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.