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

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

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)...