and builds a green economy that could create up to five million well-paying jobs that can’t be outsourced. We can also create millions of new jobs by rebuilding our schools, roads, bridges, and other critical infrastructure that needs repair.

So here's what my advice would be: get more specific about the short-term plans. Adopt a new rhetorical pose that uses "we" to identify Barack with American workers. And most importantly, double down on talking about revitalizing our manufacturing sector with so-called "green collar" jobs. It's that last issue that should be the centerpiece of Barack's economic stump speech; it has the virtue of both being right and compelling. And the best part is that it allows Barack to address several different needs at once: environment, national security, and jobs.

Anyway, perhaps I'm being too critical. And I'm looking forward to seeing the video. What about you? What were your thoughts?

Via reddit:

Twister, 1996: Rated PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather

I kid you not. In other news, Barack Obama is kicking off a two-week focus on the economy today, and I'm going to take a break for a few hours -- hopefully I won't experience an PG-13 weather while I'm gone.

Ben Smith gets it exactly right:

The raised level of press and public sophistication on this is striking: I think at this point, most people are willing to accept that both candidates can't control everything that happens on their sites, a source of major confusion in 2004, when MoveOn was accused of using Nazi comparisons because a user of the site did.

This is the key point: inevitably, on both McCain's and Obama's web sites, a minute amount of offensive material will fall through the cracks. That's the price of having an open, accessible online presence, and it's clearly a tradeoff worth making.

There is nothing -- not a single thing -- to suggest that either McCain or Obama themselves embrace any elements of the scurrilous materials that are found on their sites from time to time. And that's really the important thing -- we're not electing a damn website, we're electing a president.

As I wrote yesterday, the Little Green Freakshow (aka Little Green Footballs) lied when it claimed that Barack Obama's website reveals a disturbing pattern of antisemitism.

Well, I can now report to you that their ridiculous claim has also blown up in their face. Apparently, LGF forgot to check if there was any objectionable filth on any of their man John McCain's official campaign forums, and not surprisingly, it turns out there is. In fact, a quick check last night revealed at least one use of the N-word to describe Barack Obama, among other smears.

Before I go any further, let me stress that I find this "issue" utterly stupid. Not only are there bound to be some bad apples in any mass movement, but there's also no way of knowing who posted what and why they posted it. For all we know, most if not all of these posts could be attempts at political sabotage. On balance, both the McCain and Obama campaigns have done an impressive job of maintaining an open community while eliminating most of the undesirable elements.

But if the Little Green Freakshow still insists on pursuing this demented line of argument, then fine. It's game on, you petty little turdblossoms, and you aren't going to like what you see: months and weeks old comments from the McCain campaign's online forums calling Barack Obama a "n****r", Hillary Clinton "wife of mr blowjob", and several posts claiming Barack Obama is a Muslim.

From Tom Edsall's new piece on why the GOP is pessimistic about John Bush McCain's chances in the fall:

"I think we've got a world of problems," said one Republican strategist with extensive experience in presidential campaigns. He said this came home to him with a thud when he watched Obama and McCain give speeches last Tuesday, with the Democrat speaking before "20,000 screaming fans, while John McCain looked every bit of his 72 years" in a speech televised from New Orleans. This Republican cited the liberal blogger Atrios' description of McCain's speech with a green backdrop that made McCain "look like the cottage cheese in a lime Jell-O salad."

He's right. They do have a world of problems. Among them? John McCain isn't 72 years old. He's 71. Even his own party thinks he's older than he really is.

Like most Americans, I've got no tolerance for antisemitism, though the fact that I'm Jewish probably makes me more aware of it than most. So when the right-wing blog Little Green Footballs today claimed to have discovered a "shocking" amount of antisemitism on my.barackobama.com, I took notice. Here's their post, with emphasis added:

Searching Obama's Site for 'Jewish Lobby'

A search of the official my.barackobama.com site for “Jewish Lobby” reveals an enormous amount of antisemitic hatred being posted. This is really shocking stuff, and shows beyond any doubt that this is no fluke.

