September 2008 Archives

As you can see, I've tweaked the layout of TJR a bit over the past few days. I think the current version -- with a single post at the top of the page, followed by my most recent posts at Huffington Post -- will be stable, at least until things are fully ready to go to set up a blog at HuffPost.

My plan is basically to leave a fresh open thread up all day, and use the space below to highlight what I'm posting at HuffPost. I'm going to tweak the look and feel a bit more, and then try to get to sleep before 3AM for the first time in ages. Let me know what you think of this new layout.

Barack Obama, earlier today, raising McCain's gambling for the first time:

This is everything that I hate about John McCain -- sanctimoniously claiming to be above politics, and simultaneously playing politics of the worst sort. Sam Stein has the details, and I put together the video:

Food for thought: The Dow is now below the level it was on the day George Bush took office.

Here's a video from CBS News on January 22, 2001 -- and today.

I just posted my initial thoughts about John McCain's failure on this bailout negotiations.

By the way, it's incredible that Republicans are saying that the reason why they voted against the bill was because Nancy Pelosi offended them.

Update (12:56PM): Chris Matthews says the bill's defeat is a failure of Republican leadership. I've posted video at HuffPost.

Update 2 (1:02PM): Barney Frank was absolutely hilarious in response to the GOP crybabies, offering to be nice to them if that what it takes to get their votes. Video posted at HuffPost.

Update 3 (1:27PM): Mike Allen notes that McCain claimed credit for the bill before it lost. Ambinder suggests that means McCain deserves blame for its failure. Jay Carney poses the same thought.

Update 4 (2:12PM): The McCain campaign is totally losing it. They are actually blaming Barack Obama for the crash of the bailout plan. I've posted video, and Obama's statement in response, at HuffPost.

...but when Steve Schmidt claims that John McCain called for Rummy to go, well, he's just plain ol' lying. He also lied about the $42K tax hike thing.

Update: Unrelated, but there's also a new Obama ad out, this one targeting exec compensation, including Carly Fiorina's golden parachute.

I've posted video of Barack Obama's newest line on the campaign trail over at HuffPost, and it's a great one:

Senator McCain just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand that the storm hitting Wall Street hit Main Street long ago. That's why his first response to the greatest financial meltdown in generations was a Katrina-like response. Sort of stood there. Said the fundamentals of the economy are strong. That's why he's been shifting positions these last two weeks, looking for photo ops, trying to figure out what to say and what to do.

Also, Paul Krugman supports the bailout plan, though not enthusiastically. He knocks Barack Obama for not taking a more hands-on role in the negotiations, but I think Krugman is ignoring the fact that Obama's "No blank check" line helped embolden Democrats to fight hard on the equity warrants provisions, which seem to be decent.

In other news, both John McCain and Steve Schmidt lied through their teeth on the Sunday morning shows; I didn't watch them until late in the day, so I haven't been able to do a video debunking their lies, but I hope to put out a couple of them tomorrow.

Just a quick note: I've posted the full video of Barack's speech in Virginia to 26,000 rain-soaked supporters over at HuffPost and also in the vodpod. (Thanks for the link, barath.)

I just got back in after being out most of the afternoon and just started taking a look at the bailout plan announced today. If you're interested in reading it, HuffPost has put up the full text of the proposed legislation (a bit over 100 pages). At this point, I've got no opinion on it, pro or con -- I'm taking a look at it now. What I'm really to do is to hear from trustworthy economists, lawyers, and financial experts on what they have to say about the plan, particularly on how it handles equity warrants.

I've got a new post up at HuffPost on the expectations game for the VP debate. Here's an excerpt, capturing my basic argument.

The issue isn't so much what the expectations are for Palin's performance, but rather the fact that for her debate to have an impact on the campaign, she must deliver a game-changer for the McCain campaign -- and it has to be a positive one.

Make no mistake, a game-changer is exectly what McCain-land needs; after all, the only thing more distressing to them than Palin's dropping numbers is John McCain nosedive in the polls relative to Barack Obama.

Making things worse, all this is happening as time is running out. No matter how many times McCain may try to suspend his campaign, the election is on November 4, and nothing can change that reality.

Two really quick thoughts on the NYT article about McCain and gambling.

(1) Wes Gullett, one of the key lobbyists in the article, is an old gambling buddy of John McCain.

(2) Every conservative who does not trust the federal government should read that article because it shows in no uncertain terms that John McCain is a creature of the federal government and that he's very comfortable with expanding its power, oftentimes in arbitrary fashion.

Turns out he was dining at an opulent DC hotel 4-star restaurant in Washington, DC. Perhaps he was enjoying the establishment's "chili consommé with an oval of chili-powder mousse."  Read all about it in my latest post at The Huffington Post.

Update: It turns out Politico got the wrong restaurant, but right hotel in its initial post. I've updated my post at HuffPost.

Here's video from a local NBC affiliate of that huge rally in Fredricksburg, Virginia on Saturday evening. Overall, it's a great report but the brief soundbite from the veteran supporting Obama was particularly awesome. I've also posted another video from another station in the vodpod.

Also, on a housekeeping note, you may have noticed that there is now an RSS feed of my posts from HuffPost in the right-hand sidebar. This is part of the transition process as I migrate my blogging over; things still aren't totally ready, but soon I'll have a blog set up there -- basically TJR at HuffPost, and once that happens, that'll be the place that I do all my blogging at. Same Jed, new URL.

There's been interest in an RSS feed for my posts at HuffPost. Here's a link to a functioning RSS feed to my stuff there, though the feed URL may change at some point. There's also a page with my most recent posts, but it's not quite a blog home page yet. We're working on it though!

One question for those of you who comment here a fair bit: once my blogging transition is complete would you be interested in me posting daily open threads? For me personally reading comments is a great source of information -- there's almost no trolls in the commenters here, and I love hearing what you guys have to say. Let me know what you think, and I'll see what I can do.

I think my web browser might be running out of tabs. The problem?

I've been trying to keep track of John McCain's emerging scandals and political problems and there are just so many of them piling up so fast it is totally overwhelming.

Just in the last day or two, we've learned that McCain's campaign manager not only took money from Freddie and Fannie, but also did maintain ties to his lobbying firm, despite his protests. And it very well might be the case that he was steering millions of dollars of business from McCain and the RNC to his firms. Then The New York Times pens a detailed article about John McCain and the gaming business, touching both on his personal penchant for gambling and his complicated relationship with the industry. And the Washington Post detailed McCain's newest gamble, trying to wreck the bailout deal not for any substantive reason, but rather to advance his poltical career.

Meanwhile, we have GOP defectors speaking out against Sarah Palin, some even urging her to quit the ticket. Not coincidentally, McCain-land prays for an October wedding for Palin's pregnant 17 year-old daughter. They have to be worried about Thursday's debate because even though most people expect Palin to do fine in the highly scripted debate format, if she screws up even slightly, it will be the talk of the campaign. They didn't trust her enough to do post-debate spin, and with good reason: at a Philly cheesesteak shop, she (perhaps unwittingly) supported Obama's position on dealing with Pakistan and opposed McCain's.

It's almost too much for any one person to follow; the flow of information is just staggering. And that's where Frank Rich comes in: connecting all the datapoints of the past few days and weeks, concluding with a powerful and damning indictments of John McCain's character:

He may be the first presidential candidate in our history to risk wrecking the country even before being voted into the Oval Office.

It's worth keeping that bottom-line in mind as we chase the news over the final 5 weeks of the campaign.

(Also posted at HuffPost.)

HuffPost has video up of Tina Fey's return performance as Sarah Palin, this time doing an interview with Katie Couric (Amy Poehler). The freaky thing is that Fey just quotes from Palin's actual interview for extended stretches.

The NYT and WSJ have writeups of an apparent deal in principle on the bailout plan:

• Update (12:15AM): In the comments, debrazza thinks I pulled the trigger too fast in believing that equity warrants were a done deal. He's got a point. The language is suspiciously vague and until we actually see something on paper, there's every reason to be suspicious. Without equity warrants, it's hard to envision the deal as anything other than a corporate boondoggle.
• There will be equity warrants. Without equity warrants, the plan would almost certainly be terrible for taxpayers, but with equity warrants, there's a reasonable chance we'll ultimately see a profit. As I understand it, what equity warrants do is create a scenario where if the government purchases a loan, and that loan goes bad, then the government aquires an equity stake in the firm that sold it the loan. That way, if the firm ends up prospering, the government still makes money, even though the loan went bad. This in turn allows the government to justify paying a higher price for the loans. That's important because at current market prices, most firms won't sell their toxic debt -- doing so would generate huge writedowns, sending them into bankruptcy. Because equity warrants allow the government to justify higher prices for the debat, the firms are more likely to sell the loans, clearing the financial system of the toxic debt -- which is the whole point of the bailout.
  
• There will be increased oversight, both from Congress and an independent board.
• There will be caps on excutive pay for companies that participate, though House Republicans are fighting to weaken these provisions
• There will be an insurance program favored by House Republicans, but only as an option -- an option that most expect will not be used by any firms, because it will be extremely expensive.
  
• House Republicans continue to fight against Democratic proposal that 20% of any eventual profits be directed towards homeownership programs.
• It's still possible that there will be changes to bankruptcy rules to allow bankruptcy judges to change the terms of mortgages for owners of a single home.
• There is still discussion of some sort of fee applied to larger financial institutions to help cover the costs of this bailout. It's unclear to me how this would work in the eventuality that the bailout actually made money for the government.

(Also posted at HuffPost.)

I've got a new post up at HuffPost looking at FactCheck.org's fact check of the debate. Bottom line: Both Candidates Made Misstatements, But McCain's Were By A Mile.

I've got no idea who created this video, but it's just so goofy that it's kind of cool. The juxtaposition of this music with McCain is simply marvelous.

(Also posted at HuffPost. h/t: piktor.)

I went to bed at something like nine in the morning, and now I'm back at it. Here's my behind-the-times look at the political world (I'm sure I'll be embarassed once I realize how much I'm missing):

• It looks like Barack Obama is wining the tracking poll election. kos/R2000 has it at 49-43. Hotline: 48-43. Rasmussen: 50-44. Gallup: 49-44.
• Obama did not skip a beat -- he's back on the trail, focusing on the economy.
• McCain is back in DC, (thankfully) not doing a damn thing about the bailout negotiations.
• I've got a new post up at HuffPost: McCain's Angry Debate Disappoints Morning Joe Panel. And yes, his condecession did backfire.
• 57 million watched the debate.
• Fareed Zakaria says Palin isn't ready, and McCain isn't putting country first.
• Henry Kissinger did say he supported negotiations without preconditions.

I'm thinking about doing some more video work today, but I also have a sneaking suspicion that there's a bunch of stuff that's happened that I've missed. So I think maybe I ought to be doing some reading first...

(Also posted at HuffPost.)

My newest video is up at Huffington Post. The title pretty much says it all: Angry John McCain. Enjoy! (Now I'm going to go catch some sleep...)

Here's another one of my posts over at HuffPost:

John McCain is running a new campaign ad that actually attacks Barack Obama for agreeing with John McCain. This has to be the first time in history that a candidate ever went negative on his opponent for being too agreeable.

If the ad had a lighthearted, funny tone I think it could work. But instead, it is angry and sneering, just like John McCain.

Wow -- over 300 comments in the open thread from the debate tonight, and all of them were informative (except maybe mine!).

So I've got a new post up at HuffPost -- Obama Is Right, McCain Was Wrong. It's video evidence proving Obama's points on his best riff of the evening against McCain. I'll post the video to the vodpod in a couple of minutes.

