August 2008 Archives

If John McCain hadn't made his houses gaffe, wouldn't he have picked Mitt Romney?

From the video archives:
007 GoldenMansion

AMERICAblog has been all over this, and as John Aravosis says, it's sick. Here's some of their coverage from today:

• Why do McCain and Bush disrupt emergency services during the hurricane - for their photo ops?
• McCain considering using Gustav disaster area as prop for convention acceptance speech
• GOP operative: "Gustav may be a positive" for McCain
• Why did John McCain bring any press at all with him to the hurricane?

McCain, who first met Sarah Palin when she was six months pregnant, did not ask his staff to vet Palin by checking the archives of her own hometown newspaper.

It's just another piece of evidence that John McCain selected a running mate who neither he nor his campaign know anything about. Whether or not she ultimately is proven to be qualified is not even all that important; the point is that John McCain made the most irresponsible choice for VP imaginable.

He was flying blind. Well, maybe not totally blind:

Guest post by barath

Right or wrong, in a democracy, the voters ultimately decide. They judge the candidates and cast their lot with one or the other. Put differently, the number of votes a candidate has received in his or her lifetime is an upper limit on the number of Americans that have judged that candidate to be worthy of support. So how many Americans have judged McCain and Obama worthy of support?

Well, it turns out that since 1982, Barack Obama has earned more votes (21.6 million) than John McCain (19.5 million).

A swing and a miss.

Ross Douthat:

Be careful what you wish for, huh? And yes, if it turns out that the next two months transform Palin into a national laughingstock with no future outside Alaska, I won't be terribly happy with John McCain's decision-making process. I intend to wait slightly longer than 48 hours, though, before I pass judgment on that question.

Though I have my doubts, Palin may the best thing since sliced bread, at least in terms of her potential. But there's almost no chance we're going to be able to resolve that question in the span of two month -- it is virtually impossible for a total unknown to win over the trust of Americans in the final nine weeks of a campaign that's already been going on for 19 months.

Will McCain ruin her? I have no idea. But I'm pretty sure that McCain ruined himself by picking her.

How a college sophomore put Alaska's governor on the map.

By Timothy Noah

According to both the Aug. 29 Anchorage Daily News and the June 13 Colorado Springs Gazette, Sarah Palin became John McCain's vice presidential candidate largely through the machinations of someone even younger and less experienced than herself. From the Anchorage Daily News:

The hype can probably be traced to the Web site of a 21-year-old college senior majoring in political science at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. Adam Brickley, a political buff who will graduate in May, started a "Draft Sarah Palin for Vice President" blog last year and has relentlessly promoted the idea ever since.

Brickley has never been to Alaska or met Palin. But while researching potential vice presidents, he stumbled on Palin and thought she would be a good No. 2 to just about all of the major Republican candidates in the race at the time.

As Katrina Made Landfall, Bush Celebrated McCain's 69th Birthday

As the GOP's frenzied reaction to Gustav unfolds, just think about how many lives might have been saved if Hurricane Katrina had hit New Orleans during an election year.

We all know what happened with Katrina: as the storm battered the Gulf Coast, the most important thing on John McCain's mind was celebrating his 69th birthday with George W. Bush.

And as they shared cake together, the most damaging hurricane ever to hit the United States wreaked havoc on the nation.

Nearly two thousand confirmed dead. Hundreds more missing. A city destroyed. Nearly $100 billion in damages.

And John McCain and George W. Bush did nothing to help. Nothing at all.

But they got their cake.

McCain on his impulsive decision-making process:

"I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can," Mr. McCain wrote, with his top adviser Mark Salter, in his 2002 book, "Worth the Fighting For." "Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint."

Yeah, except this time, if McCain wins the presidency, the United States and the world will be forced to live with his mistake.

They just lie and lie and lie and lie...

Palin touts stance on 'Bridge to Nowhere,' doesn't note flip-flop

By TOM KIZZIA, Anchorage Daily News

When John McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate Friday, her reputation as a tough-minded budget-cutter was front and center.

"I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere," Palin told the cheering McCain crowd, referring to Ketchikan's Gravina Island bridge.

But Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.

The Alaska governor campaigned in 2006 on a build-the-bridge platform, telling Ketchikan residents she felt their pain when politicians called them "nowhere." They're still feeling pain today in Ketchikan, over Palin's subsequent decision to use the bridge funds for other projects -- and over the timing of her announcement, which they say came in a pre-dawn press release that seemed aimed at national news deadlines.

...and lie and lie and lie and lie.

To put it charitably, the WaPo hasn't had the most enthusiastic of editorial pages towards Barack Obama, but now that John McCain has made the worst vice presidential selection in modern history, thing are changing.

On back-to-back days, the WaPo editorial page has slammed McCain, first on his VP choice, and now today on taxes:

Continuing Deception: Mr. McCain's ads on taxes are just plain false.

THERE IS a serious debate to be had in this presidential campaign about the fundamentally different tax policies of Barack Obama and John McCain. Then there is the phony, misleading and at times outright dishonest debate that the McCain campaign has been waging -- most recently with a television ad.

The two candidates have very different positions on taxes. Mr. Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and cut them substantially for low- and middle-income taxpayers. He would cut taxes for more households, and by a larger amount, than Mr. McCain, who would give the greatest benefits to wealthy households and corporations.

Given the lack of timeliness of this editorial, it makes me wonder if it isn't something of a shot across McCain's bow that he ought to reconsider his VP choice. Is it possible that Romney ought to dust off his mansions and get ready to replace Palin?

This is classic Obama -- personally generous to Palin ("compelling person") without letting her off the hook for representing John McCain's Republican vision, which would just deliver more of the same (transcript below):

As you can see below, the McCain-Palin campaign is now using Palin's official portrait from the Alaska Governor's Office on its website, a clear violation of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

The number of homes owned by John McCain is larger than the number of months that have elapsed since he first met his new choice to be Vice President of the United States of America.

So former McCain adviser Mike Murphy was on MSNBC during the Democratic Convention and baselessly claimed that Hillary Clinton actually supported John McCain. Chris Matthews challenged Murphy's claim, but Keith Olbermann had the guts to do the right thing: he said it was time to take Murphy off the air ("Let's wrap him up"). And now it appears that Murphy won't be on MSNBC again.

Del Ali, president of the nonpartisan research firm Research 2000, authors a guest post for Taegan Goddard's Political Wire arguing that Sarah Palin may prove to be the worst pick ever in modern presidential politics.

If this is true, Ali is right:

In fact, as Palin's cultural views become better known -- she oppose abortion in all cases and opposes the use of birth control pills and condoms even among married couples -- she will undoubtedly scare the hell out of the soccer moms and 98% of Hillary voters.

Update: I inadvertantly left the direct link off the original post. It's now been added.

Update 2: As noted in the comments, I very specifically used the words "if this is true" because this is a hard thing to believe. But if you think it's impossible, just take a look at what Mike Huckabee has to say about the pill (I think he's okay with condoms):

Republican's newest talking point: McCain's choice for VP is leader of "the largest state in the union."

Here's a shorter, crisper version of the McCain-Palin "Getting To Know You" video I posted earlier in the day:

And here's some of my favorite captions posted by viewers of the first version of the video:

• Awkward.
• "As long as I have this ring on, no one can see me...right?"
  
• McCain had actually been eyeing Palin for a while
  
• John McCain's 'Rove'-ing Eyes
• He's looking at her . . . podium! Yeah, that's it! He's checking out her podium!
• Nice shoes!
• I guess this brings a whole new meaning to "vice" president.
• "I wanna DRILL HERE, and I WANNA DRILL NOW!"
• Careful Sarah! He might take you to Sturgis!
  

McCain playing craps at Bellagio, summer 2006.
More on McCain's lobbyist gambling buddy here.

::: ::: :::

"McCain is an avid gambler. Wes Gullett, a close friend who worked for McCain for years, told me that they used to play craps in Las Vegas in fourteen-hour stints, standing at the tables from 10 a.m. to midnight."

-- Connie Bruck's profile of McCain in The New Yorker

Most of the media chatter about the vice presidential debate has focused on two things. (a) Joe Biden is way more qualified than Sarah Palin; but (b) if he directly attacks her qualifications, he'll be seen as beating up on a woman, and it will backfire on him like it did for Rick Lazio.

I don't mind this spin because it lowers expectations for Biden, but I do think that it makes a fundamental error: Joe Biden isn't going to attack Sarah Palin because this election isn't about Sarah Palin. It's about whether or not we want to change direction from the past eight years, and it's about the fact that John McCain embodies more of the same.

Her statement is short, simple, and to the point:

"I never knew a Republican could make a joke."

So yesterday Rush Limbaugh yesterday suggested that Barack Obama would have wanted to kill Sarah Palin's newborn infant after it had been born. Limbaugh's absurd suggestion came during this skit in which he imagines that Barack Obama and Sarah Palin have just met for the first time and are asking each other questions.

Next question, Obama to Sarah Palin: When you found out your baby would be born with Down syndrome, did you consider killing it before or after the due date? You mean you had the baby? You really had the baby?

Normally, Limbaugh is on my permanent ignore list, but this one's relevant because the RNC thought it would be a great line of attack against Barack Obama.

A musical take on John McCain's big decision...

Update (7:05AM): Your guess is as good as mine as to what John McCain is looking at. On a separate note, I'm stepping away for a little while -- I'll be back in the early afternoon if not before.

The Obama campaign launches a new ad responding to John McCain's vice presidential selection and targeting his real running mate, George W. Bush:

Transcript: Well, he's made his choice. But, for the rest of us...there's still no change. McCain doesn't get it, calling this broken economy "strong." Wants to keep spending ten-billion-a-month in Iraq. And votes with George Bush ninety-percent of the time. So, while this may be his running-mate... (VISUAL: McCain/Palin) ...America knows this is John McCain's agenda.  (VISUAL: McCain/Bush) And we can't afford four more years of the same.

Love him or hate him, Bill Maher is back, and John McCain certainly gave him some material. You might fight the opening monologue raw at times, but the Tim Kaine interview is sheer brilliance. Kaine has the audience howling at McCain's VP selection just by delivering the facts.

On an only slightly related note...if you're a fan of Entourage, the new season begins a week from Sunday, on September 7.

It's almost like buying a car:

The campaign secretly flew Palin into Dayton last night. She and McCain met privately for a couple of hours. McCain concluded she would "shake up the system" and was "a maverick," qualities he believed Lieberman would have brought to the ticket. But she also would appeal to conservatives -- which Lieberman most certainly would not have done.

After their meeting, McCain concluded he was comfortable with his choice. He notified Pawlenty this morning that he was going in a different direction.

So (a) when the McCain campaign on Wednesday said that their boss had made a decision, they were wrong or lying; and (b) McCain's decision didn't come until after Obama's speech.

It was all about politics. Putting. Country. Last.

Update (11:21PM): In the comments of another post, erykah pointed out this incredible statement by Charlie Black, John McCain's closest adviser.

She's going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he'll be around at least that long.

The issue isn't so much the part about doctors (McCain is 72, and his mom is still alive at 96, though his dad passed away at 70), it's that Black essentially accepts the argument that she isn't qualified to be president.

If he gets elected, McCain's doctors had better have been right.

Andrew Sullivan linked to this audio of Sarah Palin talking about her views on Iraq policy earlier this month.

Listen to it. Seriously. She makes George W. Bush sound coherent.

How could John McCain entrust the country to someone so ignorant?

Keith O. and Rachel M. talk about Palin, spotlighting her false claim to have consistently opposed the bridge to nowhere:

Well, let's be honest. It's no mystery. There's almost no doubt that either the McCain campaign or somebody close to Palin is responsible for the unethical whitewashing of history just hours before her candidacy was revealed.

This is of course a major no-no for Wikipedia. NPR reports. And their source is unimpeachable: a pro-Palin Wikipedia editor.