There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of posts that refer to the “Jewish lobby” at the Obama site. I stopped looking at the results on page 10.

Alarmed by LGF's allegation, I did exactly what they suggested: I followed their "Jewish Lobby" link and searched through the first 10 pages of results. Here's what I found:

• There were one hundred posts (10 posts per page, 10 pages.) Not "hundreds," not "thousands," but one hundred.

• Only 9 of the 100 posts actually used the phrase "Jewish Lobby"

• 5 of these 9 posts could be potentially be considered antisemitic (a, b, c, d, e)

• And 2 of them were actually statements against antisemitsm (f, g)

• Many of the remaining 91 posts were written by Jews in praise of Barack Obama. My favorite favorite one featured a pro-Obama video from Rabbi Samuel Gordon from Wilmette, Illinois.

The bottom-line here is that LGF lied bigtime. On its face, their claim that there were "hundreds" or "thousands" of posts was based on nothing but their own imagination; by their own admission, they had looked at just 10 pages worth of posts.

Moreover, it's obvious they never looked at the search results -- nine in ten of the posts did not even contain the term "Jewish Lobby."

It is true that there have been isolated examples of anti-semitic postings on my.barackobama.com. There's no defending those posts, though it's worth noting it is unclear who actually made the posts, and the system adminstrators are good about taking them down once they become aware of them.

But LGF's claim of widespread antisemitism is false, and as a Jew, LGF's lie really ticks me off. By deliberately overstating the facts, they are making it harder to fight real examples of antisemitism.

The bloggers at LGF have become a delusional band of professional victimologists. There was a time when conservatives stood up against that kind of politics. What happened?

As I wrote earlier, John McCain is now running the first negative attack ad of the 2008 general election campaign, and it's a nasty one.

As you can see, it's a full-on paid advertising campaign by McCain. I came across it while on SurveyUSA's website. (I enlarged the "PAID FOR" disclaimer for legibility.)

I think this ad is completely inconsistent with McCain's pledge to run a respectful campaign. To illustrate my point, I've made this mock ad in response:

Feel free to use it in any way you see fit.

So the McCain campaign has a new blog and according to Jonathan Martin "to bring traffic, they've included a picture of McCain handling an alligator."

Well, here's that picture of manly man McCain swinging with the 'gators:

Yeah, it was a bit of a let down. Especially compared to this.

Now that Hillary Clinton has lost, the post-mortems have begun (including this hilarious "it wasn't me" from Mark Penn). The one thing that most seem to ignore is the pose she adopted on the Iraq war.

In my view, the single most important reason why Hillary Clinton lost is Iraq -- not that she voted for the war, but rather that she took on an arrogant, blustering approach towards defending her vote. It was that approach that secured her defeat; the only question was whether it would be Barack Obama or John Edwards who defeated her.

Instead of admitting she made a mistake (something that she eventually did, but not until it was too late), Hillary Clinton defended her vote, telling voters who disagreed with it to take a hike in mid-February 2007:

“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.”

Translation: if you're really pissed off about the Iraq War, vote for Barack Obama or John Edwards, because I'm not your candidate. It doesn't get much dumber than that.

This anti-McCain video, a remix of of a longer video put together in February by a Ron Paul supporter, is just brutal.

Thanks to reader SQ for sending it in.

Here's a really cool table of exit poll data (in PDF format) showing how Obama and Clinton did, by state and overall, among certain Demographic groups. It was put together by ABC News. (h/t: Mark Blumenthal)

Their numbers are slightly different than the ones I came up with yesterday; they report that Clinton won 52% of women (I had said 53%) and that she's won 60% of white women (I had said 61%).

It's just more evidence pointing to the fact that Clinton is not the "undisputed leader of American women" as one opinion writer said yesterday.

In fact, here are the groups among which Clinton did better than she did among white women:

• Hispanics, 61%
• Whites aged 65+, 62%
• Whites no college, 62%

Does that mean that Hillary Clinton is the undisputed leader of Hispanics? Or older whites? Or whites with no college education?