I'm going to try and pull together a video on McCain's angry/sneering tone during the debate tonight, which hopefully will be ready in the AM.

I think I may have comitted the first gaffe of the debate -- I just set up a new DVR that will allow me to record CBS, ABC, NBC, and FOX as well as the three cable networks, and for the longest time, it just wouldn't work.

The problem? It turns out that that I forgot to plug it into the cable jack in the wall.

I'll be updating this post with any posts that I put up at HuffPost during the debate and it's aftermath.

That being said.........go Obama!

Update 1 (5:54 PM):  Updated with new link at 8:06PM. Over at Daily Kos, there's a debate money and volunteer bomb going on for Barack Obama.

Update 2 (6:48 PM): I just posted video of McCain lying about warning us of the impending financial crisis. In November 2007 he had said that he didn't see it coming.

Update 3 (7:22 PM): I just posted video of Barack Obama knocking John McCain on "Bomb, bomb Iran"

Update 4 (8:03PM): Here's video of Obama making the case for his view that negotiating reflects strength -- I thought this was one of Obama's best answer of the night.

Update 5 (8:11 PM): I'm now deciding what type of video to make to recap the debate. I'm thinking focusing on McCain's sneers and anger might work, or possibly looking at the people meter at CNN that carthage referenced. What do you think?

Update 6 (8:42 PM): The soundbite of the debate? Obama to McCain, On Iraq "You Were Wrong"

Update 7 (9:01PM): I uploaded video of the CBS News snap poll showing Barack Obama won. It's in Nico Pitney's "Debate Reviews Go To Obama" post.

Update 8 (9:17PM): I'm uploading video from the Frank Luntz focus group on FOX -- another focus group, another verdict that Obama won the debate. (Update: Nico has added the video into his "Obama Won The Debate" post.)

Update 9 (9:19PM): My basic take on why Obama won the debate is really simple -- I think he showed that he is absolutely ready to become president, that he has the judgment and resolve to do the job. And just as importantly he showed that he cared. In some ways, I think McCain was irrelevant -- his only chance was if Obama fell on his face -- but the fact that he was angry and sneering sure didn't help his cause, not one bit.

I've got a new post up at HuffPost with the full text of the Obama campaign memo framing the debate in terms of Barack Obama's good judgment on foreign policy, versus the bad jugment of John McCain and George Bush.

Also, Robert Gibbs just used the e-word -- erratic -- to describe McCain on a pre-debate interview on Countdown.

I'll be posting the debate open thread soon (just have to take care of a few things with my video recording setup first).

Jeffrey Toobin just nailed it on CNN, laying out the key difference in temperament that will be on display tonight. Man, when Toobin's on fire...he's so damn good. Can't wait to hear him after the debate.

I've posted video over at HuffPost.

Just a quick note to fill you in on my plan for blogging during the debate tonight. Basically, what I think I'll do is set up an open thread a little while before the debate begins. In the open thread post, I'll keep a live update of my posts over at HuffPost, with a link over to that post.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been working on how to seamlessly integrate the type of blogging I've been doing here at The Jed Report with the work that I'm doing at HuffPost. The current plan is that at some point in the next few days, I'll have a blog set up at HuffPost -- basically a TJR at HuffPost.

Once that's set up, I'll be doing all my new posts over there. It will be all the same type of content I post here, just at a new URL. There's some technicaly changes that need to happen before that is ready, so in the meantime, I'll be doing this hybrid thing, and I appreciate you bearing with me during the transition. And by the way, I just have to give a shout out to genevieve who manages to post an amazing amount of relevant links very quickly.

Now, as for actual real content, this was a fun interview between Andrea Mitchell and David Axelrod about John McCain's bailout gambit. I've deleted this video because it was skipping all over the place. (You can try playing it here.)

I'm still working on getting the integrating together. In the meantime:

• Mark Salter is confirming that John McCain spent several hours in debate prep last night. As genevieve said in the comments, that's "unsuspended."
• GOP Minority Whip Roy Blunt is saying that McCain "got the discussion going in the direction that we wanted" on the financial crisis. AMERICAblog also reports that Blunt actually said McCain "stopped the deal."

(Also posted at HuffPost.)

Even if you don't accept the argument that John McCain made things worse with the bailout negotiations yesterday, I don't see how he possibly could claim things are any different.

So based on the standards he set on Wednesday, there's no reason he should be heading to the debate tonight.

It's tempting to say that he blinked, but it's not like he was squaring off against someone and finally gave in. If anything, he was squaring off against himself.

The important point is that for any thinking person, every single moment he stands on that stage tonight will expose his utterly irrational (erratic?) behavior.

And it comes during the debate focused on national security. I just can't imagine a worse scenario for McCain going into the debate.

Though I guess the upside is that it lowers expectations...

Ben Smith makes a good point: as crappy as the last two days have been for John McCain, they'd have been even worse if we'd been talking about Rick Davis and Sarah Palin. Ben also flags the new in-word for describing McCain: erratic.

(Also posted at HuffPost.)

I've got three new posts up at The Huffington Post:

• A new video taking a look at John McCain's disaster of a Thursday, "When John McCain Came To The Rescue (He Just Made Things Worse)". It's worth watching if only for Barney Frank's line about John McCain ("Senator McCain said he was here to help us...God save us from such help!"). The video is also currently up on the politics home page.
• Believe it or, John McCain is actually claiming that "we've made progress" on negotiations for a deal on the financial crisis -- and he seems to want credit for it. M'kay.
• Also on NBC News last night, John McCain made it official, saying about his debate drama: "I am a betting man."

Also, as I mentioned earlier, I'm working putting in place a way to allow me to more seamlessly integrate the type of blogging I do here and the stuff that I am doing at The Huffington Post. Ideally, there will be just one place for all things "Jed." I'm hoping to figure out more of the details tomorrow (Friday), but one possibility (which I think makes the most sense) is to move my main blogging presence over to HuffPost (with a dedicated page).

Anyway, I'm sure the suspense is killing you (or, more likely, not), but my goal is to find a way to bring together the stuff I've been doing at HuffPost and the stuff I've been doing here into one spot. Thanks for bearing with me as I work it through!

Nico Pitney and Sam Stein have a detailed rundown of the White House meeting including this nugget:

Towards the end, McCain finally spoke up, mentioning a counter-proposal that had been offered by some conservative House Republicans, which would suspend the capital gains tax for two years and provide tax incentives to encourage firms that buy up bad debt. McCain did not discuss specifics of the plan, though, and was non-committal about supporting it.

CBS reports that McCain also seeks more deregulation.

He's on FOX & MSNBC now -- the epitome of cool, calm, and collected.

Update: An understatement: "What I've found, and what I think was confirmed today, is that when you inject presidential politics into delicate negotiatons, it's not necessarily as helpful as it needs to be."

He's also standing by his decision to have the debate proceed tomorrow. Interestingly, he indicated that he felt the debate ought to focus on the economy. Edit: To be clear, he didn't propose a format change. He probably thinks that "national security" includes "economic security."

Here's McCain on ABC, hanging his hat on the procedurally irrelevant John Boehner:

GIBSON: But this afternoon, the chairman of the House Banking Committee, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, walked out and said "we have an agreement on principles." And indeed even Senator Bennett from your party said, "I now expect we will indeed have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate, be signed by the president and bring a sense of certainty to this crisis that is still roiling the market." What happened between one o'clock this afternoon and four o'clock, when you went into the meeting with the President?

MCCAIN: Well I believe that immediately after that, Congressman Boehner, the Republican leader in the House, came out and said there was not a deal.

GIBSON: Just one final question. Can you describe the meeting for me? When was the moment when you realized, we're not going to get an agreement in this meeting?

MCCAIN: The one at the White House? Well, I knew going in because I'd been over on the House side with my House Republican colleagues. There never was a deal, but I do believe the meeting was important to move the process along.

The good news is that most folks in the media seem to be laughing at McCain's obvious partisan gamesmanship.

So John McCain's first meeting was with John Boehner, the House GOP leader. (Edit: I had meant to add -- When McCain arrived, a deal had already been reached.)

Boehner now says "no deal." Of course, House Republicans are largely procedurally irrelevant, but politically they are relevant (because McCain has made them relevant). It's obvious they are doing the work of John McCain to muck this process up.

That's fine. We can survive a few more days without a bill. Make Boehner and McCain put a plan on the table. Call their bluff. They are now the obstacles.

McCain isn't suspending his campaign. Not at all.

I've been working on a video so I'm not totally up to speed on the state of play on the deal, but I did want to flag this Bill Kristol post (h/t: Jonathan Martin).

Basically, Kristol is claiming that McCain will support the deal now, but if/when he becomes president, he'll revisit the deal and change it. Now if Kristol is serious, no matter what you think about the deal, that seems like a horrible idea. The point of the deal is in part to create certainty. So why in the world would Kristol want to introduce uncertainty?

Basically, Kristol's smart enough to know that given the current state of play, Barack Obama is certain to win this election. Because of that, uncertainty benefits McCain, no matter its impact on the economy or country. Fortunately for him, I can't think of anyone better suited to act a bit crazy and introduce uncertainty into a situation that demands stability than John McCain.

I've got a couple of new posts at HuffPost:

• McCain Aide Claims Credit For Deal, Says "We're Going Into A Debate"
• Palin Dodges On Ted Stevens Question, But In July Said "I Have Great Respect For Him...His Voice Needs To Be Heard"

I'm working on a way to make the integration a bit more seamless, so that all my stuff appears in one spot -- hopefully that will be up and running in the next two. Thansk for bearing with me until then.

How in the world did he pick Sarah Palin? Nico Pitney and Sam Stein have more, including a transcript...complete with all the ellipses you could dream of.

I've got a new post up at HuffPost, including video of John McCain CBS News last night attacking Obama...literally seconds after saying he was going to stop playing politics. The video should be in the vodpod momentarily.

Too bad he's going to miss a great one tomorrow if he bails on the debate.

Update: Apparently, there already is a deal on the bailout legislation. Kind of makes McCain's stunt pointless, and means it would be really strange if he didn't show up for the debate.

Here's my newest video for The Huffington Post, currently on the site's home page. (Update: It is now in this Sam Stein post on McCain's "time out timeline.") It shows just how empty McCain's words were yesterday: on Tuesday, he had contradicted just about everything he said on Wednesday.

McCain personifies herky jerky. Our guy personifies cool, calm, and collected. Plus, our guy is about 10x smarter than McPalin, combined.

Obama: "The debate is more important than ever."

Asked in a January debate what made him qualified to manage the nation's economy, John McCain had not a single world to say about the economy.

OMFG. She couldn't even win American Idol. (Update: Just to be clear, I actually like American Idol. I think it's a fun show, and I've got a ton of respect for a lot -- thought not all -- of the contestants.)

It just gets funnier and funnier. The McCain campaign proposes rescheduling the presidential debate to October 2...which would require postponing the VP debate, scheduled for the very same day.

Barack Obama calls John McCain at 8:30AM this morning to work out a joint statement on the financial crisis. McCain doesn't take the call and waits six hours before returning it. Among the things he did in those six hours? He met with Lady Lynn de Rothschild, the Clinton supporting baraness who is now for McCain.

This can't be heartwarming news for McCain: Just 10% of Americans agree with his bizarre plan to cancel the debates.

John McCain suddenly decides that he wants to postpone the debates and stop the campaign to deal with the bailout package.

Hmmm. Think he might be trying to step on Palin's Great Depression gaffe?

Update: I mean, think about it. He's gone from the economy is strong to stop the campaign in like 10 days!