(h/t: Kos diarist CarrieNYC)

A fresh face for more of the same: Palin (far left) admiring Bush

::: ::: :::

For most of the day, the media has been obsessing over one question about McCain's selection of Sarah Palin: "How will it play?" But as Joe Sudbay points out, the real question is whether or not Sarah Palin is ready to be President of the United States.

And if, as Joe argues, she's not ready to be President of the United States, doesn't that mean that John McCain has just put the country in danger by putting politics first?

Hasn't John McCain just destroyed the entire rationale for his campaign: not just his "experience" argument, but also his "country first" argument?

Why did Sarah Palin support Pat Buchanan over John McCain in the 2000 presidential election?

Chris Hayes digs through the AP archives and hits gold -- it turns out that Sarah Palin supported Pat Buchanan's 2000 presidential campaign. (Earlier today, Buchanan told Hayes "It's great for the base. I'm pretty sure she's a Buchananite!")

From time to time, Buchanan makes interesting points, but I'd instantly disqualify from the presidency anyone who supported him for President. As a Jew, I'm particularly sensitive to his antisemitic rhetoric, but he has also uttered many a racist comment. For starters, just look at this litany of bigoted comments from Buchanan (compiled by the ADL), all made before Palin went public with her support for Buchanan in 1999.

As you may know, Pat Buchanan is also an outspoken opponent of Israel. It's one thing to criticize Israel -- I have done so and will continue to do so. But the country has a right to exist, and given Palin's support for Buchanan, pro-Israel activists should be very alarmed about McCain's commitment to Israel. (McCain has suggested James Baker, who famously said "Fuck the Jews," would be his Middle East envoy.)

According to Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd, John McCain had only met Sarah Palin once or twice before selecting her to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Also, earlier today McCain's campaign chairman Sen. Lindsay Graham admitted that he had never met Palin, and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison also said that she didn't know much about Palin.

So not only is America getting to know McCain's VP, but so is John McCain. That's downright scary. A total lack of judgment.

Here's video:

Update (2:50PM): Conservative Ramesh Ponnuru praises Palin for being a pro-life woman, but slams McCain for making a "reckless" choice given his age. Ponnuru also questions whether "they would work well together" given that they don't know each other.

Guest post by Jed's father, Richard Lewison

What this choice does is put the lie to McCain's "Country First" mantra.

A 72 year old chooses a VP candidate with no national political experience. He clearly would put the country at peril if he thinks it will win him enough votes to become president. What a fraud. He reacts to the presidency the way Gollum reacts to The Ring. I wouldn't be surprised if in his dreams he thinks of it as 'my precious.'

Those who compare Palin's slim experience with Obama's should remember that Obama wasn't chosen by a dispeptic old man to run for office.  He was chosen by voters after a long and hard campaign.

Last night was spectacular. Obama was smooth as silk and hard as nails.

Last night, more than 38 million people watched the greatest convention speech in history.

That's twice as many people as watched John Kerry in 2004.

As the day continues, let us not forget that the promise for change embodied in that speech is the reason John McCain made the running mate choice that he did.

John McCain made a political calculation that the only way he could regain the initative in this campaign was by picking Sarah Palin.

I don't think it will work, but only time will tell. But one thing is clear: in choosing Sarah Palin, John McCain put politics first.

Palin is a fresh face alright, but she's a fresh face for more of the same.

A couple of Palin clips from Kudlow & Co. earlier this summer:

This is what the Sarah Palin VP pick comes down to: She's a fresh new face for more of the same.

During her speech earlier today, she did not say one single thing to show differentiate herself from John McCain or George Bush.

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar knocked this message out of the park in an interview on MSNBC just a few minutes ago:

Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, underwhelming in her enthusiasm, obviously has no clue who Sarah Palin is:

Well, a lot of energy, enthusiasm, youthfulness...I don't know too much about her...I'm sure that John has talked with her and is comfortable that she can take the helm. Everyone said early on that he should have a younger running mate, so he certainly has picked someone who is a real up-and-comer.

I think we now know why John McCain wanted to keep this pick a secret: Sarah Palin has such a thin record of accomplishmen that if her name were leaked before the pick, she'd have been ripped to shreds.

Well, Sarah Palin is an outstanding pick for conservatives: she's anti-choice (even in the case of rape), anti-science (supports creationism and denies global warming), and has a Watergate-style corruption scandal brewing back home. Brilliant!

I like what GOP strategist Alex Castellanos said yesterday after Barack's acceptance speech:

Whoever didn't get picked for Republican VP today may be a lucky Republican.

Well, I was wrong about Pawlenty! Here's the Obama camp statement on McCain's selection of Palin:

"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same," said Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman.

I think I'm going to wait a day or two before I watch the speech again, but if you're ready for another viewing, here it is:

Update (like two minutes later): I lied...I just started watching it.

Update 2: Roger Simon has a funny line. "Obama's speech soared many times, but it always came back to earth. And it usually came back to earth on John McCain's head."

I hate to divert attention from Barack Obama's magnificent speech tonight, but it's looking increasingly likely that John McCain will select Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to be his running mate on Friday morning. (See my update below.)

As voters get to know Pawlenty, they might be interested to learn about a humiliating joke he told about his wife's lack of interest in having sex with him. Appearing on sports radio last May with his wife at his side, Pawlenty said that while she liked sports and fishing, she'd really be perfect "if I could only get her to have sex with me." Listen here:

Given McCain's own crude sense of humor, it kind of gives you a sense of what he must see in Pawlenty, doesn't it?

Update (1:35AM): The reason why I think it is Pawlenty is primarily due to the fact that Alex Castellanos, who was Romney's media guy, said that in the wake of Barack Obama's great speech, "whoever didn't get picked for Republican VP today may be a lucky Republican." Unless he's had a falling out with Romney, I can't imagine him saying that unless Romney had told him he wasn't the guy.

Assuming that I'm right about Romney, I settled on Pawlenty because I don't see anyone else getting the nod. Of course, I could always be wrong. In fact, Marc Ambinder is reporting that Mitt Romney will be in Dayton tomorrow, which would suggest he's the guy. In any event, I'll be sleeping through McCain's announcement, so when I wake up in the morning, I will either be able to claim clairvoyance or I'll look like a fool.

Pat Buchanan: "It was a genuinely outstanding speech. It was magnificent. It is the finest - and I saw Cuomo's speech, I saw Kennedy in '80, I even saw Douglas MacArthur, I saw Martin Luther King - this is the greatest convention speech, and probably the most important because unlike Cuomo and the others this is an acceptance speech. This came out of the heart of America and he went right at the heart of America..."

GOP Strategist Alex Castellanos: "Whoever didn't get picked for Republican VP today may be a lucky Republican." (Update/note: Since Castellanos worked for Mitt Romney, this probably means Pawlenty will be the VP choice.)

I watched the speech on ABC, and just after it concluded even Charlie Gibson concluded it was extraordinary. He had a look of bewilderment on his face. There was nothing to criticize.

I turned off the TV at that point. I realized I didn't want to listen to anyone else's analysis of the speech. I know what it meant to me, and I wanted to think about that before letting the thoughts of any of those pundits get in my way.

And instead of listing off all the superlatives I can think of, I think the political ramifications of the speech boil down to this: if you can win an election in August, then Barack Obama just won the election.

Update: Andrew Sullivan, brilliant as usual. Now why don't they put him on television. That'd be punditry worth watching.

8:22PM Pacific: In one speech, Barack Obama not only destroyed every single argument John McCain has made during this campaign, but he also explained who he is and what he's fighting for.

But Barack Obama wasn't just talking about the election tonight. He was talking about America. He wasn't just addresing the challenges his campaign must confront. He was addressing the challenges our nation must confront.

A conservative friend wrote me after the speech ended: "Barack Obama is going to win in a landslide," he said. There's a lot of work yet to be done, and I don't know that we'll win a landslide, but as I said yesterday, I have no doubts we will win. The question is by how much.

Bill Richardson delivers a funny line:

"John McCain may pay hundreds of dollars for his shoes, but we're the ones who will pay for his flip-flops."

By the way, the stage is looking even better now that the sun is setting. Lighting makes such a big difference.

Update: Another good one. "John McCain served his country in war. We honor his service, but that doesn't mean we have to make him president. At a time when the country needs change, and not more of the same, America needs Barack Obama."

Howard Dean and John Lewis just took to the stage at Invesco Field, using the same podium as Barack Obama. I took screenshots of each of the camera angles from the speeches to create something of a preview of how things might look tonight. Other than the lighting (which is a big deal) and of course the guy at the stage, these screenshots give something of a sense of what tonight's visuals will be for the television audience.

I think you'll be happy.

::: ::: :::

1) Most of the speech will probably be broadcast from this angle:

Check this ad out -- it's from the South Carolina GOP trying to innoculate John McCain from his houses gaffe, using his POW experience as a defense.

They must be really freaked out.

From a Daily Kos diary currently atop the recc list:

by Kristina40

I had to work last night but luckily I'm a bartender and have a couple of television sets at my disposal.  I was surprised a few people requested that I turn up the volume so we could listen to the speeches.  I decided to flip the channel from the cable news channel to cspan.  Several of the customers asked me why.  I replied

"Because I'd like to process what is said in the speech without someone telling me what I'm supposed to think of it".

One Republican customer commented,

"Wow, I never really thought about it that way."

So began my experiment..
Follow me below the fold for results.

MNSBC decided to do a segment on political blogging, which is great, but the featured interview was between Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Tom Brokaw.

With all due respect to Schmidt (who Brokaw called "Eric Google"), Brokaw should have interviewed Markos. Markos knows as much as anybody -- and certainly more than Schmidt -- about the blogosphere, and is better suited to offer genuine insight into political blogging.

It gives you insight as to how clueless these folks are on some issues.

Drudge is pushing a rumor that McCain will leak his VP choice just before Barack Obama's speech tonight. If true, it would be an obviously classless act, but I love the way Obama campaign communications chief Dan Pfeiffer is "presponding":

"It's one more piece of evidence that the McCain campaign is a war room masquerading as a presidential campaign."

Pfeiffer did, however, call McCain's bluff.

"If they do it, I will pay all of McCain's mortgages next month," he quipped.

McCain, as Pfeiffer well knows, has no mortgages on the numerous properties and he and his wife own.

By the way, if the speculation that McCain is picking Mitt Romney is true, it'll take the edge off my ire. Those guys alone probably have a combined net worth larger than that of everybody sitting in the upper deck at Invesco Field tonight. Update: Reading tea leaves here, but the fact that Romney and Ridge will be going to a rally with McCain on Saturday tells me that Romney isn't the guy. Tim Pawlenty or Kay Bailey Hutchinson are probably more likely. Update 2: Not KBH.

Update (2:44PM): Thanks to commenter PQuigley, here's John McCain speaking at the Utah GOP with his own (admittedly lame) columns.

::: ::: :::

Original post:

So here's the context:

Later today, Barack Obama will speak before a crowd of 75,000 at Denver's Invesco Field to accept the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States of America.

Meanwhile, tomorrow, John McCain will announce his VP at a rally in Dayton, Ohio. He still hasn't been able to give fill all of the 10,000 seats available at his venue, even though it's his 72^nd birthday.

So how does the McCain campaign respond? Instead of recognizing the huge difference between Barack Obama's historic nomination and his absolutely typical selection of a VP, McCain and his Republican supporters have decided to mock the stagecraft of Barack Obama's speech.

What petty, childish, worthless human beings.

What disgusting pigs.

No matter who you support this November, today is a great and proud moment for the United States of America. For the first time in our nation's history, an African American will be a major party's nominee and will have have a very real chance of being elected President.

And this is how they respond? Their contempt for America and its history shows no limits.