So much for a "respectful campaign" -- John McCain is now running the first negative attack ad of the general election, and he's jumped right into the sleazy end of the pool with a fear-mongering smear of Barack Obama.

McCain's attack ad depicts Barack and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad facing each other, the visual imagery suggesting that Barack Obama is somehow aligned with one of America's enemies.

Here's the ad (you can see a larger version here):

:: ::

If you think there's nothing disrespectful about McCain's ad, take a look at this ad that I mocked up in just a few minutes time. Like McCain's actual ad, it uses visual imagery to to make a brutal attack, in this case suggesting that John McCain is personally indifferent to the deaths of American soldiers.

Whether or not you agree with my mock ad's message, is there anyone who thinks McCain would consider it to be "respectful"? And if not, then how is his ad respectful? Just imagine how angrily the McCain campaign would respond if Barack Obama ever ran an ad such as this.

To be clear, I know that political campaigns are a tough business -- and I'm not squeamish about that. But McCain said his campaign was going to be different, and when he made his pledge, he received glowing press coverage for having set himself apart.

And now that he's broken his promise, launching the first negative attack ad of the general election, straight talk demands that he be held accountable.

TPM's Greg Sargent writes (emphasis added):

It needs to be said that Hillary struck an extraordinarily difficult balancing act with real grace and eloquence. On the one hand, she needed to signal that she has built a movement of her own and to reinforce the idea that she is the undisputed leader of American women -- both as a genuine point of pride and as proof of her undiminishing influence. Hence the repeated references to the 18 million votes she earned.

Here's a couple of interesting stats breaking down the vote in primary states, presented, as they say, without editorial comment:

• Among all women in primary states: HRC 53%, BHO 45%
• Among white women in primary states: HRC 61%, BHO 35%
• Among non-white women in primary stats: HRC 37%, BHO 63%

Obama actually won the female vote in 14 primaries. He only won the white female vote three times, however. About two-thirds of female primary voters were white.

(I computed these statistics using exit poll data from MSNBC.com and turnout data from state elections offices. The numbers do not include caucus states which would shift the numbers favorably towards Obama, but no data exists. They also do not include Michigan or Puerto Rico.)

NYT on Wednesday:

McCain Distances Himself From Bush and Jabs Obama

KENNER, La. Senator John McCain marked the unofficial beginning of the general election with a speech here Tuesday in which he sought to distance himself from President Bush and to argue that he has stronger credentials as an independent agent of change than his all-but-certain Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama.

..."€œYou will hear from my opponent's campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I’m running for President Bush's third term,"€ he said, trying to pre-empt one of the central Democratic strategies of tying Mr. McCain to the unpopular president.

USA Today on Friday (h/t Jonathan Martin):

McCain says he won't run from Bush in campaign

FORT LAUDERDALE - Republican John McCain said he won't try to "separate" himself from a weakened President Bush or his unpopular handling of the war in Iraq to try to win the general election against Barack Obama, who has made opposition to the war a focus of the Democratic campaign.

..."I'm not trying to separate myself," he said.

M'kay...here's a little bit of straight talk, my friends: in 2007, John Bush McCain supported Bush's position on 95% of his Senate votes. So far in 2008, he's supported Bush's position 100% of the time.

Here's his problem: he knows he can't get elected if he's seen as too close to George W. Bush (he'll lose independents), but he also can't get elected if he distances himself from Bush (he'll lose his base). The result: John Bush McCain can't keep his story straight. And boy is it fun to watch.

In related news, this logo is pretty funny.

Everyone who supported Hillary Clinton during the primary ought to watch this clip from Barack Obama's speech in St. Paul, Minnesota on Tuesday night. In it, Barack not only thanks Hillary for the good things she brought to the campaign trail, but perhaps just importantly, the crowd responds warmly.

If Barack can praise Hillary as he does in this clip, and if Hillary can praise Barack as she did today in DC, surely we can all come together to win this election in November. Please send it to friends of yours who might be on the fence.

As Barack says, this is not about Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton: this is about America, and the stakes are too high to risk four more years of George W. Bush's policies.