Update 2 (12:58PM): I've posted more thoughts over at HuffPost:

The Drama Queen's Big Gamble

What we are witnessing right now is what a McCain presidency would be like -- herky jerky, bouncing from crisis to crisis, overreacting at every step.

It's taken him exactly ten days to go from the economy is strong to we're heading into the Great Depression and must stop the campaign.

But nothing has changed other than the polls, and that's why it's impossible to take this gamble seriously.

McCain can see that he cannot win the presidency unless the campaign narrative changes dramatically, so he's decided to roll the dice.

After all his talk of bipartisanship, John McCain has decided to make an intensely political move. He does not have a plan, but he's willing to drag the country through his personal drama, no matter the cost, just so that he might win the presidency.

McCain wants to demonstrate his leadership skills, but instead he's demonstrating beyond any doubt that he is temperamentally unfit to be president.

Update 3: You can digg the HuffPost version of this post here.

Update 4: Obama is speaking now, making the point that (a) he's been on top of this situation since the start, in other words -- he's been able to multitask, as a president must; and (b) he reached out to McCain this morning to issue a joint statement, and that McCain had agreed.

Obama is also taking questions at the press conference, and says that we need the debates, and that this is exactly the time the American people need to hear from the person who will be responsible for this mess.

Obama also channels barath, who says that presidents need to be able to handle more than one thing at once.

He's just saying:

Whatever the merits of the whole Edwards love child story, are we really supposed to believe that one of America's most famous trial lawyers wouldn't sue a publication that printed defamatory and slanderous lies about him?

Also, it's worth pointing out that while the Enquirer may or may not be scrupulous in its choice of stories -- that's in the eye of the beholder -- it is pretty scrupulous about its facts. They win lawsuits. They've broken a host of stories the MSM guys couldn't.

President Bush speaking on behalf of it tonight? Almost makes you wonder if he really wants it pass.

Here's my newest video for Huffington Post on John McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal. It's got some archival footage you might not have seen before...including Andrea Mitchell (!) reporting on the affair nearly twenty years ago.

This is a political analysis, not a policy analysis.

I'm starting from the assumption that Barack Obama wants to support the bailout, and probably will vote for it.

I'm also starting from the assumption that John McCain (even though he has said he supports the bailout) wants to oppose the bailout because he thinks it will give him a chance to separate himself from the Bush administration.

The political risk here is obvious: the bailout isn't very popular, and those who are most passionate about it are against it. So politically, the easy answer is to just say no.

But Obama believes there are substantive reasons to move forward, so he should. But he needs to make sure he does so in a politically responsible way, and that means he needs to insist that the bailout plan deliver something tangible for Main Street, something big enough and easy enough to understand that John McCain just can't say no.

On The Daily Show tonight, Bill Clinton proposed one such solution: conditioning the bailout on a moratorium on home foreclosures. There might be other solutions. (Update: Josh Orton discusses Clinton's ideas at length in a post from earlier, based on a meeting with Clinton and other bloggers.)

But whatever it is, Obama needs to insist on something in the bailout package that people will want, and will be angry at John McCain if he he opposes. If he doesn't, and he makes it easy for McCain to say no, he will be taking a huge political risk.

Newsweek and New York Times report that John McCain has been caught lying about his campaign manager's lobbying on behalf of Fannie Mae.

McCain said that Rick Davis had long ago severed ties with Fannie Mae. Not true. His lobbying firm has received $15,000 per month each month until...last month.

Update: Here's video of McCain lying in an interview on Sunday. Rachel Maddow did a segment on this which I'll post when MSNBC does.

So this is why he hasn't had a press conference in so long...

I'm not an expert by any stretch on the mortgage market, but there is an element of surreality to the debate coming from the GOP and even from the media to some extent.

In all this talk about Fannie and Freddie, people are forgeting that the root of the problem was bad loans made in the non-conforming (jumbo, exploding, stated income, zero down, etc.) market -- loans that when they were originated had nothing to do with Fannie and Freddie. Those bad loans helped drive the economy for a number of years, but it was always the case that at some point things would pop.

Another way of saying this is that even if Fannie and Freddie had never existed, we'd still be in the mess we're in today. Some might even argue it could be worse, because at least Fannie and Freddie established a more highly regulated conforming loan market (no jumbo loans, strict 20% down or 10% + PMI requirements).

It's also worth pointing out that when John McCain talks about how he wanted to regulate Fannie and Freddie as if they were banks, what he's really talking about is deregulating the conforming loan market. We'll never know if that would have made things worse, but it's hard to see how it could possibly have made things any better.

My bottom-line is that the root of the problem was bad loans and lending practices. And the blame for that rests squarely in the hands of those who deregulated the financial industry and encouraged these bads loans as a way of growing the economy. In other words, Bush, McCain, and the GOP.

I've got a new post over at HuffPost on McCain's press conference today in which McCain completely dropped any pretense of offering economic assistance to average American families. Asked by a reporter whether or not he'd back a stimulus package, McCain refused to answer, instead talking about spending and tax cuts. McCain is also copying Obama's approach to taxpayer protections in the bailout package.

McCain also had a hilarious moment in which he badly mangled his words, saying that he'd "grow this government...not grow this economy." Video coming soon.

I've got a new post up at HuffPost on an excellent interview Howard Dean gave earlier in the day on MSNBC. Dean said that McCain is "hot-headed" and "irascible" in contrast with Obama's "calm...thoughtful" temperament. Dean also knocked McCain for his Keating 5 involvement with the last financial crisis, the S&L scandal.

...right at the same time as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was scheduled to speak at the UN.

Now it seems as if McCain is running late. I guess he doesn't want to interrupt Ahmadinejad?

Update: Obama introduced a some new ideas, including his most explicit taxpayer protection language yet. He said that taxpayers need to be treated as if they were investors in this plan and floated the idea of imposing a fee on financial services firms after the market recovers to help pay for the bailout. He also suggested helping keep people in their homes by allowing the government to directly puchases mortgages instead of limiting it to mortgage-backed securities. Obama also explicitly delinked the stimulus plan from the bailout, but repeated his call for a stimulus plan.

###

Original post: Here's the full text of Obama's remarks at today's press conference:

So as I watch Barack Obama give a press conference on his approach and plans for the financial crisis and economy at large, out comes the news that John McCain will give his first press conference in six weeks later this afternoon. Meanwhile, even some reporters at FOX News think McCain-land has pushed things too far. Shushannah Walshe, a producer at FOX, said the access restrictions on Sarah Palin were "unprecedented." I've written it up at HuffPost and will post the video to the vodpod.

Here's my new video for Huffington Post. Bottom-line: until he faced a political crisis last week, whenever John McCain talked about regulation, all he wanted was less of it:

It looks like The No Talk Express thing is breaking through: a reporter today directly asked McCain if his bus had become the "No Talk Express."

Also, Kate Snow reports on the wranglings between McCain-land and the media on gaining access to Palin's UN meetings.

Here's video of the "No Talk Express" exchange:

The New York Times has an interesting video preview of the Obama and McCain debate styles. On the print page:

• Obama Carries Uneven Record as Debater to First Contest With McCain
• A Scrappy Fighter, McCain Honed His Debating Style in and Out of Politic

As far as expectations go, that seems to be pretty good for Obama -- people get that McCain has a stronger track-record as a debater. The only problem will be is if Obama fulfills those expectations.

Hopefully, Obama will not only manage to repeat the fact that Iraq is costing us $10 billion a month over and over and over (he should do it ad nauseum, and then again) but also poke a few barbs at McCain to keep him off balance.

If Obama can keep McCain from developing a rhythm, perhaps by challenging his honesty and honor, it will be hard for McCain to outright win, and given that Obama will enter the debate with a lead over McCain in the state of the race, for McCain, a tie is basically a loss.

One important thing is that when (if) Obama challenges McCain's honor, he shouldn't make it sound like he's frustrated or exasperated with McCain lying about his record. Rather, Obama needs to make it clear that his problem with McCain's lies is that this is what we've spent the last eight years going through -- we can't afford more of the same.

The issue isn't just that McCain is trying to gain an unfair advantage, rather the issue is that McCain is lying to the American public -- and we've already had enough of that.

I've got a few related things I was planning on saying, so I'll just shoehorn them all in here:

First: I thought you might find it interesting to get some perspective on how both the economic news and political news is playing on local TV in a swing state, so here's video from the top of the 11PM broadcast of the Las Vegas CBS affiliate. On balance, I think it was very positive for Obama and Democrats in general (with one caveat, below). It's a pretty clear demonstration that when Democrats decide to put up a fight, the world doesn't collapse around them -- in fact they look and sound stronger and more trustworthy.

Second: The one thing in the news coverage that I think worked well for McCain was his totally false claim that Obama does not have a plan. Now I know and you know that Obama does have a plan (and so does CNN, in a video I posted in the vodpod and at HuffPost), but there are probably a lot of undecided voters who don't. My gut tells me that Obama should respond forcefully to McCain's misrepresentation, perhaps throwing it back in his face with Austan Goolsbee's Fruit Loops joke (that the list of ingredients on Fruit Loops box is longer than McCain's plan).

Third: This is related to the second point. Not only does McCain not have much of (if any) plan on the financial crisis, but his plan is totally all over the map. He endorsed the bailout when it first came out, but now he's trying to run away from it. We shouldn't let him get away with that. Attacking someone as a flip-flopper isn't the strongest argument in the world, but this isn't about flip-flopping -- this is about McCain's herky jerky, shoot-from-the-hip style. He jumps up on a moments notice, starts pounding his fist about how we must do "A" and then the next day he says he was for "B" all along. This is not the temperament we want in a president.

Fourth (and almost finally): My first edited video with Huffington Post should be published sometime this morning, probably while I am asleep. I'll post it here when I wake up (assuming that it's already up there), but if you want to look for it over there the current working title is "John McCain: The Fundamental Deregulator." It basically is a video montage of McCain talking (over the last seven months) about his support for deregulation. Also, unlike the "breaking news" clips at HuffPost, this one will be on a new YouTube channel to make it easier to share.

Okay, this is my last thought, I promise: I know the "Stuff I should have blogged" is out-of-date. I'll have it back up-to-date soon, hopefully in the morning. The issue is simply that I'm adjusting to new routines now that I'm doing the HuffPost gig.

Nearly one month later, she wants to ask the media a few questions? What a total jopke. (That's a bit of poker humor right there. Anyone get the reference without using the Google or following the link?)

Update: Doh. She was in Media, PA. Har, har. My initial response arguably meets the literal definition of jopke.

George Will really doesn't like John McCain. His opening graph:

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

And if there ever was something such as a "backhanded attack," Will's final paragraph was definitely a backhanded attack on Barack Obama, because Will is basically saying that McCain would be worse:

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

I don't know if that's an endorsement of Obama, but Will sure isn't voting for John McCain.

Here's another one of my posts from HuffPost: CNN exposes Sarah Palin's $26 million pork barrel "Road To Nowhere," the three mile road that was supposed to lead to the "Bridge To Nowhere" -- until Congress killed the earmark funding for the bridge in 2005.

Also, I've got two other posts up at HuffPost, both on short video clips. First, CNN's Ed Henry says McCain is playing politics on bailout. Second, CNN's Tom Foreman calls out another McCain campaign lie. In fact, Barack Obama does have a plan for the financial crisis. I'll get those videos into the vodpod soon, but here's the "Road To Nowhere" one.

Keith Olbermann shows how McCain is all over the map on the bailout, simultaneously saying that now is the time for action, and that he's deeply uncomfortable about what's taking place. This is vintage McCain: he's the politician's politician. Paul Krugman joins in a discussion on McCain's herky jerky hypocrisy.