No matter what they say, the obvious historical and architectural inspiration for Barack Obama's stage is the Lincoln Memorial and The White House. Yes, the very same Lincoln Memorial where 45 years ago today Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I have a dream" speech. Yes, the very same White House that has housed every President of the United States since John Adams in 1801.

If they don't understand these cultural references, then it is their own ignorance that they are putting on display. These people wrap themselves in the flag,  bludgeon their fellow citizens with the club of patriotism, but cannot see an obvious reference to the architectural tradition embodied in two of our nation's most important landmarks.

What complete jokes these people are.

This is kind of funny. Two reporters from TIME were not at all happy with their recent interview with St. Maverick of McCain:

The McCain on display in the 24-minute interview was prickly, at times abrasive, and determined not to stray off message.

The reporters seem to think the McCain they saw was an aberration. I guess I'd say how could they possibly know? Who is the real McCain anyway?

The following clips were sent out by the Obama campaign:

David Gergen on Joe Biden's convention night: "What I think worked both in the hall and on television was the tableau that unfolded here over the past hour. In that I think the Democrats had their best hour of television of the convention"

Apparently, good things come in threes:

1. Bill Clinton delivers the best speech of his post-presidency, laying out the terms of this election in no uncertain terms, and offering an unequivocal endorsement of Barack Obama and his qualifications to be President of the United States of America.
2. John Kerry delivers the best red meat speech of the convention, tearing apart John McCain for his cynicism and bad judgment and his devolution into a clone of George Bush.
3. Joe Biden delivers a fantastic acceptance speech, deeply personal from the very start. He placed Barack's life story squarely in its true context, America. He laid out the theme of the change we need versus more of the same. And he directly challenged John McCain's judgment on national security and said that 8 years of Bush-McCain policies have made us less secure.

Just think about all the talent we have at the top of the Democratic Party. Add in Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama -- and let's not forget a guy named Barack who made a suprise appearance. (NBC said they'd teased it, but I had no idea it was coming, and was pleasantly floored.)

This is a strong Democratic Party, and we're on the right side of the issues in this election. We're going to win this, and we're going to win it because our country -- and this world -- needs us to win. We have no other choice. We cannot fail. We must succeed. We will succeed.

So on C-SPAN I was watching a rousing speech by Tammy Duckworth connecting Steven Spielberg's excellent film about veterans to the policy options supported by John McCain and Barack Obama.

I flipped over to CNN, curious to see what they covered. A brief review of the DVR's recording showed that they did show the video, but not Duckworth's speech.

The irony? The caption on the screen when I flipped over to CNN was "What issues are being ignored?" Maybe a better caption would have been: "Who is ignoring the issues?"

Maybe I'm caught up in the moment after watching Bill Clinton speak, but I'm more confident than ever that we're going to win this thing, and I think in the end we're going to win it by a lot more than people are predicting.

One of the key things to remember about the current state of the race is this: after six weeks of unrelenting attacks from John McCain, Barack Obama still has a narrow but real lead. In the course of those attacks, McCain has all but emptied the kitchen sink: even his latest smear attack ad about Iran is just a repackaging of an old attack.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, has barely used anything against McCain. People have been critical of this, but don't forget, the election still isn't for another two months. Unlike McCain, Obama's campaign has shown restraint, saving some of its best lines of attack for when they matter. And the key thing is that we -- those of us who support Barack Obama -- are on the right side of history, to borrow a line from Bill Clinton's speech.

This election isn't just about John McCain or Barack Obama, it's also about whether we are going to change course after eight years of calamity after calamity, or if we're going to continue down the same old path. And on that fundamental question, Barack Obama is on the right side. And because of that fact, no matter what the polls may say right now, by November 4th, I think a substantial majority of Americans will be with us, to bring about the change we need.

Update: John Kerry's speech was incredible. I missed the beginning of it -- can't wait to see the full thing.

Here's partial video of Kerry's outstanding speech. When I find the full video, I'll post.

Full video now posted (thanks RandyH).

Here's the full video of Clinton's speech -- if you haven't seen it, it's a must-see.

::: ::: :::

Well, while I was out I managed to get stuck in the world's worst traffic (overturned cement truck), but the good news is that during that time, Barack Obama officially became the nominee of the Democratic Party.

Of course, I turned on CNN first thing upon returning and despite Hillary Clinton's motion to make Obama the nominee by acclimation, the topic was -- you guessed it -- Democratic disunity.

What a bunch of lying scoundrels they are. I could stomach their coverage if it bore some relation to the facts at hand, or if they were somewhat balanced in their treatment of John McCain's own problems with unity, but that doesn't fit their script.

In a January debate, McCain questioned Romney's patriotism.

Jonathan Martin:

At a lunch with reporters here today meant to counterprogram Obama -- an event that amounted to vice presidential audition -- Romney struck back hard at Democratic criticism over McCain's inability to say how many houses he owns.

"John McCain is a man who has served his nation in the military; he served it in a prison camp," Romney said. "And to suggest that because he and his wife own four homes that they use for their personal living quarters, that that somehow means he's detached from America, is simply wrong and -- I think -- offensive."

I'm not sure what's a bigger overreaction: going POW, or whining about "offensive" criticism. And if you're John McCain, I really don't understand why you'd want Mitt Romney out there defending you on this.

::: ::: :::

Housekeeping note: I'm going to be out for a while buying some computer hardware to replace two failed hard drives and to expand my ability to record television coverage of the campaign. I wish such things were free, but unfortunately they aren't, and if you'd like to help cover these expenses, you can support TJR with a donation via PayPal. Thanks!

On sale this weekend at Washington state's Evergreen State Fair by the Snohomish County Republican Party (h/t: kos diarist ManageWA):

After complaints started pouring in and the press started paying attention, they stopped selling the fake currency, but according to the Everett Herald, Luke Esser, the state party chairman, "did not criticize Snoho­mish County Republicans for" selling the smear bills. In June, a McCain ad mocked the idea of Obama's face on a hundred dollar bill.

Andrew Sullivan has a pair of great posts on McCain's new smear ad, first summing up McCain's campaign as "smears and fears" and then demonstrating the utter baselessness of McCain's new lying attack ad.

To Andrew, the problem with McCain is that his combition of bitter moralism and ignorant bluster could mean that he would actually be worse than Bush.

If past is prologue, it's worth taking another look at a video I posted last month, John McCain's Neverending War:

Ben Smith gets an interesting tidbit on McCain's embrace of Daddy Yankee (and his sexually explicit song Gasolina):

A Democratic Party source tells me a representative for Daddy Yankee approached Obama's Latino outreach staffers earlier this year about possibly endorsing Obama.

But he didn't pass the vetting, and Obama's aides said they weren't interested in his support. So, apparently, he moved over to McCain.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel had some fun with McCain's awkward alliance:

Michael Calderone has the skinny on an overlooked aspect of the McCain houses story:

My colleague Marty Kady reports that within the McCain traveling press corps, there's been a little debate going on about what to call the senator's place in Sedona.

"Ranch?" Well, there's actually no ranching going on. The McCain family calls it a "cabin," but it's not exactly a little place in the woods. Some say "vacation home," but that not quite right, either.

So the verdict: "compound," since it comprises several buildings.

I thought this was a neat picture of Barack Obama watching Michelle Obama (who was watching Hillary Clinton).

More pictures after the jump.

When the Associated Press calls John McCain's new smear ad "misleading" you know that it has got to be a pretty hard ad to defend.

Nonetheless, some of the media isn't getting it. CNN's Political Ticker blog initially accepted the ad's claims uncritically and even calls the ad "tough." Fortunately, CNN provided an update stating Obama "does not say that Iran does not pose a serious threat." Unfortunately, they tacked the update on the end of their post, so anyone reading just the headline and first few graphs won't get the full story.

Meanwhile, the rest of the media is coming to the conclusion that McCain's smear ad is false. For example, Politico's Ben Smith says McCain's ad takes Obama's words "fairly badly out of context." Greg Sargent of TPM says the ad "rips Obama's words out of context."  Politico's Jonathan Martin is a bit weaker, but still says the ad "takes some liberties with the quote they attribute to Obama." And ABC's Jake Tapper had previously called the ad "dishonest."

Here's a press release from the Obama campaign press shop exploring John McCain's own ties to Iran:

What McCain Won't Tell You About Iran: The McCain campaign's latest false attack ad raises the issue of Iran.  What Senator McCain doesn't want you to know is that many of his top advisors lobbied for companies doing business with Iran or otherwise have a vested interest in Iran.  At the same time, and despite all his bluster to the contrary, John McCain opposed closing a loophole that allowed foreign subsidiaries of American corporations to do business with Iran and refuses to support a bipartisan bill written by Barack Obama that would direct divestment from Iran.

And the rest of the response:

When ABC's Jake Tapper calls out the McCain campaign this forcefully, you know that (a) the McCain camp is wrong and (b) there's a chance other reporters will listen. (Emphasis added.)

Today's new McCain ad -- "Tiny," which you can watch HERE -- crosses a new line into dishonesty...

The script reads; "Iran. Radical Islamic government. Known sponsors of terrorism. Developing nuclear capabilities to 'generate power' but threatening to eliminate Israel.

"Obama says Iran is a 'tiny' country, 'doesn't pose a serious threat,'" the ad continues. "Terrorism, destroying Israel, those aren't 'serious threats'? Obama -- dangerously unprepared to be president."

This is a dishonest representation of Obama's words.

...Watch [Obama's actual words] HERE.

That is not even close to Obama saying Iran is a "tiny" country that "doesn't pose a serious threat."

Not even close.

If Monday told the story of the the Obama family, and Tuesday told the story of Democratic unity, Wednesday needs to tell the story of why John McCain is unacceptable -- and the person responsible for telling that story is Joe Biden.

Hopefully, we'll see a mix of sober criticism and humorous, mocking derision. Based on his effort from Saturday, Biden should be able to pull that off, and if he does, his speech could be the most fun of the convention so far -- even more entertaining than Brian Schweitzer's which definitely wins the award for the most enjoyable rock 'em, sock 'em affair of the convention.

I'm sure there will be plenty of material in Biden's speech about Barack Obama and about himself, but tonight is the night to begin the closing argument of the convention: that the past eight years have been a calamity, and that the only thing that John McCain offers is four more years of the same old stuff.

So John McCain on Tuesday accepted the endorsement of reggaeton recording artist Daddy Yankee at a high school in Phoenix. Obviously, with his 72^nd birthday on Friday, McCain wanted to look cool, young, and hip.

But in introducing Daddy Yankee, McCain highlighted a song titled "Gasolina" which is not exactly about high energy prices. In fact, it's a song about sexual intercourse (to put it clinically).

Let's look at it this way: McCan held a campaign event at which he touted a song about screwing, and he did so in front of an audience of teens.

I'm going to do something I don't normally do: I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt -- he must not have had any idea what he was saying. Kind of reminds you of Sturgis, when he unknowingly volunteered his wife for a nude beauty pageant.

The sad thing is that clueless McCain is probably preferable to dangerous McCain. You know who I'm talking about -- the trigger happy John McCain whose two most important advisers on the Russia-Georgia conflict have been a registered foreign agent of Georgia and Wikipedia.

Update, 9:24PM: Full video of Hillary's speech.

Paraphrasing Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer on oil independence:

Senator McCain has it wrong -- we can't simply drill our way to energy independence. If you drilled everywhere, if you drilled in all of John McCain's back yards, even the ones he doesn't know he has, that single answer proposition is a dry well.

He's really got the crowd fired up. I'll post video soon.

Update, 8:50PM: Here's video (and I cleaned up the quote for accuracy).

Charlie Gibson on what Americans want for the economy:

The people want sort of a slogan.

M'kay.

"I'm sure you remember a girl from Kansas who said there's no place like home," says Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. "Well, in John McCain's version, there's no place like home. And a home. And home. And home."

h/t: Ben Smith.

