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.

The left side of the table shows groups the results by Democratic ticket and the right side groups them by Republican tickets. For each ticket, I show how that ticket performed on average against each individual ticket from the other party, as well as against the all the tickets, averaged together. (The data is the same on the left and the right, it is just grouped differently.)

For McCain's ticket, Mike Huckabee is the strongest VP candidate tested. He beat all the Obama tickets except for Obama-Edwards, leading by 4 points on average. Romney was next best, leading by 2.

For Obama's ticket, John Edwards is the strongest VP candidate tested by SurveyUSA. In fact, an Obama-Edwards ticket is the only ticket to lead any of the Republican tickets -- all other Obama tickets trailed, on average. Obama-Edwards led McCain by 7 points on average.

In a Obama-Edwards vs. McCain-Huckabee matchup, Obama-Edwards leads by 5 on average.

One thing to note is that McCain's VP field is a little stronger than Obama's; while Obama leads McCain without a VP, on average with the VPs, McCain leads Obama. This is probably because McCain's VP candidates are better known than Obama's.

In Michigan, SurveyUSA tested only one Republican ticket (McCain-Romney) against 10 different Democratic tickets. Here they are, ranked by performance. Since all the Democratic tickets lost, smaller is better, and Edwards again outperformed the field.

I've made no secret about my bias towards John Edwards. I know that he's said that he won't be the vice presidential nominee and I do not believe that he is actively pursuing it. On the other hand, I can't imagine that he would say no if he were asked, and these numbers suggest that at very least, he should be on the very short list of Obama's VP prospects.

↑ Shrink 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.