I just posted a short piece over at Huffington Post with video of CNN's Campbell Brown and Ed Henry noting the obvious: that John McCain is playing politics with the bailout, considering that while he now says he's uncomfortable with it, when it first came out, he actually supported it.

Meanwhile, John McCain's tax cuts for the wealthy would explode the federal deficit.

Sorry about the light posting today -- I've been busy at work on a video that should be coming out tomorrow morning. But piktor posted this video in the comments of the previous thread and it's worth seeing.

Colin Powell basically takes McCain to the woodshed for being a drama queen on the Georgia-Russia conflict. If he'd been this honest and rationale in 2002 we never would have gone to war with Iraq.

John McCain on the housing crisis just under six months ago:

Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.

What a hypocrite. By the way, I collected this video as part of a larger project I'm working on for HuffPost which should be up later today.

Ben Smith reviews Steve Schmidt's unhinged attack on the media. "Schmidt repeatedly gilded the lily: He exaggerated the Biden family's already problematic ties to the credit card industry; Obama's embarrassing relationship with a 1960s radical; and an Obama supporter's over-the-top attack on Sarah Palin when -- in each case -- the truth would have been damaging enough."

The straight talk? McCain political director Mike Duhaime can't say whether or not his boss will support the bailout, even though McCain told 60 Minutes that he would support the bailout.

Wow. Bail me out, please.

I've got a new post up at Huffington Post with video of John McCain flat-out lying to Detroit's WXYZ-TV about his fleet of thirteen cars.

McCain claimed to the TV station that "I've bought American literally all my life" (a total lie) and that "Cindy and I own an automobile that's American-made" (technically true, but misleading as all get out).

Today, John McCain said he's "deeply uncomfortable" about the bailout plan. But on Thursday, after Hank Paulson briefed Congress, he told 60 Minutes that he supported it. So what gives?

Well this is an unusual a typical way to begin the morning...Steve Schmidt, John McCain's co-campaign manager, lied today about Joe Biden's son. Schmidt said Biden's son "is a lobbyist for the credit card and banking industry." Only one problem. That's not true. It's never been true.

They want to to talk about anything but what's actually happening in the real world. They've got no plans, no solutions, no truth.

This ad is just...totally...brutal. Devastating. It takes on John McCain over his plan to do to the health care industry what he did with the banking industry, and it takes no prisoners.

My only question is how many "free" plays it gets on cable throughout the day? If the past is prologue, not nearly as many as it should.

If you're interested in some more information on McCain's radical plans for the health care system, I took a look at them in early July. His basic idea: scrap employer-based health care altogether and replace it with individually purchased health care plans. Every person for him or herself.

Alright, I admit -- I'm totally confused. (Must be talking about McCain.)

• On Sunday, Ben Smith reports: "John McCain will distance himself from Hank Paulson's bailout plan" on Monday.
• On Saturday, Jonathan Martin reports: McCain "isn't yet offering his support to the administration's expensive plan to buy up the bad debt that threatens to choke credit markets."
• But in a 60 Minutes interview taped on Thursday, McCain seemed to endorse the bailout plan, which was pitched to Congress on Thursday and announced to the public on Friday. Update: According to AP, McCain did in fact endorse the bailout.
  

In other news, the top of the GOP ticket (that'd be Sarah Palin) continues to upstage John McCain, this time drawing a crowd of 60,000 in The Villages, Florida. I travel to that part of Florida each year to visit my grandpa and step-grandma, and I may never look at the area the same way again.

Update (3:31AM): I am officially an idiot. Palin did not draw 60K. Maybe 25K is more like it. And as noted in the commonets, Palin went to one of the easiest places in Florida for a Republican to generate a crowd. Obama meanwhile went into GOP country in Florida and still drew over 20K.

McCain: "I think the deregulation was probably helpful to the growth of our economy."

John Aravosis catches a remarkable NYT story:

Senator John McCain's campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

As John says:

There should be a campaign to demand that McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, give every penny back to the American people.

Pathological hypocrites, every last one of them.

Ostensibly, Friday's debate is going to focus on foreign policy. But I think everybody knows that even though John McCain would like to talk about his war in Iraq, what people are actually going to take away from the debate is going to have a lot more to do with the economy.

To that end, yesterday davidfromsandiego pointed out that the most explicit connection between foreign policy and the economy is the $10+ billion dollars we are spending each and every month in Iraq.

On a substantive level, I don't think Barack Obama can repeat that fact often enough. It's a great way to keep the focus on the economy while stressing how his superior judgment on Iraq at the same time.

In fact, I'll make this wager: if Obama can manage to state that fact at least five times, there's no way he'll lose the debate.

::: :::

On a completely different note, it occurs to me that a great way to "respectfully" mock John McCain during the debate (thereby getting under his skin) would be for Barack Obama to make reference to McCain's comment that he knows how to find Osama bin Laden. As Keith Olbermann said during his special comment, either McCain is lying and doesn't know how to catch bin Laden or he's telling the truth and he's holding it out as a ransom for the presidency. Either way, McCain's position is absurd, and is ripe for some serious ribbing. And something tells me that John McCain is not going to be in any mood to be the target of ridicule.

The campaign seems to be coming down to the the debate over the two most basic economic questions confronting America today: what do we do now to avert a financial collapse, and what do we do over the long-run to fundamentally strengthen our economy?

On both of those questions, Barack Obama and John McCain have taken very different approaches. While Obama has offered a plan for both the short- and long-term, the only plan offered by John McCain is no plan at all. While Obama has been specific about what he wants to do and signaled his willingness to put aside partisan politics, the only specifics McCain has offered is what he's against and who he's against.

Given the extent of this country's economic problems, Barack Obama's constructive, can-do approach will win every time over John McCain's negative, do-nothing philosophy.

The Seahawks have lead (which is about to shrink), so I stole myself away from the game to point out a new post over at Huffington Post, "Even Fox News Admits McCain's Missteps."

Aside from the headline, there are two things worth noting:

1. Even Bill Kristol admitted McCain had a bad week last week -- but Kristol being Kristol, he spun up the idea that McCain would have a good week this week. His notion? That McCain will oppose Paulson's bailout plan. That may have some superficial mavericky appeal, but it won't deal with the fact that this crisis is a direct result of the economic ideology that McCain supports. Moreover, if McCain says "no" to this, it's not like he's going to have a plan for Main Street. So he's just Hoover all over again.
2. If you look at the byline, you might notice a familiar name. That's right, I wrote the post. I'll have more to say later, but at least through November, I'm going to be writing and video editing for HuffPost as well as TJR. It won't have a huge impact on TJR, though because of my responsibilities to HuffPost, I may have to cut back on some of my more ho-hum posts here, which isn't the end of the earth. Anytime I post something over there, I'll also flag it over here. Probably the coolest part of the arrangement is that my edited videos will be exposed to a broader audience. (Don't worry, I'll be able to post them here as well.)

I'll write a bit more about the HuffPost stuff later (I have to get back to the football game), but I wanted to give everybody here a heads up first. I'm very excited to be able to work with them, and the opportunity would not have come up if it weren't for TJR readers and their support -- so thank you.

Barack Obama, earlier today in Charlotte, NC:

Now I'm off to go watch my Seahawks play some football...

Here's the full text of Barack Obama's statement of principles for the Treasury proposal:

HuffPost's Sam Stein documents the carnage. Here's video:

(Note: The digg link affiliated with this post is connected to The Huffington Post story.)

 26 years in Congress, 13 cars, and at least 7 homes.

Obama gets big welcome in Republican Country

JACKSONVILLE -- To an amped and overflowing crowd in a Republican stronghold, Democrat Barack Obama stepped up his attacks on John McCain, saying Saturday that the Republican in these tough economic times "wants to do for healthcare what Washington did for banking."

According to firstcoastnews.com, 8,000 of the more than 20,000 who showed up were turned away. Many of those turned away were able to listen to the rally from outside the venue's gates. Kos diarist Arculi attended the event and posted some pictures taken at the scene.

When McCain spoke at the same spot on Monday, 3,000 showed up.

Two thoughts occur to me:

• $700 billion is an awful lot of money to put in the hands of just one person. There needs to be checks and balances on how that money is used, and Obama should get out in front of the issue, even if it means preemptively relinquishing some of the power his administration would have.
  
• Given that there will always be a bailout in situations like this, we should never again allow markets to get so deregulated that the put us in a position like we're in today. The issue isn't just protecting people from unscrupolous leanders -- it's also protecting people who follow the rules from those who don't.

If this isn't the death of right-wing economic ideology, then it should be.

It's always hard to tell what ads are actually on the air, but I thought you might want to know that just before the Georgia/ASU football broadcast began here in Las Vegas, Barack Obama's two minute "Plan for Change" ad aired on the local ABC affiliate. It's the second time I've seen it on Vegas TV.

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, check out the new "Blueprint for Change" campaign video detailing Obama's economic plans (also in the vodpod).

Over at NRO's The Corner, Yuval Levin makes the (hilarious) case that on the economy, the past week has been better for McCain than Obama:

Who is a bigger joke: John McCain or the person he's tapped as the leading energy expert in the United States?

hilzoy does her best to parse WTF the expert was trying to say.

The AP says the upcoming presidential debates offer Barack Obama "a chance to halt John McCain's momentum."

Huh? What McCain momentum would that be? The kind of momentum that takes you from a one point lead in the average of national tracking polls on September 10 to a four point deficit today?

If that's McCain Momomentum, then give me more of it. Please!

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are some questions that occur to me as I think about Friday's debate:

• Will Obama maintain his current lead through next Friday? If so, if McCain doesn't win the debate, then does he effectively lose it by missing an opportunity to bring the race back to a tie?
• Even though the topic of the first debate is foreign policy and national security, it's hard to imagine that the economy won't be a significant part of the discussion. This can't make McCain happy. Will he stick to his view that fighting terrorism is a higher priority than strengthening economy?

It's hard to believe that we're less than a week away from the first presidential debate. Here's the schedule:

• Friday 9/26: Foreign policy debate, Jim Lehrer moderator
• Thursday 10/2: Vice presidential debate, Gwen Ifill moderator
• Tuesday 10/7: Town hall meeting, Tom Brokaw moderator
• Wednesday 10/15: Domestic policy, Bob Schieffer moderator

The format for the three debates (not the town hall meeting) is as follows:

Washington state's most widely read newspaper has endorsed Obama. And even thought Seattle is liberal, the Times isn't: in 2000, the paper endorsed George W. Bush.

Update (10:21AM): Here's video from Daytona (thanks to commenter WithFeeling), including a number of other riffs on McCain's deregulation and dishonesty problems, and his Social Security privatization plan.

In a magazine article published earlier this month, John McCain not only claimed credit for the banking deregulation, but he hailed it as a model for what should be done with health care (emphasis added):

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

(h/t: Paul Krugman)

Of course now that things have imploded at Lehman and AIG, John McCain claims to be the world's most sincere champion of tougher regulation. But his new position has all the credibility of his campaign's attacks, which is to say none at all.

Meanwhile, in stark contrast to McCain, one year ago Barack Obama proposed new regulations that would have prevented the mortgage crisis that led to the situation we find ourselves in today.

The first few minutes of this clip were pretty funny:

Full disclaimer: Ari is a friend of mine (he went to high school with my sisters and worked for Sen. Maria Cantwell when I was her communications director). But I do think he's one of the strongest voices in the Democratic Party.

Last week, Ari Melber destroyed GOP spinner Brad Blakeman, and this week he turns in another strong performance against Joe Watkins. Ari's strength is that he has no fear. He is ferocious and refuses to back down. We need more Democrats like him on TV.