The LA Times offers a rundown. Here's some highlights:

• Overall, 22 million viewers, up 20% from 2004
• During primetime, NBC led primetime with 4.7 million viewers. CNN was second with 4.3 million, besting ABC (4.2 million) and CBS (3.5 million)
• Between 5PM and 8PM Pacific, CNN averaged 3.7 million viewers. FOX averaged 3 million and MSNBC averaged 2.2 million.
• PBS had 2.8 million. No numbers were available for CSPAN.

Over the past few days, the McCain campaign has helped to dramatically boost interest in Hillary Clinton's speech tonight.

I'll give them credit for driving a message forward by once again using their patented "video press release disguised as an ad" tactic, but in the end, I think they've fallen into a trap.

McCain's infamous "you can't do it" line. At issue: his offer to pay workers $50 an hour to pick lettuce.

At Daily Kos, Hesiod documents the litany of character flaws and improper actions of Harold Simmons, the billionaire funder of the pro-McCain 527 using William Ayers to wage an illegal smear campaign on Barack Obama's patriotism. My favorite:

Simmons has already admitted in the civil trial, which began Oct. 23, that he forged his daughters' signatures to make political contributions from the trusts to Jessie Helms, R-N.C.

"I thought it was right to sign the names because it would help the Helms campaign. It was a mistake, wrong and bad judgement," he testified.

Simmons' political donations have been a cornerstone of the trial by Ms. Swanson and Ms. Patigian, who say they do not support the conservative Republican causes to which their father has given money in their names.

The reason why Simmons' campaign is illegal is that it violates FEC contribution limits. This is not unusual for 527s, but in the past the only penalty they've had to pay have come after the fact. This time, however, the Obama camp is aggressively pushing back against Simmons' illegal activity.

Something tells me that John McCain is going to regret the way he's handled Hillary Clinton. If she rips him to pieces tonight -- and I think she will -- what's he going to do? Start attacking her?

LENO: As much as I'd like the job, I could make more doing a week in Vegas, but thanks. It's just a lousy job for the money.

MCCAIN: The house is nice.

LENO: Hey, but you've got enough of those...you need a White one too? C'mon!

LENO: Pick Hillary, That Would Be Fantastic!

MCCAIN: Yeah, Eh. Um.

So today the Census Bureau released its annual study of Income, Health Insurance, and Poverty statistics. Some highlights:

In a sense, all you really need to know for Hillary Clinton's speech tonight are the numbers in that table: Under Clinton's economic policies, income rose, poverty fell, and more people got health insurance. Meanwhile, under Bush-McCain policies, income fell, poverty rose, and health insurance coverage fell.

One of the unintended consequences of John McCain's sudden embrace of Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy is that if she so chooses, she can attack him during her speech tonight with reckless abandon -- and he can't really fire back, at least not without betraying the disengenuous nature of his current advertsing campaign.

This is -- and I'm not snarking -- really good news for Hillary, because the best and easiest way for her to help unite the party is to go after McCain something fierce.

Sure, she should talk about how she plans to position herself as a Senator, and celebrate her historic run for the presidency, but if she wants to have a really big impact, she'll go after John McCain.

This has to be one of the most memorable moments to ever take place on the first night of a Democratic National Convention.

If you're seeing this post, you've made it to the new server home for jedreport.com. (If the screen looks garbled to you, simply press control+F5.)

Michelle Obama just wrapped up her speech, which went perfectly. But that moment after the speech with her and the girls talking to Barack...how can you top that? Seriously. How can you top it?

What did you think?

Update: I've posted the full text of her remarks here.

I thought it was all good, but it was especially powerful starting with her "Standing at the crosscurrents of history" line.

Update 2 - Leave it to Andrew Sullivan to sum it up (thanks middlegirl3 for the heads up!):

Michelle did it. She more than did it. She struck fear in the GOP tonight. Their lies about the Obamas will fail. As they should.

Update 3: How many people can honestly say they stole the show from Ted Kennedy?

Steve Benen reports that Debra Bartoschevich, the former Clinton supporter now appearing in a John McCain campaign ad, today falsely claimed that McCain is pro-choice -- with McCain adviser Carly Fiorina standing nearby.

Other than TIME's blog, I've seen no coverage of this in any MSM publication. More importantly, I've seen no indication that Fiorina or anyone else from the McCain campaign has attempted to correct the record.

Based on these reports, it seems the McCain camp is guilty of a major distortion of John McCain's true record, which is stridently anti-choice.

Chuck Todd, gently but firmly, says that reporters are overplaying the whole PUMA thing in large part because they are all in Denver and they don't have much else to cover. By Wednesday or Thursday, he says, reporters will be wondering why they were so obsessed with the story.

Yet another reason to love Chuck Todd's reporting. He truly is one of the very best -- and most honest -- journalists.

TJR Video Archive Blogging - June 4, 2008

...then you've probably got a problem. Take, for example, Mark Halperin on This Week yesterday. He actually said McCain's houses gaffe was the worst moment of the campaign -- for Barack Obama. Seriously.

The good news is that he was almost laughed off the set.

Posted yesterday on Barack Obama's YouTube Channel:

One thing that should now be obvious is that John McCain is incapable of restraint, and it's not working too well for him. The most recent example: his ads trying to drive a wedge between Hillary supporters and Obama supporters.

Instead of dividing Democrats, McCain's ads actually give Hillary a bigger platform from which to bring the party together, a platform from which she can deliver lines like "I am Hillary Clinton and I do not approve that message." They give her a chance to say:

"I just want to make it absolutely clear -- we cannot afford four more years of President Bush's failed policies," she said. "I am looking forward to being at the White House when President Obama signs quality, affordable health care for every American."

Whatever you think about Hillary Clinton's private desires, publicly she has been 110% behind Barack Obama. Now that McCain has run these ads, she's going to be 120% behind Obama, and she's going to be doing it during prime time on Tuesday night.

McCain and his merry band of Rovians might like the storyline today, but by Wednesday morning, they will regret their strategy.

TJR Video Archive Blogging -- Originally posted April 27, 2008

Michelle Obama prepares for her prime time speech tonight.

TJR Video Archive Blogging -- Originally posted June 15, 2008

So earlier this morning I was just about to hit the road to Denver. I got everything ready -- even checked my tire pressure! -- but confronted with the reality of a ten or eleven hour drive in each direction, I decided to bail on the convention. I've always wanted to go to one, and I was looking forward to meeting folks there that I've worked with online, but the upside of staying here is that I'll probably get a better perspective on how things are playing, at least in the media.

So that means I'll be resuming my normal posting routine. Things may be a bit slow today -- I'm going to switch over to a new server, and I also needed to take care of some technical issues with my video recording setup. One of my machines had a bizarre failure yesterday, and my file server had a disk failure. So I want to take care of those things, but hopefully it won't take that long.

In the meantime, I'll continue with the automatic video archive posts.

This is the best ever! Talk about a politician you can mock -- you have to watch it:

TJR Video Archive Blogging -- Originally posted June 4, 2008

One of my great regrets is that I have not yet built out a good archive site for my videos to showcase my best ones, or at least the ones that I liked the most.

Since I'm either going to be in Denver or driving there and back over the next five days, I won't be posting as much fresh content as you may have grown accustomed to.

But with the miracle of automatic post scheduling, I can set up a series of posts of videos from The Jed Report's video archives. If you enjoy the videos, I think you'll like the posts -- they'll give you a chance to look back down memory line.

My plan is to still post at least a couple of fresh posts each day, with the possible exception of Monday.

Also, I regret to announce the the much-anticipated sequel to "007: GoldenMansion" is going to have to wait until I get back from the convention.

Meta-analysis results since 4/1

Princeton University neuroscience professor Sam Wang (whose approach to debunking political smears is must-read material) has revived his meta-analysis of state polls.

There are two key things that makes Sam's analysis unique. First, he's not trying to predict anything; rather, his analysis aims to determine where we are at now -- not where we will be on November 4. Second, instead of running simulations or simply averaging available data, he uses a mathematical formula to determine the probability of electoral vote distributions for each state based on current polling data.

A simpler way of thinking about it is that his approach should quickly reflect changes based on events in the campaign. Basically, he's trading off the potential of predictive value for the precision of a real-time snapshot.

With that preamble out of the way -- and I hope I haven't butchered anything -- Sam's model is already showing a bounce from McCain's "Seven Kitchen Tables" Gaffe, boosting Obama's lead over McCain in the current snapshot by about 20 electoral votes.

Earlier today, I posted a video of John McCain's answer to a question posed by Katie Couric about his homes gaffe. Tonight, I happened to watch CBS Evening News -- the broadcast edition -- and lo and behold, they had completely cut out his POW comment. Instead of airing his full answer, they picked up at the point where he talks about his wife's father's WWII service.

More positive reaction from the media to the Biden selection, as compiled by the Obama campaign:

The Times-Tribune (Borys Krawczeniuk) Remembering His Roots: Though he has spent the bulk of his 65 years in Delaware, Scranton is close to his heart. LINK

The Times-Tribune (Megan Reiter) VP Pick No Stranger to Hank's Hoagies: Mr. Biden has been visiting the Green Ridge establishment for years, [Hank's owner Tom] Owens said, and the shop is filled with memorabilia of the senator, from signs supporting his presidential run in 1988 to a Joe Biden trading card. LINK

FOX News (Geraldine Ferraro): This choice shows that he can exercise good judgment. LINK

Philadelphia Inquirer (Editorial) Democrat Barack Obama's selection of Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware to be his running mate puts pressure on John McCain to choose an equally strong running mate for the Republican ticket. LINK

It's doubly amusing listening to GOP flacks make the disingenuous argument that the nearly 50/50 popular vote split in the Democratic primary is a sign of weakness.

First of all, because of caucuses and a variety of other factors, in the Democratic Party, there really is no such thing as the popular vote -- it's just a clever play on words.

But the funny thing is that even if you were to count up all the votes, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton won a higher percentage of the Democratic primary vote than John McCain did of the Republican primary vote. Even though his chief rival Mitt Romney dropped out of the race just after Super Tuesday, McCain still managed only 46.65% of the GOP primary vote, winning just under 10 million votes -- barely half as much as either Obama or Clinton.

Here's a gem of a video clip from the archives. During the January 30 GOP debate at the Reagan Library, Janet Hook of the LA Times asked John McCain why he was more qualified than Mitt Romney to manage the economy. In response, McCain managed to:

• Say nothing about the economy
• Say he was more patriotic than Mitt Romney
• Cite his experience as a POW
• Argue that "radical Islamic extremism" is a more important issue
• Criticize a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq
• Did I mention, say nothing about the economy?

It's truly a hall-of-fame moment in the annals of chronic dodgery.

If you don't already know, I bet you can guess what his answer was.

Guest post by debrazza

Without a doubt, Ohio State football is the biggest thing in the state of Ohio.  It is so important that tickets for games and events have been at the center of a few recent high profile political scandals.  So it is no surprise that Ohio State head coach, Jim Tressel, is probably the most popular man in state.

Around the Horseshoe on gameday, signs around the stadium read "God wears a sweater vest" and there is consensus that should Tressel decide to run for Governor, he'd win in a landslide.  As a testament to his popularity, when he published a book this summer about his coaching philosophy, the publisher ordered an initial print of 70,000 copies and hundreds of people camped out over night for a book signing.

I was therefore taken aback Saturday afternoon as I was watching ESPN and Lee Corso said that Tressel has stolen a page from Obama and adopted "the fierce urgency of now" as the motivational motto for his team this season.

John McCain is making it too easy. Here's my response to his latest ad:

John McCain responds to Joe Biden's "seven kitchen tables" line:

“I am grateful for the fact that I have a wonderful life,” McCain said. “I spent some years without a kitchen table, without a chair, and I know what it's like to be blessed by the opportunities of this great nation. ... So the fact is that we have homes, and I'm grateful for it. We spend our time primarily in Washington, D.C., where I have a condominium in Crystal City, [Va.]; here in this beautiful Sedona that I am blessed every moment that I can spend here; our condominium in Phoenix, Ariz.; and a place over in San Diego. The others are also for investment purposes.”