Also, if you're so moved, Barack has now set up a page on his site for people to express their thanks to Hillary Clinton for what she did today. (h/t: georgia10)

Barack Obama, Wednesday before AIPAC:

Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.

On Thursday, to CNN:

Well, obviously, it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations.

The WaPo editorial page, today:

Mr. Obama was so forceful in backing the military, economic and territorial interests of the Jewish state that he later had to offer a clarification, pointing out that his endorsement of an "undivided" Jerusalem did not mean he ruled out Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over the final status of the city.

In addition to being oddly incongruous with the rest of their editorial, the WaPo's wording reflected a concerted effort to portray these statements as examples of Obama being squishy on Israel. But this is a phony line of attack. As Jake Tapper points out, there's nothing new here. When the American Jewish Committee asked Obama about his views on Jerusalem, he said it should not be divided:

Jerusalem will remain Israel's capital, and no one should want or expect it to be re-divided.

He also it was ultimately up to the parties to determine:

The United States cannot dictate the terms of a final status agreement. We should support the parties as they negotiate these difficult issues, but they will have to reach agreements that they can live with. ... But these details are for the parties to decide.

Same. Exact. Thing.

Love her or hate her, one thing that Hillary Clinton can do better than most is turn on a dime, and by most accounts, she not only turned on a dime today, but she did it well.

This is especially brutal news for John McCain, because his only shot at winning the presidency was to face a divided Democratic Party. The WaPo pretty well sums up John McCain's problem:

On the issues, it is unclear how McCain would appeal to Clinton's female or working-class voters. McCain's record is not much like Clinton's, as the Republican repeatedly pointed out during his primary battles. He opposes government-run health care, supports continuing the war in Iraq, wants to extend President Bush's tax cuts and is a committed foe of abortion rights.

His position on the war, in particular, puts him at odds with Clinton on what is a top issue for many Democrats. For months, McCain mocked Clinton's desire to withdraw troops from Iraq.

So a week that began with Barack Obama completely upstaging McCain's lime-green disaster ends with supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama coming back together after a brutal primary. According to Rasmussen, more Democrats now say they will vote for Obama in the fall than at any point all year.

That's a bad week for John Bush McCain. A very bad week.

Remember this, from early December last year?

U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

Then, late last month, this:

Atomic Monitor Signals Concern Over Iran’s Work

PARIS — The International Atomic Energy Agency, in an unusually blunt and detailed report, said Monday that Iran’s suspected research into the development of nuclear weapons remained “a matter of serious concern” and that Iran continued to owe the agency “substantial explanations.”

That seemed surprising -- the IAEA report suggested more concern about Iran and nuclear weapons than the NIE released just six months earlier. So what was the basis of the IAEA report?

Part of the agency’s case hinges on 18 documents listed in the report and presented to Iran that, according to Western intelligence agencies, indicate the Iranians have ventured into explosives, uranium processing and a missile warhead design — activities that could be associated with constructing nuclear weapons.

Where do these 18 documents, which are apparently central to the latest round of tensions with Iran, come from? The NYT article cited above does not say, but according to this Christian Science Monitor article, the documents mostly come from...the US.

At issue in Vienna is the meaning of 18 documents that point to secret weaponization work, which the IAEA calls "alleged studies." Most were provided by US intelligence but were only shown, not given, to the IAEA and to Iran, which dismisses them as fakes.

Those studies "remain a matter of serious concern," and Iran "has not yet agreed to implement all the transparency measures required to clarify this cluster of allegations," IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the agency's 35-member board of governors when they convened on Monday.

But Mr. ElBaradei also indirectly rapped the US, noting that the IAEA "was unfortunately not authorized to provide copies [of the documents] to Iran," which he said "would clearly help the Agency in its investigations." The IAEA, he added, "has not seen indications of the actual use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies."

I'm no expert at all on Iran -- I follow the issue far less closely than I probably should. But given our history with of supplying forged documents to the IAEA, I'm pretty skeptical about these 18 documents.

I haven't turned on the teevee or checked any web pages yet. And the question is...did Hillary Clinton endorse Barack Obama?