Did I say Bob Dole? I meant John McCain.

As Chuck Todd says in this segment from NBC Nightly News, what a difference one week makes:

Even Pat B. has to tip his cap, saying Obama's acted like a statesman.

The responses of Barack Obama and John McCain to the economic crisis today tells you all you need to know about the choice in this election.

One the one hand, in Barack Obama we've got a statesman who wants to work together to get things done for all Americans. On the other hand, in John McCain we've got a yipping little dog (apologies to canine lovers everywhere) who will tear anything down to get ahead.

Here's a short video I put together to illustrate the contrast:

Ben Smith notes (a) some Floridians, including lifelong GOPers, are flipping their support from McCain to Obama because Palin is too culturally conservative and divisive and (b) the Iran rally only asked Palin to attend after Coleman and Lieberman refused, so spare us the crocodile tears already. And kos tracks the Palin popularity plummet.

Here's video of Barack Obama responding to McCain's attacks from earlier this morning. Obama says it's clear that McCain is "a little panicked right now" and that instead of offering real solutions, McCain "seems to be willing to say anything or do anything or change any position or violate any principle to try and win this election."

Here's a transcript of this clip:

Here's the video of Obama's speech. You can read the full text of his prepared remarks here.

The speech, which struck a constructive, bipartisan tone, was a quite a contrast to McCain's nasty attacks earlier in the morning. Also, the fact that Barack took questions from reporters after the speech set him apart from McCain. (The Q&A actually lasted longer than the speech itself and since I'm limited to 10 minutes clips on YouTube, I couldn't upload the whole thing.)

A day after saying Chris Cox had "betrayed the public trust" and should be fired as chairman of the SEC, John McCain called him a "good man."

Update: The Washington Post says McCain is "exaggerating wildly" in his newest lying ad.

The CNN ticker is reporting that Obama is about to speak on the economy, if you happen to be near a TV. I'm not sure exactly when it is scheduled for, but the ticker says "moments away." Update: According to a campaign schedule sent out earlier today, it looks like the speech won't be until 11:45AM Eastern time. Update 2: Obama released a statement earlier today on the emerging Federal Reserve-Treasury plan. Update 3: I just read through Obama's statement. The gulf between him and John McCain is truly remarkable. While McCain bludgeons the truth with made up attacks, Obama has the confidence to offer an honest appraisal of what he thinks needs to be done. This is a preview of what each man would be like as president, and it couldn't be clearer that Obama is the superior choice. Update 4: It's starting now (11:34AM Eastern). CNN.com is broadcasting it live.

How desperate is McCain to change the subject from the economy?

He's so desperate that using the sorriest line yet of his hollow, pathetic campaign, saying that this election is about "Country first or Obama first?"

He's so desperate that he's running a TV ad claiming that someone who Barack Obama has only met once is an adviser.

And he's so desperate that he's actually claiming that Barack Obama is trying to fan the flames of this crisis to gain personal advantage.

McCain obviously hopes to generate an outraged response. But his gambit is so blatant that it is destined to fail. He's read from the same script before, trying save his own hide above all else. It has worked before, but now it's too late.

At this point, McCain is basically crying uncle. He's had enough of this economy stuff. He's finished with it. And the country will soon be finished with him.

In the wake of the revelation that in 1995 Sarah Palin's reading materials included a copy of the John Birch Society Magazine, it seems to me that the media and intellectually honest conservatives should take another look at her ties with the pro-secessionist and Bircher sympathetic Alaskan Independence Party (AIP).

If I told you that someobody was being advised on the economy by Carly Fiorina, Phil Gramm, and George Bush, would you even think about voting for them? I didn't think so, and neither does the Obama campaign which tonight released this new ad:

Although this ad could stand on its own as an effective attack, it's also a reponse to John McCain's totally false ad linking Barack Obama with Franklin Raines.

The subtext of McCain's ad is obvious, but taking the bait would be totally counterproductive. He's willing to do anything to get the subject off of the economic policy, and we can't afford to do anything to enable that.

Obama is sharpening his message; every day his speech is getting a bit better. He was at the top of his game earlier today in Espanola, New Mexico, making the case for change, and calling bull on John McCain's desperate attempt to reinvent himself as an agent of change.

Another hopeful note: my friend Rikki, the one who attended the rally in Las Vegas with me yesterday, told me tonight that she is now 100% committed to voting for Obama. (Recall that she voted for Bush in 2000 but Kerry in 2004.)

She said that as she's reflected on his speech, and thought more about the election, that he's just too impressive and too special a candidate to not support. After she told me that, we were watching some TV and Obama's "real change" thirty-second ad came on TV. She gave it high marks, once again affirming the proposition that nobody makes the case for Barack Obama better than Barack Obama.

I'm heading out for awhile. I'd hoped to put up the video of Barack Obama in New Mexico earlier today, but I haven't seen it on YouTube yet. (I'll probably post portions of it myself later tonight.)

So instead I'll put up Obama's "Plan for Change" ad. (And yes, it's actually airing -- I saw it broadcast on cable TV this afternoon.) It's a great reminder that despite all the punches that are being thrown at this point in the campaign, Barack Obama is a deeply substantive candidate who has a plan to get things done, and isn't afraid to share it.

Greg Sargent of TPM reports the details of pathological lie #235,239.

Note: There was a problem with the original digg submission for Greg's article, so I've set up a new one. I've also affiliated the digg link on this post with that digg, so if you digg this post you'll actually be digging Greg's article at TPM (since he did the reporting, he deserves the traffic).

Markos, on Obama's polling surge:

This race will turn on a dime. It's a good week for Obama, but nothing guarantees it will stay that way. So keep an even keel and don't lose sight of the big picture. It does no one any good to run around like chicken littles every time a bad poll shows up. And it's no good to prance around like this thing has been won this week, either.

We've got what, six weeks to go? Remember that. Things will look good some days, less good others. But one day or one week won't make or break us. We're playing for November. Don't forget that.

Last night Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity that she'd asked her daughters whether or not she ought to accept McCain's VP offer before she decided to join the ticket. But according to her husband, that's not true.

If you listen to the whole interview, it's blatantly obvious that John McCain wasn't aware he was talking about Spain. (In fact, when the reporter pointed out to him that they were discussing Spain, he seemeed to get quite irritated.)

This isn't to say John McCain had a senior moment. It's possible that he just spaced out, and it might even be understandable. After all, the interviewer spoke very quickly, had a thick accent, and the topic seemed to come out of nowhere. (Update: Jonathan Martin makes a very good case for how anyone could have had trouble following the interviewer.)

But whether or not this was a senior moment, the McCain campaign's defiant and defensive reaction illustrates the fact that they have not yet come to grips with their candidate's age. Instead of simply admitting that McCain hadn't heard the question correctly, they decided to defend his answer, even though it completely contradicted McCain's previously stated views.

Over the past few days, John McCain has been trying to steal Barack Obama's lines ("change we need", "enough is enough", etc.).

But now Sarah Palin is taking the plagiarism thing to a whole new level. She's promising that if she and McCain are elected, they will do something that Barack Obama has already done: put the federal checkbook online.

After the rally yesterday, I relayed some of the feedback from my friend Rikki, a Bush 2000 and Kerry 2004 voter who attended with me.

I said a couple of things that need clarification.

First, I said there was still a small chance Rikki would vote for McCain. She informs me that I was wrong, and I've never been happier to correct the record. She will note vote for McCain -- period.

Second, I mentioned that I thought if Obama had made a reference to abortion that I thought it would have connected with Rikki, who is socially liberal. (I also said it's possible he did mention it but that I just missed it.) This was my own view on how she would have reacted -- she never mentioned the issue.

Bottom-line: Rikki left the event with a better view of Obama than when she arrived, and there is now no chance McCain will win her vote. On balance, that's not too bad.

A reader wrote in a bit earlier to point out how amazing it is that Barack Obama has gotten back on top of the campaign so quickly after the GOP convention, and what a bad position it puts McCain in:

Hey -- you need to update your polling post to reflect today's Hotline tracker -- you have yesterday's number. [Note from Jed: Now fixed.] Also, I think its worth to take a step back and contemplate how remarkable the shift back to Obama is. Gallup noted after the GOP convention as follows (emphasis mine):

So Phil Gramm, John McCain's supposedly banished economic guru and campaign chairman, has been seeking Ron Paul's endorsement. Paul's answer? Not in a million years.

Here Ron Paul is just a few minutes ago on MSNBC:

Transcript:

I can't endorse somebody that disagrees with me on all the major issues -- on the federal reserve system, on spending and taxes, and No Child Left Behind, and McCain-Feingold, and foreign policy especially. I mean I could never support somebody who thinks that its funny to say "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." That to me is not somebody I could endorse ever.

Paul's strident non-endorsement is the biggest deal here, but there's another issue: what in the world is Phil Gramm doing politicking on John McCain's behalf? Hadn't he been banished to Belarus? Does this mean that John McCain now endorses Gramm's "whiner" comments?

This ad (posted by Ben Smith) echoes a portion of Obama's stump speech that I heard yesterday, explicitly going after McCain's plan to privatize Social Security. I suspect that as the campaign goes on, we're going to see more of this line of attack on McCain, as it is one of the most effective way to win over older voters who may be wavering.

O. Kay Henderson, the news director for Radio Iowa reports on McCain's speech today (emphasis added):

McCain starts speaking 18 minutes into the rally.  He begins by reminiscing about the State Fair. "I'm very grateful to be here.  We intend to campaign hard across the state of Iowa again...I think we're going to be up late on Election Night, my friends, and we're going to need your help."

I look up, about five minutes into McCain's address and see a steady stream of people walking out of the rally.  They just came to see Palin apparently.

Update: Apparently Sarah Palin is thinking along the same lines, referring to a Palin and McCain administration.

Another part of the McPalin myth crumbles: Don Young wins the GOP primary for Alaska's Congressional seat.

After running an ad saying that he offered the "change we need," John McCain is now running an ad in which he proclaims that "enough is enough."

Just who the hell does he think he's kidding?

John McCain has got to be so mad. His soulmate bounce isn't sticking:

Today's national tracking polls:

• Rasmussen: Tied (was McCain +1)
• Diageo/Hotline: Obama +4 (was Obama +3) [Note -- my original post had those numbers transposed]
  
• Gallup: Obama +4 (was Obama +2)
  
• DKos/R2000: Obama +6 (was Obama +4)
  

Other national polls released yesterday or today:

• Economist/Yougov: McCain +2 (was Obama +1)
• Quinnipiac: Obama +4 (was Obama +5)
  
• CBS/NYTimes: Obama +5 (was tiedObama +3)

I don't understand why there's any debate about what happened to John McCain during the "Zapatero" interview. It seems obvious that he just got totally lost and decided to compensate for that fact by winging it. Why else would he have reacted with such irritation towards the end of the interview when the interviewer basically told him that he'd been winging it wrong?

It reminds me of this moment a McCain press conference in early August. (By the way, McCain has had only one other press conference since this episode.)

Barack Obama's September 17 visit to southern Nevada focused on the economic change we need, and as you can see in this compilation video of local TV coverage his message is playing very well at the local level:

This whole thing with McCain not knowing who the leader of Spain was (and possibly not knowing where Spain was) is remarkable and actually somewhat frightening. Listen to the interview -- the stuff about the Spanish PM comes up towards the end.

Eventually we'll get the entirely English language audio, but it already seems pretty obvious that (a) McCain was drawing a complete blank on Spain; and (b) he sounds horrible -- tired, worn out, and just not up to the physical challenge of finishing the campaign, let alone being president. Maybe they should stop giving him Ambien before they put him out for these interviews?