Kos diarist kubla000 has more.

A look at how it's playing around the nation:

Guest post by debrazza

Steve Benen calls Bill Kristol, "the gift that keeps on giving".  Well he's just delivered us another such 'gift' Saturday on the Weekly Standard's blog. 

You see, Bill Kristol is absolutely outraged OUTRAGED, that Hillary Clinton is not the Democratic party's VP nominee.  Citing the 18 million odd voters that Hillary garnered in the primaries, he says that it is downright unfair and indicative of the "glass ceiling" in the Democratic party for Obama to select Biden instead of her.

Will the Democratic party, which is committed (to say the least) to gender equity, and which in fact has a 50 percent quota for female delegates, accept Obama’s imposition of a glass ceiling at its convention?

Guest post by debrazza

If anyone is curious why Biden is the choice, Amy Sullivan of TIME points us to a 2005 interview with Biden in Kentucky that interested her because he delivered this gem of a quote about politics and religion.

If I'm the nominee, Republicans will be sorry.  The next Republican that tells me I'm not religious I'm going to shove my rosary beads down their throat.

It is a brilliant quote all on it's own and shows the feisty spirit and quick wit that is Joe Biden and why he will make such a formidable running mate for Obama.  But if you read the rest of the article, you will see exactly how closely Biden's views are echoed in Obama's and key clues as to why Obama was inclined to pick him.

So let's say you're looking at a room with 100 people in it. 98 of the people are randomly chosen from different American families, and two of the people are the presidential and vice presidential candidates of either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.

What share of the wealth, on average, will Barack Obama and Joe Biden have in that room full of 100 people, and what share of the wealth will John McCain and Mitt Romney have on average?

The pie charts below tell the story. In room full of 100 people, on average John McCain and Mitt Romney alone will have just about all the wealth. Barack Obama and Joe Biden on the other hand are much closer to average.

Of course, this disparity wouldn't have much meaning if it weren't for the policies that each party's candidates support and oppose, but given how the Bush-McCain economic record stacks up against the Democratic Party's economic record, I think these charts do explain part of the reason why the Bush-McCain policies are so bad: they are just out of touch.

Guest post by debrazza

Just for the sake of comparison:

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE): Joe Biden is the right partner for Barack Obama. His many years of distinguished service to America, his seasoned judgment and his vast experience in foreign policy and national security will match up well with the unique challenges of the 21st Century.  An Obama-Biden ticket is a very impressive and strong team.  Biden's selection is good news for Obama and America.

Ron Fournier (R-AP): The picks say something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden pick is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative — a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.

icebergslim has got 'em.

Okay, I think every single commenter disagreed with my concerns about whether Obama and Biden hit hard enough on McCain's houses gaffe.

Well, just for the record, now that I've seen Biden's "kitchen table" comment replayed four times, twice each on MSNBC and CNN, I realize that I was wrong. In fact, the host on CNN actually laughed at the line -- which is perfect. Mock McCain.

That said, here it is (transcript below):

From an Obama campaign press release touting the continuing flood of positive reaction to the Biden pick:

MSNBC (Chuck Todd): But after watching the unveiling of the ticket, it's clear Obama hired Biden to accomplish three things: 1) Connect the ticket with blue-collar voters. Notice, Biden led his remarks with the economy. 2) Sell Obama's story. Biden owned Obama's biography in a way we've yet to see from the candidate himself. 3) Credibly attack John McCain. Biden didn't mince words about his old "friend." All in all, if you believe, as I do, that the VP candidates matters most on three days, the first day, debate day and election day, then the Obama campaign has to be ecstatic about today. One goal down, two to go.

Full video of the next President of the United States and the next Vice President of the United States earlier today in Springfield:

Pros:

• Obama did a good job of introducing Biden, and Biden did a good job reinforcing Obama's life story.
• Obama took tough stance against McCain's "bluster."
• Biden is ready and willing to be the attack dog, hammering on the Bush-McCain link, and using the intriguing "good soldier" vs. "wise leader" dichotomy.
• Biden had a decent line on McCain's homes, that he's going to have to choose which of his seven kitchen tables to sit down at.

My newest video hits on McCain's houses gaffe. Sequel coming on Monday morning.

Reflecting back on the past week, it's remarkable how quickly things changed. On Wednesday, handwringing about Obama's chances had reached a fever pitch. Then, on Thursday, Politico broke the news of McCain's potentially campaign-defining houses gaffe.

What makes McCain's gaffe so damaging is that it speaks to a larger truth about his out-of-touch outlook on economic issues, and we can't afford to let it fade into the background.

As Democrats, we've often not been very good at staying on offense; we tend to get bored with the same line when it's repeated over and over. But this is a line that must be repeated over and over. We must stick it John McCain.

In the short-term, the first test for the campaign will be whether Obama or Biden make reference to it today. They both should hit on the message, but at the very least, one of them must hit it hard. Then, at the convention, every single major speaker must focus on it.

We have to pound, pound, pound, pound away until every single swing voter knows that John McCain is so out-of-touch with the lives of normal Americans that he doesn't even know how many homes he own, and that his economic policies are just as disconnected from the needs of average Americans.

Oh, and for good measure, Keith O. on Countdown yesterday reported that John McCain was once asked what kind of car he owns. McCain didn't know. He had to ask a staffer.

Presumably at some point someone will ask Joe Biden whether or not he'd run for president in 2016 if Obama were to win election and re-election. Today, Biden is 65. He'll be 73 in 2016, roughly the same age as John McCain is now. Imagine the implications if Biden pledged not to run?

Update: Commenter Lynn Dee came up with a good line:

If I'm as sharp as I am now, I'll absolutely consider it. If I've lost a step, probably not. And if I've forgotten how many houses I have, unequivocally NO.

I just turned on MSNBC, and Shuster and Harwood were talking about the decision by the Obama camp to limit pre-convention appearances by Obama and Biden to the event in Springfield at noon (Pacific). The notion is to save the novelty of Obama and Biden campaigning together until after the convention, thereby increasing media interest in Obama-Biden events in the days following the Democratic convention. It's a smart move -- and should make it much easier for the Obama camp to step all over McCain's plans for the start of the GOP convention.

By the way, did I mention that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were both speaking on the first day of the GOP convention? That's gonna' be must-see TV. Heheh.

A few heads-ups:

• I mentioned a couple of days ago that I'm going to Denver for the DNC. I'm starting the drive very early Monday morning (in a hybrid, of course!).
• I'm also going to try and flip the switch over to a new server and publishing platform. You won't immediately notice much of a difference, but it should pay off over time.
• Given the absurdly bad timing of releasing my newest video (007: GoldenMansion) at precisely the same time that the Biden selection was leaked, it's actually doing quite well.
• I'm already working on the sequel, which I plan on releasing on Monday morning just before I leave for Denver.

Given the various balls that I have in the air right now, it's possible that over the next couple of days, I won't be posting with the same frequency that I normally do (though knowing myself, I'll end up posting more than I plan to).

In the meantime, make sure you check out GoldenMansion:

Politically, I sense that the Bush-McCain folks are pretty scared right now. The smarter ones among them understand that the Biden pick wasn't about policy, it was about demographics, particularly with older voters, who haven't been Barack's staunchest supporters. Nate Silver laid out the case a few days ago.

And they also must understand that they are going to have an awful tough time picking their preferred VP, superwealthy elitist Mitt Romney, now that Obama has chosen Biden, who is the least wealthy Senator.

A politician you can mock:

YouTube link

Music credits: Moby's Re-Version of The James Bond Theme.

Update (1:13AM): Now that we know it's going to be Obama-Biden vs. Bush-McCain, it's worth highlighting the fact that Joe Biden has the lowest net worth of any Senator. He's obviously not hurting, but contrast Biden with John McCain, who's the eight wealthiest senator (without including his wife's full wealth) and Mitt Romney, who would be the wealthiest U.S. Senator.

Just a heads up to those who like these things -- I'll be posting a new video on McCain's houses problem later this evening, hopefully within the next one or two hours. I think your going to like this one. I'll give you a hint: it's working title is 007: GoldenMansion.

Here's the title screen from a draft:

Update (5:12PM): NBC News reports Bayh and Kaine are out. Keith O. is also saying Hillary Clinton is out, though I don't think the report that she hasn't been vetted means she won't be the VP.

Update 2 (5:29PM): The thing that I find most satisfying about this whole process is that it is clearly driving the press crazy!

Original post: Drudge is fueling rumors based on a report from KMBC in St. Louis, Missouri that Barack Obama has selected Evan Bayh. KMBC's report is based on a printer who is apparently printing Obama-Bayh bumper stickers (pictured below, on the left).

This is pretty funny: former Defense Secretary William Cohen, the best man at John McCain's second wedding, hasn't endorsed him yet. In fact, just now on CNN he said that McCain should pick Romney as VP because he doesn't have domestic policy experience.

I was about to post an open thread, but once I saw this video I figured I should put it up. So I guess you can consider this an open thread -- talk about the veepstakes, or whatever else is going on. (I'm heads down working on a video which I'll post a bit later this afternoon unless Obama makes a VP selection.)

Via ThinkProgress:

And today on Fox News, host Martha MacCallum justified McCain’s comments, saying the reason he couldn’t answer was simply because the McCains “have real estate investments and he wanted to make sure he got that right.”

(h/t: Kevin Drum)

Sacramento Bee:

More than 60 present and former telecom lobbyists work for McCain's campaign as staffers and volunteers, some in high-echelon posts while on leave from their firms.

That's six-zero. 60. Sixty!

Ka-pow! The Obama campaign's latest ad has gotta' hurt...if you're John McCain. (Transcript below the fold.)

We can't be this lucky.

Just askin'...

I have to say, I sort of love Karl Rove. He's such an absolute schmuck that watching him spin is sort of entertaining in a very morbid kind of way.

Anyway, he (of the brilliant mind) has decided that the best way to defend John McCain is to claim that the reaction to McCain's houses gaffe is really an attack on Cindy McCain. Why? Because it's her family money that paid for the houses.

But I'm not so sure that Rove's idea is all that good. Does he really want the McCain camp to argue that John McCain is just a guest in his wife's house?

This was pretty good coverage, about as good as it gets. (An earlier version of this post contained individual videos for each broadcast. This one consolidates all three into one post.)

Take the McCain House Tour!
With Places to Hang His Hat on Two Coasts -- and a Few in Between -- the Candidate Is Living Large

By Paul Schwartzman, Washington Post Staff Writer

Indoor and outdoor swimming pools! Spas and state-of-the-art fitness centers! Views of the Arizona mountains, the Pacific Ocean and downtown Phoenix!

Guest post by debrazza

Yesterday brought news that a new "independent" organization called the American Issues Project, flush with $2.8 million in cash, is going to run dirty and despicable ads attacking Obama on Ayers and 911.  While this group was surely going to be unveiled at some point, the timing is obviously only coincidental and has nothing to do with the fact that McCain was seriously humiliated today and that his campaign has gone nuclear, issuing "kitchen sink" press releases, a new Rezko attack ad and has declared that Rev. Wright is now "fair game".  Talk about temperament.

Mark Halperin is reporting that two GOP sources are saying that John McCain has picked Mitt Romney as his VP. If this is true, McCain will probably leak the information hard tomorrow as a ploy to get the story off of his little housing problem.

My take: go right ahead, John. Not only would such a gambit look desperate, but:

1. Mitt Romney is just as out-of-touch as McCain. Romney is the only potential VP who is both wealthier than John McCain and owns more homes in more states. And when it comes to the economy, he might as well be Phil Gramm.
2. Announcing now means a bigger bounce for Barack. McCain'll have nothing to announce after the DNC to slow down our mo'. (Bonus: It will put even more emphasis on the Monday speeches by George Bush and Dick Cheney.)
3. If the leak is false, Romney's conservative supporters will be crushed. That would be fun to watch.