Update: Just flipped on MSNBC. Phew! She did. Heh.

Here's a video excerpt:

Don't worry -- by pimping this video (h/t Jonathan Martin), I'm not endorsing it's contents. Rather, I'm linking to it as an example of an effective anti-Obama web video. It's called "Obama on your shoulder" and the basic premise of the video is that Barack Obama is a puritanical liberal elitist who wants to tell you how to live your life.

It's not like I'm freaking out about this or anything, though. For starters, the premise of the video comes from a statement made by Obama, but taken way out of context. In the video, Obama says: "We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times."

Sounds pretty bad (a presidential candidate telling us we cannot eat as much as we want?), but when you see the full context, you realize that his point was that we need to invest in alternative energy technology, especially since the rest of the world is growing rapidly and won't slow down just because we tell them to. Here's what Obama actually said:

If we lead by example, then we can actually export and license technologies that have been invented here to help them deal with their growth pains. But keep in mind, you're right, we can't tell them don't grow. We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us. That's not leadership.

It's no surprise that a right-wing attack is based on a false premise, and in a normal year, it's veracity wouldn't have an impact on its effectiveness. In 2008, however, I think it's going to be harder for the Republican attack machine.

First, we've seen these lies before, and now, unlike in 2004, a huge army of Obama supporters, linked together though social networking, blogs, and other electronic means, are committed to fighting back against GOP lies. Second, Obama has (and will have) a huge cash advantage over John McCain, allowing him to both define himself and respond to lies without relying on the media.

These attacks work best on people with little or no exposure to Barack, but thanks to his volunteer army and money, there won't be that many people who fall into that category. And given Barack's commitment to fighting back fast and fierce against these lies, we're about as well-positioned as we could be for the kinds of attacks in this video.

That's a good thing, because make no mistake, they are coming our way -- and fast.

Apparently, the Obama campaign's traveling press corps is plenty peeved that they weren't invited to last night's Obama-Clinton meeting. In fact, according to CNN, they feel like they were hijacked. In short, what happened is that just before taking off -- after the plane was taxiing towards the runway -- reporters were told that Obama was not on the plane.

In 2003, the press corps raved about Bush's secret trip to Baghdad

They had never really been told that he was on the plane, though the pilot did announce that everyone was on board, without naming names. The press corps, perhaps reasonably, assumed that meant Obama. From the pilot's perspective, all it meant was that everyone who was traveling was on board. Anyway, they plane took off, and Obama went to Chicago later in the night after having his private meeting.

Now, I can understand the press corps' frustration, but on both the ABC and NBC broadcasts, the fact that they felt they had been lied to was a central feature of each story. It's a perfect example of media navel gazing. Do they really think that in the 90 seconds or so that they have to explain the meeting that they should spend 20 or 30 seconds whining about not having been invited? No one ever forced them onto the plane, after all.

Whatever the merits of their position, their decision to make it an important feature of the story illustrates their pettiness more than anything else.

Update: There's a hilarious diary on this over at kos. My favorite part: CNN is actually selling t-shirts blaring: "Obama's dodge miffs press corps."

Since Tuesday night, all of America has been asking: what the heck was John Bush McCain talking about when he exhorted our nation to "deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies"?

After discovering that John Bush McCain has his own brand of bottled hot water, I'm starting to wonder: maybe it's all a corrupt scheme to win a big government contract for his wife's beverage distribution business?

And aside the problem of getting scalded, how the heck is an infant supposed to drink out of this thing anyway?

If you've got no idea what this is all about, you can watch the six second long video of McCain saying that "we should be able to deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies" here.

I love MSNBC -- especially Countdown -- but during a discussion about Hillary Clinton's political future on this evening's broadcast, I wasn't happy to see this:

It's just not acceptable to call Hillary Clinton a "girl," even if the headline writer was just trying to be cute. This should be especially obvious after the campaign that we've just gone through.

This doesn't validate the divisive attacks on Obama by people like Geraldine Ferraro, nor does it excuse the Clinton campaign's polarizing racial and cultural tactics.