Will John McCain ever learn to stop doing this?

(Photo from last night.)

Here's a chart of the Dow under Clinton and under Bush:

Isn't it obvious that it's the Democratic Party that's pro-business?

So I guess this is a historic day because it's the first time Barack Obama has ever addressed a crowd that included yours truly. Unfazed by the history unfolding before his very eyes, Barack fired up a a crowd that I'm guessing was somewhere close to 10,000, if not more. (I haven't seen any official estimates, but I saw from a commenter that 9,000 folks fit inside the stadium, and all but the about a half section of the grand stands were filled, plus there was standing room only in the infield area. (Update: Jake Tapper puts the crowd at 14,000 which sounds plausible.)

The speech itself was the basic stump speech, with some new lines that we'd already heard earlier in the day. The crowd was boistrous and pro-Obama as you'd expect. (Update: Tapper also notes a couple of the better new lines, including my favorite one on McCain who "bragged about how, as chairman of the Commerce Committee in the Senate, he had oversight of every part of the economy. Well, all I can say to Sen. McCain is nice job.")

On thing that I haven't heard much of but was glad to hear in his speech today was a discussion of McCain's plan to privatize Social Security, which will probably be key in winning support from undecided older voters. Unless I missed it, I didn't hear any talk about being pro-choice, which I think was a missed opportunity, at least as far as sealing the deal with my friend Rikki who I brought along. Rikki, as I mentioned, voted for Bush in 2000 and after today is leaning towards Obama, but still is considering voting for someone else (probably not McCain). So today's event pushed her in the right direction, but not all the way across the line. She thought his focus on jobs was the strongest part of the speech.

I took some photos at the rally, some of which turned out to be relatively decent. I've posted them below, and later tonight (probably around midnight) I'm going to post some of the local news coverage.

:::

The View From Centerfield (Pre-Rally)

Well, I'm about to head out the door to pick up my friend Rikki to go to our first Barack Obama rally. Rikki will probably kill me for saying this, but she voted for Bush in 2000 (not in 2004) so assuming she leaves the rally supporting Barack Obama we'll have another Obamacan on our hands.

I can't do mobile blog posts, but I can do comments, so I'll try to chime in to this open thread from my BlackBerry (a miracle made possible by John McCain). The event doesn't start until 5pm, but doors open at 2:30pm, so I figure we need to arrive by 3:00 or so.

Update & bump (1:37PM): As great as the "staff meeting" line was, it wasn't the only good one, so I've now updated this post with a video including some of the other material:

First, Barack Obama nails John McCain with what could be the best line of the campaign ("old boys network" = "McCain staff meeting"). And then a new ad from the Obama campaign going after McCain's track record of outsourcing American jobs:

Phil Gramm attacked Americans, and despite a public rebuke, remains close to the candidate and the campaign.

Carly Fiorina attacked John McCain, and has now been quietly banished from the campaign by a furious John McCain.

Moral of the story: Country FirstMcCain First.

Barack Obama is now leading by 2 points in the Gallup tracker, by 3 points in the Hotline/Diageo tracker, by 4 points in the DKos/R2000 tracker, and trailing by 1 point in Rasmussen.

So given that the tracking polls now show an average 2 point lead for Barack Obama, I think that means it's a dead heat now, a major reversal from John McCain's big 2 point lead last week. (Isn't that the way the cable TV math works?)

Also -- I've temporarily disabled comments because the comment provider seems to be hosed which was slowing down the site. As soon as they are back online, I'll reenable comments. Update: Comments reenabled.

In a new two minute ad, Barack Obama details his plans for change, direct-to-camera, focusing on economic issues. It will begin airing today.

Also today, I'm going to see Obama in person for the first time. He's speaking at Cashman Field in Las Vegas. Because of that, I'll be gone for a good chunk of the afternoon, so I'll be setting up an open thread and dropping in some comments from the scene of the action.

When the Republicans hemorrhaged outrage over Barack Obama's "lipstick" comment it really didn't have anything to do with the comment itself. Rather, it was an effort designed to extract an apology from Barack Obama, an apology that would have made him look weak and would have fueled the typical Republican attack strategy that has worked so often in the past.

Of course, the GOP gambit failed miserably -- indeed, their core accusation was so silly, it touched off a firestorm of bad press about McCain's dishonesty that is only now being replaced by yet another round of bad press about McCain's economic cluelessness.

In the end, the most important thing isn't just that Barack Obama had the strength to stand his ground in the face of the Republican attack machine, it's that John McCain himself has now backed down, conceding that his campaign's line of attack was wrong.

You know that effort by Michigan Republicans to suppress voter turnout by challenging voters registered at homes in the midst of foreclosure? Well even though the GOP is now backing off their public commitment to the plan, the Dems aren't taking anything for granted. Along with the Obama campaign, they've  filed suit, seeking filed an injunction to block the Republican plan.

Have they gotten divorced from John McCain now that he's got a new sidekick? Actually, come to think of it, isn't John McCain the sidekick?

TO: Everybody
FROM: Jed Lewison
SUBJECT: Suggested new BlackBerry/PDA signature

MESSAGE:

John Aravosis has a really good idea. To honor John McCain's invention of the BlackBerry and other wireless communications devices, people who use PDAs ought to recognize his his historic achievement in their signatures -- just like mine below.

--------

Sent from my BlackBerry, a miracle made possible by John McCain

This is a fairly brutal appraisal of McCain's pathological campaign:

As the campaign moves towards a focus on the economy, it's worth keeping in mind that McCain's lies are relevant because the demonstrate the fundamental emptiness of his campaign. He is devoid of ideas and solutions; lies are the only thing McCain has left.

We saw that today when Barack Obama gave a thorough speech on his economic vision -- and John McCain proposed a 9/11 commission.

So while McCain is busy chasing the economy to the gates of hell, Obama is talking about ways to put things rightside up again.

McCain won't get us out of the ditch we're in -- Obama will. And that's what this election will come down to, in the end.

Housekeeping note: I'm stepping out for awhile (rumor has it that I'll be getting a chili dog at a farmer's market among other things). So I guess that makes this an open thread (not that every other thread isn't open!).

Who do you think knows more about fixing the economy, John McCain or Sarah Palin?

USA Today: A new poll reveals 57% of southern Evangelicals are pro-torture, compared to 48% of the public at large.

At this point, I don't think we can say for sure who is in the lead, but it is pretty clear that things are heading in the right direction, and that's what matters.

Each of the four daily national tracking polls -- DKos/Research 2000 (Obama +4), Hotline/Diageo (Obama +4), Gallup (McCain +1), and Rasmussen (McCain +1) -- show movement towards Obama from McCain.

Also, it appears that the principal reason for McCain's polling surge is that he rallied his extreme right-wing base by selecting Palin, mostly in states that he was already going to win. As Sam Wang puts it: "Red gets redder."

Update: John Cole highly recommends Barack Obama's speech on the economy today, which I'm just sitting down to watch. He's posted thoughts on it and the full transcript is here. Here's the video:

David Brooks has a reasonably decent article weighing the pros and cons of Palin, ultimately siding with those who say she's not ready to be President.

The problem is that in his article, Brooks makes a significant omission: he doesn't mention John McCain, not one single time. Especially at this point in the debate, now that we've established that she should not be president, the real issue is what her selection says about John McCain and the kind of president he would be.

I'm all for talking about Palin when the facts warrant, but it makes no sense to debate the merits of her candidacy without considering what it says about the man who chose her.

Today alone, Mitt Romney (at least 1) and Tim Pawlenty (2) have given more national tv interviews than Sarah Palin has in in two and a half weeks.

It's pretty awesome when the crowd laughs and all you've done is told them -- with a straight face -- what your opponent plans on doing:

I'm sticking with my view that the McCain's 9/11 commission idea shows that he's planning on chasing the economy to the gates of hell.

This lie -- that Alaska provides 20% of oil supplied to the U.S. -- must be an official GOP talking point because you keep on hearing it over and over. The thing is, it's totally false. The real number is a bit under 5%. But as Rep. Roy Blount demonstrates, the truth isn't slowing down their lying ways:

They are just pathological. All of 'em.

I decided I would go on a posting strike until a polling outfit showed Barack Obama with a 4-point national lead AND until at least two people posted that poll in the previous comment thread.

Now that both of those conditions have been met, I will resume my normal posting duties. Starting with a link to that poll, showing Barack Obama with 46% and John W. McSame with 42%. The poll in question is the Diageo/Hotline tracker. Here's a link.

Update: I should have said until a second polling outfit showed Barack Obama witha  4-point lead. The DKos tracking poll already shows Obama up 48-44.

Talk about out of touch...what the hell does he consider sales taxes or FICA taxes or gas taxes to be? Just because it's peanuts to him doesn't mean they aren't real.

I'm stepping away for a while, so feel free to use this as an open thread. I'll be back sometime later in the morning.

Update: This was from McCain's interview on CNN earlier this morning.

Update 2: This feels like it should be a major gaffe. Make McCain explain it.

I think John McCain is planning on chasing the economy to the gates of hell.

Also: Joe Sudbay heartily mocks McCain's silly idea.

St. John accuses Mika of supporting Obama...she denies, and Joe Scarborough says McCain was a bit out of line.

When I saw John McCain on CNN earlier, he said a 9/11 commission was part of his economic plan. I figured that he had just gotten mixed up and didn't mean what he had said, but it turns out that he said it on ABC and FOX and perhaps other networks as well. Believe it or not, a 9/11 comission is now actually part of his economic strategy.

Here's the ad:

Apparently Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis are worried about the crummy day the McCain campaign had on Monday, because they are serving up their candidate to all six morning shows -- the three networks and the three cable shows.

That's a whole lot of McCain. Unless I have a bad night of sleep, it'll all probably be over by the time I wake up (though I'm recording it, so I'll eventually be subjected to it...).

Here's to hoping that he does as lousy this morning as his spokespeople did on Monday. Case in point -- Nancy Pfotenhauer on Hardball.

And dare I dream about something like this happening?

Almost immediately after Sarah Palin's acceptance speech, McCain supporters began to spread a false story that due to a TelePrompter malfunction, she had ad libbed significant portions of her speech.

As it turns out, the story of TelePrompter bravery was false (a fact confirmed by the video in this post), but that hasn't stopped the McCain campaign from continuing to spread the strange myth. Here's Sarah Palin earlier tonight, telling a group of Ohioans her false TelePrompter fable:

KF has an utterly predictable critique of the "McCain is a dishonorable liar" message. "Outrage at McCain's 'lies' is a total loser strategy," he says. He's either not paying attention, or he's misunderstanding the strategy. The Obama campaign isn't getting "outraged" and neither are Obama supporters.

We're not weakly pleading with McCain to stop -- in fact, the more he lies the better because it will help cement the argument that we are making about him: that he is so out of touch on the economy, so wrong on the key policy questions facing the country that the only thing he has left is lies.

Barack Obama fired back today at McCain's attempt to redefine his "strong economy" comment as some sort of statement of solidarity with American workers. Here Obama is in Pueblo, CO:

Tucker Bounds' full "Saved by the glitch" interview (just when he really starts flailing, his connection to the MSNBC studio mysteriously disappeared).

Ben Smith confirms Al Giordano's report that Sarah Palin had a private tanning bed -- purchased with her own money -- installed at the governor's mansion.

The cheapest tanning bed I could find was selling for $1,499...which would seem to make this Sarah Palin's thousand dollar tan, right?