Obama was just scorching today, sticking to the "out of touch" theme illustrated by McCain's "How many houses?" moment. Here he is in Chesapeake, Virginia (partial transcript below the fold):

The Obama campaign's new ad on the number of John McCain's houses is going viral something fierce. After being up on the intertubes for just seven hours, it's already been played over 290K times and it's already the number one video on viralvideochart.com.

It should be no surprise then that the McCain campaign is launching the tired old Tony Rezko attack on Barack Obama. To which I respond: Yawn. You bore me. Been there. Discredited that.

Instead of these kinds of attacks, John McCain should figure out how many homes he lives in. But if you insist on going down this road John, let's talk about you and your wife and the Charles Keating scandal.

CNN continues to amaze. This is also from the same program last night. They get into it all: his financial ties (and his wife's) to Keating, his anger problems, and the scandal it caused. One thing to be aware of: McCain's stock answer excusing him from the scandal is that Bob Bennett said he did nothing wrong. True...but Bob Bennett is his lawyer!

I wish I could claim this idea as my own, but I overheard someone saying it today and I thought it was too smart and too funny to not pass along.

The context is that John McCain's campaign is now going POW to defend their candidate against his own gaffe about not knowing how many homes he owns. Of course, McCain's POW status has absolutely nothing to do with what he'd do as president to help American families keep their own homes, but you had to expect that was how he'd try to explain himself. After all, it's pretty much his answer to every criticism.

And that brings me back to the question posed in the title of this post. Here's a hint. Remember what he said about Rudy Giuliani?

Update: Spencer Ackerman and John Aravosis both have more along these lines.

Fortunately, John McCain's inability to remember how many homes he owns has swept this under the rug, but for the record I want to note that late yesterday, McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb posted yet another dishonorable attack on Barack Obama's patriotism, this time making the false claim that William Ayers had "launched" Obama's political career.

I've got three points to make:

1. The McCain campaign's attack is a total lie. Not even smear author Jerome Corsi made the absurd allegation that Ayers "launched" Obama's career.
2. If McCain wants to play this game, he should explain why he asked convicted felon G. Gordon Liddy -- who has advocated killing federal agents and said Adolf Hitler gave him strength -- to host a fundraiser for him in 1998.
3. McCain should also explain why he repeatedly voted against federal legislation banning domestic terrorism against patients, doctors, and staff of abortion and women's health clinics.

How many homes does John McCain own? 4? 6? 7? 10? Josh Marshall takes a look. And don't even get started on the rental and investment properties...

Update (12:30PM): Greg Sargent makes a great catch -- "It turns out that a few months ago, a McCain family corporation closed on a second multi-million-dollar beach condo in exclusive Coronado, California, at around the same time that John McCain offered his somewhat tone-deaf observation that struggling homeowners were 'working at second jobs' and 'skipping a vacation' in order to make mortgage payments on time."

Here's the audio recording of the Politico interview.

(Updated below with video of Barack hitting McCain on his out of touch comment.)

Barack Obama returns fire with an ad on McCain's out of touch admission that he doesn't know how many homes he owns.

Talk about out of touch -- John McCain owns so many homes he can't keep track of how many he as. To be fair, they are spread all around the country.

My jaw literally dropped when I saw this. I'm still shocked CNN went there.

This alone proves that John McCain has bad foreign policy judgment: In 2001, he said that if he'd been president, he'd have picked Donald Rumsfeld to be his Secretary of Defense and Dick Cheney to be his VP. Together, he said, they formed the the "strongest" national security team we've ever had.

That's pretty much an epic fail right there.

Probably the most important number in the new NBC is poll is the percentage of voters who think that McCain would "follow and support" Bush's policies "very closely."

Here's the trend:

• 29% - March '08
• 30% - June '08
• 32% - July '08
• 33% - August '08

So the number is getting a little bit better, but it's still below where it needs to be. The good news is that this shouldn't be a tough sell. (a) About two-fifths of voters think McCain would follow Bush "somewhat closely" and (b) it's true.

For all the worry about whether or not McCain's attacks on Obama are working, the real story is that the only reason why McCain has any shot at all of winning this election is that he's been able to keep that number significantly below 50%.

NBC's First Read has more here.

John McCain earlier today, agreeing with a woman who says that to catch bin Laden, we must reenact the draft (via Joe Sudbay):

AUDIENCE MEMBER: If we don't reenact the draft I don't think we will have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.

JOHN MCCAIN: Ma'am let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said.

Sure, it's possible that John McCain couldn't hear the woman, or wasn't aware of what she had said. And if that's true, maybe he wouldn't have agreed with her statement had he known what she said. But if he can't correctly process something as simple as this, isn't that an even bigger problem?

Yesterday, debrazza (+4) made an astute point in the comments: the perception that John McCain was masterful at the Saddleback Church is actually a good thing for Obama.

Why? Because by outperforming expectations, McCain demonstrated that he's actually very good at debates -- crisp, clear, and concise. And some people even think he's funny.

Obama, on the other hand, has clearly got some work to do at delivering the snappy one-liners. Personally, I thought he did very well, but will concede that he wasn't nearly as memorable as McCain.

In this new ad, Barack Obama goes after John McCain's ties to Ralph Reed and the Abramoff scandal, and hits McCain for being just like Bush, closing with the line: "More of the same."

The ad will begin airing in Atlanta tomorrow. The AJC has more.

What do you think of this one?

Using the data from the charts in my previous post, here's a look at the size of the Democratic lead in 2004 and 2008. The area shaded green is a Democratic lead; the area shaded red is a Republican lead.

Remember that in 2004, the Democratic convention took place in late July. So when comparing the numbers for mid-August, take into account that Kerry had received his bump. The Swift Boat ads started around the middle of the second week in August, I think.

The charts in this post reflect a rolling average of all national polls. The average for each day is of all polls started within the previous one, two, or three weeks, depending on the chart.

The first set of charts covers June through present. As you can see, the two and three week charts are smoother than the one week chart.

This new Obama ad will air in Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Virginia beginning today.

What do you think?

You have to promise to keep this on the down low, but Barack Obama is hitting back. Hard.

The NYT reports that ads like this one (and the one below) are running in heavy rotation in battleground states. In fact, about 2/3 of Obama's ads in local markets are challenging John McCain.

Now that Barack's back on the campaign trail, we'll be seeing more of it from him in person. And as everybody knows, when it comes to John McCain, there's no shortage of things to attack.

Are they on the table or not? I wonder what the Club for Growth would think if they saw this video...

It took seven hours, but YouTube finally processed this video. It's an edited version of Barack Obama's VFW speech, focusing on what I thought were the strongest and most powerful moments. I cut out just about everything that was deferential or defensive.

For the sake of brevity, I also entirely excluded the section on Georgia and Russia as well as the section on veterans benefits. In the end, excluding the parts of the speech that I cut entirely, I cut about 40% of the speech.

The net result, I think, is that Obama looks and sounds tougher and more decisive. Compare it to the unedited version of the speech and decide for yourself.

One other thing to note: even though much of the press focus on the speech was on the portion in which he defended himself from McCain's un-American attacks, I thought the more impactful stuff was the policy material in the speech. His critiques of McCain were stinging, and true. They are things that need to be said, not just politically, but because they are right. I'm looking forward to seeing more of it.

Obama to Go On Offense at Democratic Convention

By Major Garrett
RALEIGH, N.C. — Barack Obama’s campaign plans to use the four-day Democratic National Convention next week to relentlessly portray John McCain as a carbon copy of President Bush, in a strategic shift foreshadowed by two days of tougher attacks on his GOP rival.

...

“The convention will offer a series of contrasts and comparisions of the McCain record so voters can see how clearly the choice will be in November,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton told FOX News. “The convention will also introduce Senator Obama to the country, but it will make sure to convey strongly the differences and choices Obama’s campaign presents over McCain’s.”

This chart is an updated version of the poll tracking chart that I've been posting from time to time over the past couple of weeks. It shows the rolling 2-week average of polls, by day. For perspective, it also shows the Bush-Kerry race in light red (Bush) and light blue (Kerry).

Data: pollster.com. Chart: jedreport.com.

As you can see, since the primary ended, Barack Obama has enjoyed a durable -- though somewhat shrinking -- lead over John McCain. In short, the sky is not falling.

While it's true that John Kerry was polling slightly better than Obama at this point in 2004, remember that he'd already had his convention. And also note that McCain is behind where Bush was.

For all the talk of what a great month John McCain had, this chart shows that though he strengthened his position with his own base, he hasn't really hurt Barack Obama.

As with 2004, most undecided voters won't decide until after the conventions. I think that explains why the Obama campaign hasn't aired harsher ads on a national basis. Instead, they've focused on strengthening Obama's core image, and more importantly, building the ground game, as dday outlines in his outstanding diary over at Daily Kos.

I just put this together on a whim while waiting for another video to process on YouTube. I'm not sure I like it -- it sort of straddles the fence between being funny and serious. Anyway, I did it, so I figured I might as well post it.

McCain says the reason he ought to be elected is that he showed "political courage" by supporting the surge.

If that's true, then why did he hedge on the surge? Why did he throw an Army General under the bus in an act of preemptive scapegoating? Why did he give himself an out?

(Of course, the biggest question about the surge is that if it succeeded, why are we still in Iraq?)

Rachel Maddow now has her own show on MSNBC, starting September 8 at 9PM. Keith O. is being a bit of a jerk about it though. He won't let her name the show "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."

In other news, I've been trying to post a video, but YouTube is taking forever. It's now been uploaded for 2.5 hours, but it still hasn't processed yet.

About a week ago, I had Chinese food for dinner. My fortune cookie had the strangest fortune I'd ever seen:

An enjoyable vacation is awaiting you near the mountains.

The funny thing? The night before I had finally secured a hotel reservation for Denver, "The Mile High City" nestled alongside the Rocky Mountains.

Last night I had Chinese food again. My fortune this time?

Your goal will be met in two months.

So I guess the question is whether 77 days until November 4 close enough to two months for me to start taking fortune cookies seriously?

Via Andrew Sullivan, Kevin Drum has the perfect word for David Brooks: "grating."

Brooks is an arrogant, holier-than-thou twit. He has spilled countless tons of ink on the pages of The New York Times talking about the importance of process.

In today's column, however, Brooks takes it all back: the moral of his story is that the ends justify the means.

Over at Daily Kos, DemFromCT has a terrific post up on Obama's VFW speech. I'll admit that I was a bit frustrated to again see Obama speak before a non-friendly crowd, but DemFromCT ably puts things into perspective:

Once again, Obama's task is not to 'win' over a GOP-oriented audience but to show up and be credible. That, he did. And that he keeps going to unfriendly audiences and holding his own is great news for when he actually has to be President of everyone.

...In the end, all these speeches and appearances have less to do with how people vote than party affiliation. As long as there are more Dems than Rs, Obama will do all right for himself, regardless of how these pre-season maneuverings go. But removing the caricature drawn by his opponent by showing up and addressing and engaging the audience is always a plus, and looking to see who gets more applause misses the point entirely.

Combine that with the fact that Obama actually got in some pretty decent shots against McCain in front of a tough crowd, I'm realizing that I can wait to see Obama before a friendly crowd on Thursday.