Still, no matter how much I value MSNBC relative to other MSM outlets, this was a pretty clear example of sexism in action, and it's something they ought to make sure doesn't happen again.

So John Bush McCain has a new TV ad out talking about how much he hates war. It's an obvious attempt to soften the political damage from his hardline support for the Iraq War, and I took the liberty of mashing it up with some of his past statements.

As you can see, it turns out that he's calling himself a fool. But we already knew that, didn't we?

John Bush McCain's proclamation that "we should be able to deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies" is raising eyebrows across the country and throughout the world.

The video clip of McCain's curious remark is flooding the viral video charts, scalding everything in its path, already becoming 11th most viewed clip on the YouTube with 129,644 views -- and counting. Apparently, people everywhere, want to know: WTF, McCain? WTF?

Politico's Ben Smith calls it the "Perils of YouTube" and notes that McCain seems to have extemporaneously added the word "hot," which was not in his prepared remarks. That would tend to contradict Gawker's theory that McCain meant to say "we should be able to deliver sterilized boiled water to dehydrated babies."

What can you do to help get to the bottom of the mystery? Well, watch the clip. Send it to a friend. And always remember: When it comes to delivering bottled hot water to dehydrated babies, America deserves the truth.

It's a quadrennial tradition. Take 1988, for example:

The Republicans took another sideswipe at Dukakis' patriotism last week when Idaho Senator Steve Symms told a radio interviewer that Kitty Dukakis had been photographed "burning an American flag while she was an antiwar demonstrator during the '60s." The rumor is totally unsubstantiated, but that has not stopped zealots from spreading it. Replied Mrs. Dukakis: "It's untrue, unfounded, and there is no picture." Said Dukakis, in obvious frustration and fractured syntax: "I find oneself in the position of denying nonexistent facts."

No such photograph ever materialized -- because it never existed. Robert A. George has more.

And he hates America. Unless he proves me wrong, that is.

How else do you respond this?

CNN is having some fun pushing the veepmare scenario. I'm not at all surprised that a slight majority of Democrats say Obama should pick Hillary as VP...in fact, it's striking that the Democratic party is so divided on the question. Can you think of any Presidential candidate having picked a VP who almost half the party was opposed to?

Why didn't CNN ask this question: "Should Barack Obama choose his vice presidential candidate based on polls taken by media outlets desperate for a story, or should he make a decision based who would be the best running mate and partner in governing?"

Yesterday in DC, Dianne Feinstein hosted a sit-down session between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

After the meeting, Feinstein who has in the past pushed Obama to select Clinton as veep, seemed to push the false claim that Clinton had won the "popular vote."

People, particularly in this case because Hillary represents a very large bloc of voters — the largest ever for anybody that has come in No. 2, and has the popular vote.

That was the quote in The New York Times, and The Hill also quoted Feinstein the same way. But USA Today had a different quote:

Hillary Clinton represents a very large bloc of voters — the largest ever for anybody who's ever come in No. 2 in the popular vote.

Either way, by even talking about the popular vote argument, Feinstein is using a dishonest, misleading metric -- as I've said many times, you can't simply add together the results of different contests in different states run under different rules. Doing so unfairly penalizes states with caucuses or closed primaries.

So even if Feinstein recognizes that Clinton didn't win the popular vote, by using that fake metric she's reopening a wound from the nomination process when we should be trying to heal.

Here's my second attempt at using the green screen effect, this one a bit more ambitious than my first. It's video of John Bush McCain prattling on about how Hillary didn't get enough respect during the campaign overlayed on top of video of a supporter of his calling Hillary Clinton a "bitch." Of course, he didn't say anything to defend her -- he just laughed.

That John McCain -- he sure is a laugh-a-minute!

(h/t to TPM's Veracifier for the source video)

I posted some videos earlier from MSNBC.com; for some reason, they didn't work in the vodpod like they normally do. I'm posting them in this post for those of you who tried to get them to work. They are pretty cool -- one is about a 95-year-old man's dream finally coming true, and the other is about Barack pursuing Hillary Clinton's voters in Appalachia.