Talk about out of touch...have you ever heard of someone with a private indoor tanning salon?

Joe Klein with a great line: John McCain knows as much about economics as Sarah Palin does about the Bush Doctrine.

Obama in Grand Junction, CO earlier today:

I posted another clip in the vodpod in which Obama dings McCain for posing as an agent of change.

Tucker Bounds was getting grilled by Norah O'Donnell on McCain's lies, and then...a blank screen.

It's a very sad thing to see John McCain on the trail without his soulmate. Nobody shows up. Nobody cares.

Anybody else notice that Treasury Sec'y Paulson didn't start his White House briefing until the very moment that Barack Obama took the stage at his rally? I guess that means that what Paulson was saying wasn't very important -- or that it was more important for him to step on Obama's message.

Update 2 (5:30PM): Obama responds to McCain's backpedal.

Original post: Just now in Florida McCain offered the most contorted retraction ever of his oft-repeated "strong economy" line -- he changed it to be a reference about workers (!).

You want tough? You got tough:

Update (5:03PM): Here's full video of Biden's speech.

This would be a great anti-McCain attack ad, but it's actually just an ad from George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.

I found the video at the Museum of the Moving Image's online archive.

Let's say you're the newly elected Governor of Alaska. Do you:

1. Sell the state's private plane on eBay;
   
2. Cancel the Bridge to Nowhere;
3. Have a tanning bed installed in the Governor's mansion for your own private use

If your answer was #3, then you're just like Sarah Palin.

Al Giordano and Bill Conroy, take it away:

"The governor did have a tanning bed put in the Governor's Mansion," Roger Wetherell, chief communications officer of Alaska's Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, confirmed to this newspaper. "It was done shortly after she took office [in early 2007] and moved into the mansion."

So Barack Obama is coming to Las Vegas on Wednesday -- it'll be just your typical mid-September rally with afternoon temps in the low-nineties, or high-eighties if we get lucky. There's a chance I will be out of town, but if not, I'm definitely going. Believe it or not, it'll be my first time seeing him in person -- that's an exciting prospect.

It's actually very interesting timing, because it connects with a discussion that I had with a friend earlier today, and something that I've heard from folks on other sites and on comments here.

For the most part, the discussion has centered around whether or not Obama should attack McCain, and if so, how aggressively. But I think that might not be the right frame. The question really is what comination of tactics and strategy will best allow Barack Obama to make the case for his election as president of the United States.

It's a nailbiter in Seattle. The 'Hawks were on the verge of scoring a touchdown to put them up by 14...and then a penalty, and then an interception returned for a touchdown. Now the 49ers have tied the game at 20-20. And their receiving core just totally decimated.

And now another big argh. Another interception. Are we looking a the first 0-2 start in ages for the 'Hawks? Update: 49ers leading by 7. Update 2: All tied up again.

Ben Smith catches the most interesting episode in the New York Times profile of Sarah Palin: it turns out that Palin did in fact single out a specific book during her censorship inquires to the Wasilla librarian back in 19956.

Her inquiries about the book, which dealt with the issues involved in homosexual parenting, not only illustrate her radical and divisive social agenda, but also expose another flat-out lie by McCain-land.

On September 8, the McCain campaign categorically denied that Palin had ever mentioned a specific book. According to a memo distributed by campaign spokesman Brian Rogers (emphasis added):

When first elected, Mayor Palin asked a rhetorical question of the Wasilla Library Director about the library's book-challenge policy. It was a rhetorical question -- nothing more...

Mayor Palin NEVER mentioned any specific books...

Palin Had No Particular Books Or Other Material In Mind When She Asked The Questions Of The Librarian.

Now each of those statements are directly contradicted by the New York Times account.

Even as Karl Rove calls McCain's ads lies, he lies himself, claiming that the ad knocking McCain's e-mail illiteracy was a  smear:

But they then say he doesn't even know how to use a -- you know, doesn't send e-mail. Well, this is because his war injuries keep him from being able to use a keyboard. He can't type. You know, it's like saying he can't do jumping jacks.

Well, there's a reason why he can't raise his arms above his head. There's a reason why he doesn't have the nimbleness in his fingers.

First of all, McCain now says he's learning how to use e-mail, and his campaign now claims he travels with a laptop. So unless Rove is (again) calling McCain a liar, then Rove's claim is false.

Second, there's plenty of photographic evidence that McCain does indeed have the dexterity to handle cell phones and BlackBerries, which are more difficult than keyboards.

Third, after returning from Vietnam, McCain regained his flight status. To his supporters, this is one of his most inspiring achievements. Surely if McCain can safely fly an airplane, he can click a mouse.

The whole thing is just mind boggling. There's nothing they won't lie about.

Alaska's Lt. Governor defends his boss on FOX News Sunday:

She's the governor of a state that supplies 20% of America's oil.

Um. Let's let FactCheck.org debunk:

Alaskan production accounts for only 4.8 percent of all the crude oil and petroleum products supplied to the U.S. in 2007.

But he still says it's okay to lie...

Classic:

For Sarah Palin: If elected vice president, will you flip-flop and oppose the $197.8 million in earmarks you've requested this year alone for Alaska?

Follow-up: If you aren't elected, will you withdraw your requests, and if so, why did you make them in the first place?

(By the way, $197.8 million in earmarks is about $300 per Alaskan.)

I wish more campaign observers would use the "L"-word to describe McCain's lies. I imagine they feel dirty using such a strong term, but the thing to remember is that McCain is the one who is in the mud -- pointing that fact out is just being accurate.

That being said, the "L"-word and its synonyms are appearing with increasing frequency to describe McCain's campaign. Here's a look back at articles from the past week as compiled by the Obama campaign.

I'm not a huge fan of obsessing about polls, but a commenter from Iowa pointed this one out: according to The Iowa Poll conducted by Selzer & Co., Barack Obama leads John McCain by 12 points in Iowa -- 52-40.

I thought this was significant not just because Obama has a big lead in what has historically been battleground state, but also because Selzer & Co. is a highly respected pollster. In fact, if I recall correctly, 538 ranks it as the most accurate pollster of this election cycle.

You've probably already seen this, but just for the record, Obama's $66 million raised in August is a staggering sum. The campaign's 500,000 new donors serve as a reminder that whatever "surge" in enthusiasm post-Palin McCain may now be experiencing, the net effect is more about approaching parity with Obama than actually surpassing him.

Rudy Giuliani just can't help himself. Whenever he gets nervous on Meet The Press, he starts giggling. Very unattractive. On today's broadcast, he even giggled after a question about 9/11 and Iraq (!). What's worse is that he just lies and lies and lies. Which tells me he'd be in McCain's cabinet.

Here's a look back at his most gigglicious appearance from last December:

I spent much of Saturday setting up TJR's newest server, which you've now reached if you're reading this message. (On Friday, the previous server got overloaded by this blog's first day with more than 100K visitors.)

Anyway, here's some of what I've been reading, and I'm looking forward to getting back to actually blogging (as opposed server provisioning) on Sunday morning.

• We're getting closer to someone actually using the 'L'-word -- NBC's First Read asks: "Wheels Come Off Straight Talk Express?"
• Still, much of the press is adopting a he-said/he-said frame.
• McCain-land is waging a war against that very same media.
• Frank Rich, as always a lonely voice of sanity, thinks the real ticket is Palin-McCain, and the real issue is that they would be worse than George W. Bush.

Barack Obama earlier today in Manchester, NH:

Awarded to John McCain by The Fact Checker (Michael Dobbs of WaPo):

Here's a tough new memo to the media from the Obama campaign:

###  ###  ###

To: Press Corps
From: Obama Campaign
Re: Unraveling the myth of the Straight Talk Express

Since naming Governor Palin as their Vice Presidential nominee, the McCain campaign has distorted, distracted, and outright lied to the American people about her record in a desperate attempt to hide the fact that a McCain/Palin Administration would be nothing more than a continuation of the failed Bush policies of the last eight years.

Continued below:

This is a welcome change from 2004 -- the Ohio secretary of state is actually fighting efforts to deny the vote instead of leading them.

It seems that the key differences between Democrats and Republicans on elections is that Dems think that not enough people are able to vote, and GOPers think that too many people vote.

Even though John McCain is managing a narrow but real lead in national polls, he's taking more risks with his campaign than is Barack Obama. Specifically, I'm talking about the honesty issue -- whereas Obama is hewing closely to the truth, McCain is spinning a fictional tale.

It's nothing new for a campaign to spin and sometimes get things wrong by recklessly deploying facts. But McCain is actually making things up. And that's a very risky strategy -- he can demonize the media all he wants, but if voters realize that he is lying to them, that alone could cost him the race.

I think the lesson from this is that McCain has no confidence in his ability to win this campaign on the merits. He must realize that while this new strategy of lying might not work, his old strategy could not have possibly worked.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama is basically saying the same things that he's been saying this whole campaign. Sure, he's tweaked a few things here and there, and he's now aggressively going after McCain's lies, but for the most part, he's still talking about the same things he's been talking about since day one. And I think that says that he not only has confidence in his message, but that he believes in it as well.

I'm going to have to start numbering these posts, because there are just so many of them. Anyway, here goes the newest lie:

Report: Palin Did Not Visit Iraq

By Anne E. Kornblut
WASILLA, Alaska -- Aides to Gov. Sarah Palin are scrambling to explain details of her only trip outside North America -- which, according to a new report, did not include Iraq, as the McCain-Palin campaign had initially claimed.

They even lie about the size of their crowds.

McCain aide Kimmie Lipscomb told reporters on Sept. 10 that an outdoor rally in Fairfax City, Virginia, drew 23,000 people, attributing the crowd estimate to a fire marshal.

Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson said his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it.

A WaPo reporter estimated the crowd size at 8,000.

In response to an absurd attack from McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds -- who criticized Obama's event in Dover, NH as an affront against Texans impacted by Ike -- Obama spokseman Bill Burton says:

We will take no lectures from John McCain who is cynically running the sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern Presidential campaign history. His discredited ads with disgusting lies are running all over the country today. He runs a campaign not worthy of the office his is seeking.

ALSO: Jonathan Martin explains why John McCain has decided to lie and attack without restraint. The essential explanation: McCain wants to win and doesn't care about anything else.

The Obama campaign is out with a new website -- mclobbyist.com -- and a new television ad, both of which make the case that if (heavens forbid) John McCain were elected president, his White House would be run by the oil industry and other corporate inside-the-beltway interests.

If you've been looking for something to get you fired up, here it is: Barack Obama earlier today in Concord, New Hampshire, laying out the foundations of what change really means -- from energy (which he knocked out of the park) to education to foreign policy to the economy.

This is Barack Obama at his best, especially when he talks about why the same old politics just won't do, and about how when we are united, there's nothing Americans can't do. This is the fire that carried this campaign to the Democratic nomination. This is the fire that will carry us through the election.

Roseanne Barr made a surprise appearance on Real Time tonight (and totally showed the panel how to deal with that clown John Fund), and Paul Begala was funny as usual.

As for the rest of the show, Fund, who is an insufferable ass, pretty much ruined the panel discussion, though it was somewhat satisfying watching him be called a liar. Plus, there was one classic moment involving Fund. It came when Salman Rushdie said that Osama bin Laden had hoped to topple the Saudi government and Fund said that bin Laden was right, the government should have been toppled. That makes him 9/11 Fund, I guess?

Here's the rest of the episode, if you are so inclined: opening monologue, panel discussions 1, 2, 3, and 4, and new rules.