• McCain offers up another witness that claims he told the story, Bud Day, who swiftboated Kerry in 2004. Goldfarb asserts that Day places the story on Christmas, but doesn't actually quote Day on this.
• Day says that McCain told him the story shortly after McCain rejoined Day in prison, which strongly suggests that according to McCain's story the incident must have taken place (if it took place) in 1969. Why? Because McCain and Day were reunited on Christmas Day in 1970. (See this post for why it must have been 1969 or 1970.)
• Andrew Sullivan notes that Day's account confirms that according to the McCain campaign, the imagery they used in their ad (stick vs. sandal) is false. He asks why did McCain approve an ad that does not match what he says happened?
• dpolitico finds an account of a McCain Christmas in Vietnam as told by Bud Day in 1999. Day speaks of the 1971 Christmas, therefore making no mention of what McCain has said was the most transcendent experience of his time in captivity.

Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog made a great find yesterday: there's a book called The Nightingale's Song which recounts McCain's experiences during three Christmases in captivity, 1968, 1969, and 1970. Both hilzoy and Andrew Sullivan join Steve M. in observing that if McCain's "Cross in the dirt" story actually took place, the story probably would have found its way into the book. (McCain was interviewed extensively for the book.)

Through a little deductive reasoning, we can establish that the timeframe covered by The Nightingale's Song is also the same timeframe during which McCain's story must have taken place, if it took place at all.

I've got no idea who Barack Obama is going to pick as VP, but I think we can safely put Hillary Clinton's chances at around 0% given that her husband is offering up praise for John McCain.

McCain's ghost writer Mark Salter now claims CITD wasn't a pivotal moment for McCain:

As for assertions that the "cross in the dirt" story was a "pivotal" experience in McCain's time as a POW, Salter said, "That's just plain bulls—t.  His pivotal experience was his refusal of early release and the three or four days of torture he took for it, his confession, and his attempted suicide.  That was his pivotal experience.  He's never represented [the "cross in the dirt" story] to be that."

But on Saturday McCain said:

I'll never forget that moment.

And in October 2007, according to the Christian Science Monitor, McCain said it was the most profound experience of his time as POW (emphasis added):

Over at NRO's The Corner, K-Lo floats a hilarious (but definitively false) conspiracy theory that Obama has picked Evan Bayh as his VP, that an aide inadvertently announced the decision to 400 supporters by pressing 'send' instead of 'save', and that CNN picked up on the announcement only to later pull the story out of deference to Obama.

Who knows whether or not Obama has actually picked Bayh, but this particular report is based on a screenshot that is an obvious Photoshop, complete with a typo. But the big giveaway is that while the text of the article does not have TrueType (smooth fonts) turned on, the rest of the page does. The font spacing is also wrong on the date stamp. Moreover, the title of the post in the title bar and the tab don't match (which is impossible to accomplish in IE).

Update: The RW is having a blast with this one. Hot Air picked it up too, but is now betting that it's a hoax. Which it obviously is.

April, 2008 (h/t: Andrew Sullivan):

I don’t recall us talking specifically about our faith.

Today:

I vaguely recall that story being told, among other stories.

What changed?

McCain Dep. Comm. Dir. Michael Goldfarb says that asking question about McCain's rendition of the "Cross in the DIrt" story is an example of smearing John McCain's POW record.

Baloney. This is has nothing to do with McCain's military record. No one is questioning his patriotism (even though the same can't be said for McCain about Obama).

The questions that are being raised are about claims made by John McCain during the past decade. The issue is whether or not he's telling the truth, and so far the evidence doesn't look good for McCain. The only evidence they can marshal to prove their story is the word of a political ally of John McCain who now says "I vaguely recall" hearing about the story in 1971.

That's not very convincing, and the childish and combative tone of Goldfarb's mostly fact-free screed tells me the McCain campaign is worried about this. Given McCain's history of embellishment, they should be.

Keith Olbermann raps McCain's campaign at every level, from their childish attacks on the media (during which he gives extensive props to Nate Silver) to John McCain's un-American attacks on Barack Obama.

Here's the video:

Somebody is lying here:

It's coming. Tune in tonight.

This is a sad story in every respect, though I think it says more about Cindy's father than it does about her. The parallels between her dad and her husband are...eerie, to say the least.

John McCain talks with top foreign policy aide Randy Scheunemann.

USA Today finally got John McCain on the record about Randy Scheunemann's lobbying on behalf of Georgia. "I'm proud to have supported them [the Georgians]", McCain says. "And I'm so proud that so many of my friends have done so."

As you recall, Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy adviser, has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby for Georgia. Scheunemann even took McCain jet skiing with the Georgian President.

McCain is trying to position Scheunemann's paid lobbying as something noble, but the fact remains that Scheunemann was just an employee doing his job. Whether or not his position was "right" is not the issue: the issue is that he presented and presents a conflict of interest for McCain.

It's mind-boggling that John McCain doesn't recognize that Scheunemann's lobbying career undermines his capacity to be an honest broker as president.

Update: Sullivan dissects the new pushback from McCain, including the claim that he told the story to one of his fellow POWs:

Here is how Swindle describes it to Byron York:

"I vaguely recall that story being told, among other stories."

Convinced?

Original post: Another excellent post from Andrew Sullivan:

Here are the perfectly legitimate questions reporters should now, in my opinion, ask McCain:

McCain Deputy Communications Director Michael Goldfarb tries to explain why Rick Davis unloaded on a quote from NBC's Andrea Mitchell only hours after he approvingly cited it as part of an attack on Barack Obama. His defense:

I think my tone was neutral, but regardless, this campaign does not question the accuracy of Mitchell's reporting. We question whether it was appropriate to repeat this allegation unquestioningly as Mitchell did.

After all, Mitchell can accurately report that the Obama campaign is whining about their candidate's poor performance and yet still fail to uphold the basic standards of her profession. By repeating, uncritically, a completely unsubstantiated Obama campaign claim that John McCain somehow cheated in last night's forum, that's precisely what she did. And if Mitchell is simply in the business of parroting campaign spin, we'd be happy to share ours with her before next week's episode of Meet the Press.

Umm, where to begin. Let's start with the fact that the allegation that Mitchell reported is true and was in fact confirmed by Goldfarb himself.

Andrew Sullivan's been on top of this story in a big way today. Here's a brief guide to his posts on the topic:

• McCain's "Cross in the Dirt" Story
• Did McCain's story come from Jesse Helms?
• A 1995 book discussed about three of McCain's Christmases in captivity and failed to note the story (h/t: hilzoy)
• McCain's Story Changed in His "Character of Destiny" Book
• What was the role of McCain's co-author/speechwriter Mark Salter? And is the story oft-credited to Solzhenitsyn a fabrication by evangelicals (like Helms)?
• Why did McCain tell the story in the third person in 1999?

Aside from the fact that McCain is favorably disposed towards embellishing his record, here's what I think are the most compelling pieces of evidence that his story is a fabrication:

Via AMERICAblog, Jake Tapper and Ron Claiborn of ABC are reporting that McCain's aides won't say whether or not they had the capacity to find out what questions had been asked of Obama.

Everybody knows that the answer to that question is yes, they obviously had the capacity to overhear the questions and share them with McCain. As I've been saying the point isn't whether or not they actually did this -- the point is that they agreed to a set of rules designed to guarantee the integrity of the process, and they broke those rules.

But in their view, it's all okay, because John McCain was a POW.

It's hard to believe that the NYT actually feels good about getting humiliated by Bill Kristol's false reporting, but it keeps on happening, over and over.

Steve Benen has a good overview of the latest:

In the print edition of the New York Times this morning, Bill Kristol’s column noted the talk that John McCain may not have been in “the cone of silence” during Saturday night’s event at the Saddleback Church, and may have heard some of the questions before he took the stage. Kristol dismissed the talk out of hand, calling the suggestion from Obama campaign aides “astonishing,” and insisting there’s “absolutely no basis for the charge.”

Of course, as we discussed this morning, McCain wasn’t in a “cone of silence”; he was in a limo en route to the event while Obama was answering questions. Did McCain hear the questions in advance? I have no idea, but simply raising the question isn’t “astonishing” at all.

The interesting thing is that instead of printing a correction, the NYT simply allowed Bill Kristol to rewrite a portion of his report.

My friends, Bill Kristol would rather win a political campaign than tell the truth. And the NYT would rather sweep their little Kristol problem under the rug than deal with it openly.

Here's Barack Obama in Reno, Nevada yesterday. It's a bit long -- just over fifteen minutes -- but it's a systematic dismantling of the Bush-McCain economic plan (including a satisfying ding on Phil Gramm).

This seems like an appropriate first post of the day (at least since waking up). From ABC News:

McCain's Ambien Use: a Security Threat?
Sleep Drug Known for Memory-Linked Side Effects; Most Doctors Unconcerned

In a presidential race marked by references to preparedness in the face of the 3 a.m. call, the revelation that presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain has taken the sleeping pill Ambien during his travels raises concerns that the rare side effects of the medication could impair his judgment.

The money quote:

"The key is to use Ambien-like sleeping medications in moderation and don't mix them with other sedative drugs or alcohol," Fotinakes said. "Most importantly, avoid use in the event you have to consider escalation from Defcon 4 to Defcon 3."

Kind of reminds me of McCain's statement from ten days ago that he needs more sleep...

Rather than making a video directly on McCain's telling of Solzhenitsyn's "Cross in the Dirt" story, I decided to pull together footage of McCain playing politics with his POW stories. (As a bonus, I also included a clip about his Wikipedia plagiarism from last Monday.)

I'm working on a video on the "Cross in the Dirt" story and as I started to put my thoughts together on the facts of the matter, I realized I ought to post them -- both to share what I know and to find out what what I don't know (but should).

Buckle up, because this one is pretty incredible -- and if my hunch is right, it's all an attempt to distract attention from McCain's apparent theft of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's "Cross in the Dirt" story.

It starts with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, who has now sent an angry letter to NBC News chief Steve Capus whining about Andrea Mitchell's performance on Meet The Press earlier today. Here's the Mitchell quote that Davis cites in his letter:

ANDREA MITCHELL: The Obama people must feel that he didn't do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because what they are putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well-prepared.

But earlier in the day, McCain Deputy Communications Director Michael Goldfarb used those exact same words as evidence for this point:

The Obama campaign, shocked that John McCain would have the temerity to upstage their celebrity candidate on national television, is now struggling to find an explanation. According to Andrea Mitchell's reporting earlier today on Meet the Press, the only explanation the Obama campaign could come up with was foul play.

There's a video making the rounds in which McCain seems to answer the question before it's asked. Don't pay attention to it -- it's a manipulative editing hack job. In the video, McCain says something like yes, yes, yes, and no. But the question he was asked -- as was Obama -- had only one part. So even if he did know the question, he would have just said "yes" or "no." If you watch the full exchange, it's clear he's joking around with Rick Warren about answering the questions so quickly.

The problem I have with the video is that it districts us from the core issue. The point here isn't about whether or not McCain heard the questions. We'll never know. The point here is that McCain violated the rules to guarantee the integrity of the forum. The forum's integrity has now been compromised, and it's entirely McCain's fault. That's what he needs to answer for. If it also turns out he heard the questions, that makes the transgression all the worse.

Updated with video (8:13PM).

Via the McCain Report blog, McCain Deputy Communications Director Michael Goldfarb now concedes that John McCain was not in a "cone of silence" at the Saddleback Church as Rick Warren, and therefore the nation, had been led to believe:

The facts are that Senator McCain was in a motorcade led by the United States Secret Service and held in a green room with no broadcast feed.

(Edit: Note that it is totally irrelevant that McCain was with the Secret Service. They go with him wherever he goes. Goldfarb is just mentioning to make it seem like there was a good reason for McCain to break his pledge.)

Goldfarb doesn't expand on those details, but it turns out that McCain finally arrived about thirty minutes into the event. (As Nate Silver reports, Rick Warren confirmed this on CNN. I've posted the video at the bottom of this entry.)

Goldfarb makes a big point of saying the green room had no broadcast feed, but that is beside the point.

McCain had agreed to be in a cone of silence. He broke his promise. Because of that fact, we will probably never know whether or not McCain had any advance notice of the questions.