A blast from the past...it's John Bush McCain vs. the Microphone.

Also, you may have noticed that I have once again made some changes to the blog layout. (You may have to refresh your cache to get everything working, just press the control key and the F5 key at the same time.)

The changes are cosmetic with the exception of the reintroduction of ads above the fold, which I'm going to test again for a little bit. With this layout I think the ad is a little bit less obnoxious than it was before. One thing I'm curious about is whether anybody follows the links in the "things I should have blogged" section on the right hand sidebar -- if you do, I'd love to know, or if you have any other thoughts or comments. Thanks!

Today, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a new report detailing how the Bush Administration misled our nation into war with Iraq. According to The New York Times, the report "concluded that President Bush and his aides built the public case for war against Iraq by exaggerating available intelligence and by ignoring disagreements among spy agencies."

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the committee's chairman, said the report showed that the president and vice president made a case that was "fundamentally misleading and led the nation to war on false premises." If Rockefeller's statement is true, then Bush and Cheney must be punished.

At a minimum, Congress should begin a formal inquiry. This isn't about politics. If we were lied into war -- and I say if because until there is legal proceeding of some sort, the matter will be up for debate --  then the one thing we cannot do is nothing, because if we do nothing, it will just happen again.

I've never done green screen effects before, so this isn't the most inspired thing in the world, but it's a proof of concept for an idea suggested by a commenter (RandyH, I believe).

What do you think? So what video or images would you run in the background? This could end up being a lot of fun.

In other video related news, today the 3 millionth video was played from my YouTube channel. (Self-promoting edit: Since March 28, I've had 2.1 million videos played -- twice as many as John McCain's YouTube channel in the same span.) Thanks to everybody whose watched the videos, and shared them with friends!

McCain misrepresents Obama's stand on naming Revolutionary Guard as terrorists.

John McCain is attacking Barack Obama's opposition to the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which (among other things) called for labeling Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. McCain claims that Obama's opposition means that he also opposed calling the IRGC terrorists. We find otherwise.

The above comes from FactCheck.org, a non-partisan, non-profit project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Although my top preference for VP is still John Edwards, I think Washington state Governor Christine Gregoire ought to be thrown into the mix of names being discussed.

On a political level, Obama wouldn't pick Gregoire to deliver Washington state -- Washington will go blue in November no matter who he picks. Rather, the obvious political objective would be demographic, to cement Obama's strength with voters who want to see a woman on the ticket. (As a bonus, she's Catholic, and she's 61, which might put her on the old side for 2016, but is a perfect compliment to Obama in 2008.)

Gregoire was a popular three-term Attorney General before being elected Governor in 2004. Politically, the biggest knock against her is that her 2004 race was far closer than it should have been, though I think the problem had more to do with her campaign than her as a candidate. As a vice presidential candidate, she'd have the benefit of the Obama operation, which would be unlikely to make the same types of mistakes she made in her 2004 campaign.

Gregoire is running for re-election now (she's up by 11 points in the latest poll that I've looked at), so Democrats in the state would have to scramble to find another candidate to take her place -- perhaps Ron Sims (for whom I used to work) would give it another shot.

I should note as a disclaimer that although I now live in Las Vegas, I've worked in Washington state politics and have lived in Seattle for most of my life. My dad was an AAG while Gregoire was AG, though he didn't work in her office. I've only met her a couple of times, and she certainly wouldn't remember me, but both times I was very impressed with her intelligence, poise, and leadership qualities -- she wouldn't just satisfy demographic criteria -- she'd also be an excellent vice president

What are your thoughts about Gregoire? Other names? (And are you rooting for Romney as hard as I am?)

kos is entitled to some bragging rights:

2008: If Obama runs, he wins

...There's one thing that could put a skid on Obama's fast rise -- an Al Gore entrance into the race. Other than that, I don't see a way anyone stops him.

Again, we don't know what the final field will look like, so things can dramatically change. But an entrance into the race would make Obama the prohibitive favorite. If politics is about seizing opportunities, it would seem a no-brainer for him to enter the race now.