From earlier today in Dover, NH:

As far as I can tell, Charlie Gibson didn't ask Sarah Palin about her rather incredible comment yesterday tying Iraq to 9/11. Why didn't he ask her? Were there restrictions on what he was allowed to ask? Does he not think it's a relevant area to explore? Certainly, it's more relevant than asking Palin who she thinks Barack Obama ought to have selected as VP.

Gibson must be beside himself that she screwed up so badly on the Bush Doctrine softball.

This is what it sounds like when a presidential candidate actually tells you what he's going to do as president, instead of just talking about me, me, me.

This is what it sounds like when a presidential candidate tells you the truth, instead of lie after lie after lie.

This is what it sounds like when a presidential candidate offers real solutions to tough problems, instead of just drill, drill, drill.

This is what the next president of the United States sounds like:

McCain does not use a computer because he was a POW. I'm not kidding.

...John McCain would be running this ad, and nobody would complain. (h/t to debrazza, who brought it to my attention.)

A couple of months ago, John McCain's campaign attacked Barack Obama as "presumptuous" and claimed he was "measuring the drapes" at the White House and had "forgotten that he is, in fact, still a U.S. senator."

When reports surfaced that Obama was preparing a transition strategy, the campaign fired off an angry missive:

Before they've even crossed the 50-yard line, the Obama campaign is already dancing in the end zone with a new White House transition team.

Now, prepare yourself to be shocked, because John McCain is planning his transition to the presidency. According to TIME:

A prominent Washington lobbyist who has worked for every Republican president since Richard Nixon has been tapped by the McCain campaign to conduct a study in preparation for the presidential transition.

So not only has John McCain once again exposed his campaign's attacks as entirely disengenous, but he's completely contradicted his reformer message by tapping a lobbyist to lead his transition.

But that's alright, because it's okay if you're John McCain.

Even the AP calls McCain out:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday defended two debunked television ads attacking Democrat Barack Obama and claimed erroneously that running mate Sarah Palin never sought money for lawmakers' pet projects as Alaska governor.

For the AP, this is pretty strong, but I still cannot understand why they insist on using phrases like "claimed erroneously."

Who can doubt that McCain is flat-out lying?

Update (12:50PM): Jake Tapper gets close to using the L-word, his headline declaring "To the Ladies of 'The View,' McCain Misrepresents Palin's Earmark Record."

Update 2 (1:00PM): Another AP article gets even closer to using the L-word:

The "Straight Talk Express" has detoured into doublespeak.

In the article, one of McCan's allies continues to blame Obama and the media for McCain's pathological lying:

McCain, he said, "tried it his way. He had a poverty tour and nobody covered it. He had a national service tour, and everybody made fun of it. He proposed these joint town halls" with Obama, "and nothing come of it. Through the spring and early summer, that approach didn't work. You can't blame him for taking a step back and reassessing."

John McCain tells lie after lie on The View, defending his "lipstick" and "sexual predator" attacks as totally truthful. He then blamed Barack Obama for his own attacks (!), arguing that if Barack had just joined him at town halls, then he would have been honest.

link 1 | link 2

So Sean Hannity gets the next one.

"Still" covers McCain's illustrious 26 year career in Congress and knocks him for everything from not knowing how to e-mail to favoring corporate tax breaks while offering nothing to the middle class. "Real Change" is a positive ad focused on Barack Obama's message of change.

Plouffe's key points: It's a close race,  but Obama has the homefield advantage because the debate is about change. Meanwhile, McCain-Palin have become nothing but a cynical, dishonest campaign of smears and lies.

Full memo after the jump:

FactCheck.org sounds off on John McCain's most recent TV ad lie:

♦ "misleading" ♦
♦ "this ad is particularly egregious" ♦
♦ "goes down new paths of deception" ♦
♦ "carefully added language to alter the meaning" ♦
♦ "no one said anything close to that" ♦
♦ "takes words out of context" ♦
♦ "distorts" ♦

(h/t: Ben Smith)

Update and bump (1:20AM): Paul Krugman steps up to the plate with "Blizzard of Lies," a devastating indictment of McCain-land's deceptive campaign.

This race is about Obama vs. McCain, but some comments by Sarah Palin are so ignorant they cannot be ignored. Ignorance is not strength. We cannot afford four more years of stupid, dishonest foreign policy.

Update and bump (9/12, 1:05AM): The McCain campaign is freaking out over the WaPo article, no doubt partly inspired by the desire to distract attention from Palin's monumentally ignorant Bush Doctrine gaffe.

Ignorance isn't strength.

He knows exactly what it is -- and he supports it entirely.

I almost feel sorry for Sarah Palin. She had no idea what Bush Doctrine was.

She seems to instinctively disagree with it, putting her at odds with McCain. But that really isn't the issue. She had no clue, and it wasn't that hard a question.

This should be a calamitous gaffe.

Update: Merriam-Webster defines a gaffe as "a noticable mistake." A 'Kinsley gaffe' is when a politician tells the truth by mistake.

I just tuned into this candidates forum thing, and McCain just blathered forth about what he would have done after 9/11 if he had been president.

How about we talk about what McCain actually did do after 9/11 though? Here he was in January 2002:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) visited the Roosevelt yesterday and shouted, "Next up: Baghdad!" from the carrier's bridge.

McCain has been pushing the administration to make Iraq and its dictator, Saddam Hussein, the next targets in the war on terrorism.

Pentagon officials and Powell have cautioned against focusing on Baghdad, but McCain said yesterday that Iraq poses "a clear and present danger" to the U.S.

"I think Iraq is going to have to be considered," he said.

Now, McCain says he'd have appealed for national unity and service. Then, he appealed for war with Iraq.

What a fraud.

My friend Ari Melber shows how to deal with GOP liars: you call them out on their bull. Watch as he makes Brad Blakeman wilt before your eyes:

In 1994, John McCain voted against legislation -- pushed through Congress by Joe Biden -- that helped put an end to the practice of charging rape victims for sexual assault exams.

Twisted as it may sound, charging victims for a forensic exam was a real problem. For example, as AMERICAblog has documented (and the media is now reporting), when Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the town charged rape victims for the exams.

Biden's legislation required that state, local, and Indian governments provide the rape exams to victims free of charge as a condition of receiving federal funds under the Violence Against Women Act. In 2000, Alaska finally passed state legislation in order to qualify for federal funding.

McCain not only opposed Biden's legislation, but also has voted against funding it as recently as October 2007.

If I were the McCain campaign, this would make my heart stop:

BBC: Do you think you will ever use the word "victory"?

PETRAEUS: I don't know that I will.

CNN keeps on asking why Michelle Obama isn't at the 9/11 memorial service, and breathlessly promises viewers that it will investigate the issue. Why does that matter? And if it is an issue, then why not ask why is Cindy McCain there? Is this just another campaign stop for McCain?

The national media is starting to pick up on the story (unearthed by AMERICAblog) that under Sarah Palin, Wasilla charged rape victims for sexual assault kits.

To me, the most striking part of this story actually has to do with Joe Biden. Why? Because one of Joe Biden's most important legislative accomplishments is the Violence Against Women Act -- the very same legislation that will help ensure that no rape victim will be forced to pay for her own sexual assault kit.

It's an extraordinarily bizarre contrast. On the one hand, you've got this older white guy who's been in DC for decades, and on the other hand you've got this inexperienced governor who probably hasn't spent ten days in DC in her entire life.

And yet it's the graybeard who has done more to protect women from violence. Weird. But true.

Lost in the shuffle of Sarah Palin's sequestration is that John McCain isn't talking to the press -- or the public -- either. FOX News (from yesterday):

Today marks the four-week anniversary since McCain held his last press conference (8/13 in Birmingham, MI) and three weeks since his last public town hall meeting (8/20 in Las Cruces, NM).

Part 1 (of 3) -- Obama sticks to his guns on McCain's ridiculous umbrage-taking over "lipstick":

The Michigan Messenger reports on efforts by state Republicans to suppress voter turnout, mostly among blacks. Ohio Republicans are poised to follow a similar gameplan.

I've been out all evening and just watched Keith O.'s Special Comment on the GOP's and John McCain's cynical manipulation of 9/11. Wow. I'd never thought I'd hear these words on television.

Larry Persily, former associate director to Governor Palin and former editor of the Anchorage Daily News, tells David Gregory why he doesn't think Palin is ready to be VP. He's diplomatic about it, but his description of her sounds eerily like...George W. Bush.

The pointed part of the discussion begins about 3:30 into the clip:

McCain sure is missing his new soulmate. Reuters reports that without Palin around to energize the crowd, a gathering of Democrats was able to make so much noise that McCain couldn't even finish his stump speech.

Seems it wasn't a fluke (har-har) when Nancy Pfotenahuer claimed that Barack Obama had called John McCain a fish. Here's video of three other GOP surrogates making the same complaint.

So now we've got a total of four examples of fishy umbrage -- I think that makes it an offical GOP talking point. Perhaps the most self-mocking talking point of all time, but an official talking point nonetheless.

I wouldn't want to talk about the Republican legacy either.

• Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen says we're running out of time in Afghanistan. Robert Gates says Pakistan is the key: "The war on terror started in this region; it must end there."
• Pakistan's army chief criticizes a cross-border U.S. raid.
• Oil companies have corrupted the Department of Interior, which is responsible for managing offshore drilling royalty programs.
• WaMu shares fall 29% and Lehman fights to survive.

McCain spokeswoman Nancy Pfotenahuer is not amused:

John McCain's dishonorable campaign has now completely lost Andrew Sullivan, who was once a former admirer. I'm glad to see his words, especially because when the general election campaign began last June, I worried that McCain would be able to win him back.

I'm glad Andrew has seen McCain for who he has become, but it is tragic that McCain has not taken the opportunity to be who he could have been.

Barack strikes back against the McCain campaign's calculated umbrage-taking over his lipstick and fish comments:

The McCain campaign would much rather have the story be about phony and foolish diversions than about the future. ... This is what they want to spend 2 of the last 55 days talking about. You know who ends up losing at the end of day? It's not the Democratic candidate, it's not the Republican candidate, it's you, the American people. Because then we go another year or another four years or another eight years without addressing the issues that matter to you. Enough. I don't care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and swift boat politics. Enough is enough.

Your move, McCain.

Here's some of what I've perused:

• Update: Media Matters documents Charlie Gibson's soft-on-McCain (read, pro: McCain) interview style.
  
• Joe Klein calls McCain's pro-sexual predator ad "one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics." McClatchy says the ad is a lie. McCain must hate the Cub Scouts because they are anti-sexual predator.
  
• Josh Marshall thinks McCain isn't even fit for high office, and warns folks to not get flustered by the bile.
• Sensitivity-gate: McCain-land is still umbraging all over the place about lipstick on a pig, and calling McCain a fish. McCain has said lipstick on a pig at least three times. Here's video of one of those times.
• Good question: "Will John McCain bring Sarah Palin to the debates with Obama?"
• The National Enquirer is giving the Palin family the John Edwards treatment. You feel sympathetic?
• From the archives: A 1996 article in the local Wasilla paper about Palin's censorship inquiries
• McCain-land defends Palin for charging the state a per diem for the privilege of allowing her to work from home
• And in news about Palin's extremism, ABC investigates Palin's dance around the edge of censorship and her conflict with a Wasilla librarian.

What else is news?

John Aravosis at AMERICAblog catches the funniest moment of the campaign, at least up until now: former Massachussetts Governor Jane Swift complaining that Barack Obama had called John McCain a fish.

At issue? This line delivered earlier today by Barack Obama:

You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink. We've had enough of the same old thing.

Oh boy, I can see why she's so outraged. (HA!) And it does raise a serious question. If John McCain were a fish, what kind of fish would he be?