Image From McCain's Ad

Either McCain ripped his "Cross in the Dirt" story off or Solzhenitsyn and the two of them had nearly the exact same experience. Three kossacks explore the details, here, here, and here.

If it was stolen, I wonder McCain made it up himself, or if Mark Salter came up with it, and somehow convinced McCain it was true?

Andrew Sullivan asks the right question:

As he tells it today, it was the pivotal moment in his struggle to survive in the Hanoi Hilton. And yet, in his first thorough account of his time in captivity, in 1973, the story is absent. ... I have one simple question: when was the first time that McCain told this story?

As for whether or not there's precedent for McCain fabricating POW stories, consider the fact that he claimed that he became a fan of ABBA's Dancing Queen before his capture (Dancing Queen came out two years after his release), and consider his convenient swapping of the Green Bay Packers with the Pittsburgh Steelers in another POW story when he was in eastern PA.

In Reno, Nevada today, Barack Obama fired back against John Bush McCain (or is that John McBush, take your pick). Joe Sudbay has more, and the essential point is this simple: McCain = Bush = More of the same.

We've now got 79 more days until election day. That means we've got 79 days left to say goodbye to the George Bush-Karl Rove-John McCain school of politics.

Let's enjoy this final stretch -- if we stay focused on what this election is about, we can have a lot of fun.

First, I'll go out on a limb: we will know who Barack Obama has chosen as VP by Monday morning, August 25. Yes, I know that's a bold prediction. (Har, har.)

Second, a more important prediction: we will not know who John McCain has picked as his VP until Tuesday, September 2.

Why not until 9/2? Because on 9/1, both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney will speech at the GOP convention, and the McCain campaign is desperate to distract attention from their speeches.

Then again, I could be wrong. After all, Bush has surged to a 33% approval rating according to Gallup. Maybe by St. Paul, McCain will want to stand by his man.

The New York Times today reports on a group of sniveling little idiots who call themselves allies of Barack Obama, but are actually working to undermine him by reinforcing right-wing narratives about our party's presidential nominee.

They are acting like useless hacks. Instead of telling the press that Barack Obama should be spending more time at Walmart, if they really want to help win this election, they ought to be focusing on the questions raised by Frank Rich in his column today.

Rich's column is an outstanding summary of the media's near-complete abdication of its responsibility to examine McCain, and I'm not just saying that because he links to one of my posts in the web version of the article.

I'm saying that because he raises the single most ignored question of this campaign: just who on earth is John McCain?

This is probably an innocent mistake, but it's a hilarious one given that it came from FOX.

The Obama campaign has successfully raised doubts about John McCain's character when it comes to campaign tactics, but while that strategy softens up McCain for future attacks, it's not sufficient to move votes.

Without moving to the next stage of the narrative against McCain, the risk is that at a certain point people will say: "Yeah, McCain is an S.O.B., but he's my S.O.B."

Fortunately, the Obama campaign seems to understand this, and I expect they will in ways both subtle and direct begin raising doubts about McCain's character, expanding into different subjects such as his age (as it relates to his mental capacity), his temper, and his reflexive impulse towards confrontation.

The best way to go about such attacks is to raise them the context of a policy discussion, so the implications of the critique are clear. On the last point -- McCain's impulsive tendency towards conflict -- Andrew Sullivan absolutely nailed it yesterday. His formulation was the best I've seen so far in the campaign (emphasis added):

McCain:

My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression.

Not the invasion of Kuwait? Or the first Gulf War? Or the Afghan war? Or the second Iraq war? Or Darfur? Or Bosnia? Or 9/11? It's this kind of emotional hyperbole that should worry people about McCain in the White House. He's a drama queen on these issues. With a finger on the trigger.

For an added bonus, it works well with the whole ABBA thing (Dancing Queen)...

If you're pro-choice, John McCain isn't for you. Here he is earlier tonight at the Saddleback forum:

I have a 25 year record pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate, and as President of the United States I will be a pro-life president, and this presidency will have pro-life policies. That's my commitment. That's my commitment to you.

Too bad he isn't pro-life when it comes to war.

The key thing to remember is that the audience at the Saddleback Church was heavily disposed towards McCain, both demographically and ideologically. So while McCain did well (even though he annoyed the heck out me personally), it really wasn't much a challenge for him. I thought Barack Obama did just as well as McCain, and given the makeup of the audience, that's a remarkable achievement.

I also think McCain's firm answer on being pro-life will haunt him. There are so many people out there who believe John McCain is pro-choice, and this is the strongest video evidence yet showing that he's not just personally pro-life, but also committed to leading a pro-life presidency.

Now that President Bush's approval rating has soared all the way up to 33%, will John McCain rediscover his public love for Bush 43? (Nothing can change the fact that he's voted with Bush 100% of the time in 2008 and 95% in 2007.)

And yes, I am mocking Michael Goldfarb, the McCain campaign's blogger and resident D&D expert.

I posted this in the vodpod a few days ago, but didn't blog it separately. It's one of the most concise expostulations of what the core message ought to be, and the best part is it has some real facts that a lot of people don't know -- like the fact that McCain voted with Bush 100% of the time in 2008 and 95% in 2007.

And the cool thing is that it was created by an Obama supporter who simply wanted to make a point -- a point which has been heard well over 100,000 times already.

Jake Tapper asks the big questions:

Is a Liberal Christian Group’s TV Ad Suggesting McCain is an Adulterer?

I don't know Jake. Why don't you ask McCain?

Update: McCain sued ex-wife after affair with Cindy (digg it)

So Jake Tapper is now accusing Barack Obama's campaign of "rewriting history" in its refutation of smear author Jerome Corsi. Tapper does qualify his allegation by admitting that he holds Obama to a higher standard than Corsi, who he says peddling fiction.

But the thrust of Tapper's piece is that Obama's campaign is being less than truthful in its refutation. The problem is that Tapper's re-refutation leaves a lot to be desired, at least if you're interested in the truth.

CNN reports the story, and Jack Cafferty explains why it is the case.

I haven't been paying nearly as much attention to the situation with Russia and Georgia as I ought to have, but tonight I finally took a few minutes to acquaint myself with some of the basic facts of the situation.

If you already know your stuff about the crisis, the information in this post will be old hat, but if you were like me you might find some of these links interesting. If you have anything to ad, or I've said anything boneheaded, please sound off in the comments -- I'm eager to learn more, and I'm sure others are as well.

From earlier today on CNN:

GOP strategist John Feehery attacks Barack Obama for proposing a UN Security Council resolution to deal with the crisis in Georgia...but John McCain has the exact same position.

It provided for a funny moment on Hardball -- but only if you knew the facts. Unfortunately, neither host David Shuster nor Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis knew the truth, so nobody corrected the record.

Here's video of Feehery's errant attack, along with McCain taking the exact same position Feehery was skewering.

Barack Obama visits the Erie Bolt Company in Erie, PA (April 18, 2008)

Greg Sargent reports the details of Obama's new theme, which will be rolled out tomorrow in Pennsylvania.

Asked earlier today about the anti-Obama smears spread by bigot Jerome Corsi, John McCain made of light of them, saying you "gotta' keep your sense of humor" about such vicious falsehoods.

But after the Obama campaign said those comments were out of line, McCain's aides started to backpedal, now claiming that McCain couldn't hear the question.

Here's video from FOX about McCain's comments, and his staff's backpedal. Initially, FOX laughs along with McCain...and then an hour later, they're saying he couldn't hear the question.

YouTube link

Let me emphasize that Carl Cameron's report came an hour after the initial report -- McCain's aides only came up with the "he couldn't hear it" story after they realized what their boss had stepped in.

Color me skeptical. If McCain didn't hear the question, why did he answer it?

This was a strange, somewhat paranoid comment (emphasis added):

“You’re looking trim," Pickens told McCain as they engaged in some small talk. Pickens mentioned yesterday’s Census article in a newspaper about how non-Hispanic whites would no longer be the majority in 2042.

“You and I won't have to worry about that,” Pickens said jokingly, referring to the age of the two men. 

What would there be to worry about? Is Pickens really that tribalistic? He might have just been joshing around, but knowing his political views I doubt it.

CNN:

After he emerged from the meeting, a reporter asked McCain his reaction to the new Jerome Corsi book, "Obama Nation."

"Gotta keep your sense of humor," McCain responded, before his aides shuttled reporters away.

The Obama campaign slammed McCain's comments (via turneresq):

What does John McCain think is funny about an intolerant smear artist who called Pope John Paul II senile and claims the government lied about 9/11?

I know a lot of you have already seen the Obama campaign's booklet on Jerome Corsi's smear job, but for those of you who haven't, here's a link. To be honest, I didn't bother reading the whole thing because it's so obvious that Corsi is a lying bigoted hack and that the whole effort is a political smear. But if you've got friends who believe the stuff and you want a resource with which to combat the lies, this 41 page debunking of Corsi is a good place to start.

The important thing to realize about Jerome Corsi is that his smears say more about him and the people who support him than they do about Barack Obama.

This is really a story of a right-wing attack machine that's tried the same trick one to many times, and this time they are getting it thrown right back in their face.

On Wednesday, Paul Waldman of Media Matters did just that, schooling Corsi on Larry King Live -- and ripping Mary Matalin and her GOP cronies for supporting him.

Here's video. I've edited the thirty minute segment down to a three and a half minute package.

Anti-Obama smear author Jerome Corsi thinks writing for WorldNetDaily is one of his most impressive accomplishments as a human being.

Sad thing is, he might be right.

Hard to believe that both the NYT and WaPo frontpaged this yokel. A story about bigfoot would've been more interesting.

Guest post by barath

Note from Jed: barath is a long-time kossack who has supported Barack Obama from the beginning. He and I have worked together on various projects online over the past few months, most recently on the collection of closed captioning data, which he describes in this post. barath has performed a remarkably interesting analysis and I hope you agree. You can also find the post here on Daily Kos.

To help keep pace with all of the election coverage on the 24/7 news channels -- CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News -- Jed has been archiving closed captioning data.  However, the sheer volume of text makes it hard to analyze.

In this guest post, I'll show several automatically generated images (word clouds) that highlight the prevalence of certain words in election coverage on these three channels; the analysis is over the last week's worth of closed captioning feeds.  Let's look at the top 20 words on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News (from left to right):

CNN	MSNBC	Fox

Analysis and methods below the fold...

Two items to note.

1. In a follow up to the original LA Times story about the McCain Bury Brigade, the Digg CEO (predictably) denies any such thing. My take on his argument is that if he's right, then digg's algorithm is screwed up because in my experience, some of the most popular content ever to hit digg was buried. When it finally defeated the bury, it rose to the top. This has happened to me at least three times. So the McCain Bury Brigade might be quite small, but have great influence due to a faulty algorithm.
2. Case in point: BARACKY II, easily the best video of the campaign so far, was buried. A new digg has been set up here.

Some straight talk from Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films:

I wonder if Mary Matalin likes explaining why she decided to publish a smear job on Barack Obama written by a 9/11 truther who is spreading his lies through white supremacist radio shows.

This ad is running in Ohio, and like some of the other Obama ads, it wasn't announced to the media before it started airing.

For those of us who are political junkies, it's a bit maddening to not know exactly what the Obama campaign is up to, but we should take solace in the fact that it's got to be even more frustrating for the McCain campaign.

I just started watching Countdown (on DVR delay). Rachel Maddow is guest hosting, and it's amazing how much better she's getting, especially since she was pretty damn good when she started out.

This is a bit of a squishy observation, but the way I'd put it is that Maddow is now in full command of her presence. She seems totally comfortable and smooth, with the type of confidence you need to be a success on television.

She needs her own show -- even if only in the 10pm slot if MSNBC execs don't want to bump anyone out of the current lineup.

Updated with video.

Finally, a sequel that's even better than the original. The primaries are over...the general election is on!

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