What's more, Obama would then be tough to beat in the general. He would very well be the favorite in that race, even against a McCain, and would probably be a net positive for Democrats running down the ballot. So it wouldn't be a terrible thing by any means.

Not bad.

There's been a fair bit of a back and forth about whether or not Barack Obama should agree to McCain's town hall proposal. Obviously, he won't agree to McCain's specific proposal, which would begin next week, and I think that 60 minutes is too short.

But on the larger question of whether or not the format is a good one for Obama, I think it is clearly an advantageous one -- not so much because of the contrast with McCain (I actually think the format is good for McCain as well), but because it takes the press out of the equation.

Think back to the Philadelphia debate. If that had been a town hall, without heavily partisan voters, none of the questions raised by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos would have come up. In theory, you'd like to think that the media would actually be able to ask valuable questions, but those two demonstrated that we can't trust the media. And I think it's pretty clear that Obama is far more likely than McCain to be the target of similarly scurillous questioning in future debates.

So while the details need to get worked out, and while McCain will feel more comfortable in the format than in a debate, I say go for it -- get past the media filter as much as possible. Ironically, the best chance we have for a meaningful, issues-driven debate is to bypass journalists.

Update: icebergslim makes an important point -- Obama has no obligation to neutralize his financial advantage over McCain. There's no need to do these town hall events before the conventions. Perhaps the way to go would be doing 4 or 5 of them after the conventions, and then doing away with the debates entirely.

It still really hasn't hit me that Barack Obama has actually won the Democratic nomination. That's sort of odd in a way, because it has seemed so clear to me for so long (since the Potomac Primary four months ago, at least) that he was going to win.

And now he's actually won, and Hillary Clinton, however grudgingly, has accepted it. I guess her performance on Tuesday night took away somewhat from the euphoria of the moment. I was pretty pissed off at her for bigfooting all over such a special evening, but now that a little bit of time has passed, I'm no longer pissed.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's any excuse for the way she handled the night, but in the long run, I think we're better off that she did what she did because by crossing so far over the line, she actually pushed many of her supporters away; in her effort to divide, she may actually have sped up the process of unifying the party. It would be a fitting epitaph for her campaign. (In another fitting piece of symbolism, she wore what appeared to be an all black pantsuit today.)

So even though she may have made Tuesday a bit less pleasant than it could have been, at least she effectively killed her chance at getting the VP nod, or at least gave Obama a great excuse for not picking her, since I think her chances were already nil. It would have been different if she had stunned the political world last night and conceded the nomination and promised to fight her heart out for Barack. But now, nobody will blame Barack for skipping over her, at least nobody other than people like Bob Johnson and Lanny Davis. (Great line about Bob Johnson via Jake Tapper: "What, Geraldine Ferraro wasn't available?")

The other thing that distracted me a bit on Tuesday night (albeit in a good way) was the World's Worst Speech by John McCain. Some people might try and spin at at having set a low bar for McCain's rhetorical abilities...but nobody would have ever intentionally given such a pathetic performance, especially not one that reinforced every negative stereotype about your campaign.

But McCain's lame speech also got me a fired up, because for the first time in my life, the Democratic Party could win a massive landslide victory in the fall if things play out right -- and if it happens, it won't be a landslide for some DLC-branded politician, it will be a landslide for Barack Obama and a Democratic Party that is far closer to the grassroots than it has ever been in my lifetime.

In a broader historical context, probably the most remarkable thing about Barack's nomination is that he is likely to become the first African American president of the United States of America. On a personal level though, I hardly even noticed that on Tuesday; I don't mean to minimize his accomplishment, but when I look at Barack Obama (not in the visual sense, but the broader sense), I don't see someone who is running to be the first black president; I see someone who could be the first president since JFK and LBJ or perhaps FDR to bring about enduring change.

The short 6 second video clip of John Bush McCain mysteriously urging America to prepare itself to "deliver bottled hot water for dehydrated babies" is starting to make the rounds. If you're a digg user, please help give it a digg: