I know we're all tired of hearing about Joe the plumber, but the Daily Show aptly satirized the media frenzy surrounding the whole thing. Very funny.
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Five Minutes With Tom Brokaw
Including the following exchange:
From M L Staats: Are there times when a new development emerges that you feel a need to want to call Mr. Russert and get his opinion?
Tom Brokaw: Several times every day I say aloud, "Timmy, where are you? We need to talk."Read the rest, here.
One more for Joe
I'm sure everyone's tired of reading about Joe the Plumber, but I couldn't help drawing some attention to this article from Politico.com:
NEW YORK — John McCain hung his final presidential debate performance on an Ohio plumber who campaign aides never vetted.
A day after making Joseph Wurzelbacher famous, referencing him in the debate almost two dozen times as someone who would pay higher taxes under Barack Obama, McCain learned the fine print Thursday on the plumber’s not-so-tidy personal story: He owes back taxes. He is not a licensed plumber. And it turns out that Wurzelbacher makes less than $250,000 a year, which means he would receive a tax cut if Obama were elected president.
Read the rest of the story here.
Shoot. Me. Now.
Personally, I think maybe Obama was talking about Condi becoming Secretary of State, but in an effort to be bipartisan....
Show Dick Some Love
During the past two debates, McCain has started his address with a "someone is in the hospital" moment.
Debate # 2: Ted Kennedy.
Debate # 3: Nancy Regan.
But ironically, Dick Cheney was hospitalized before the 2nd debate, too, but he didn't get a bit of love from the Mav.
Check it out.
Liddy On Hitler
When he [Liddy] listened to Hitler on the radio, it "made me feel a strength inside I had never known before," he explains. "Hitler's sheer animal confidence and power of will [entranced me]. He sent an electric current through my body." He describes seeing the Nazis' doomed technological marvel the Hindenberg flying over New Jersey as an almost religious experience. "Ecstatic, I drank in its colossal power and felt myself grow. Fear evaporated and in its place came a sense of personal might and power."
Read the rest here, courtesy of mediamatters.org.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
G. Gordon Liddy
Thanks to Letterman for pointing out something we've all forgotten about: John McCain's relationship with G. Gordon Liddy.
From the Chicago Tribune:
What McCain didn't mention is that he has his own Bill Ayers -- in the form of G. Gordon Liddy. Now a conservative radio talk-show host, Liddy spent more than 4 years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate burglary. That was just one element of what Liddy did, and proposed to do, in a secret White House effort to subvert the Constitution. Far from repudiating him, McCain has embraced him.
How close are McCain and Liddy? At least as close as Obama and Ayers appear to be. In 1998, Liddy's home was the site of a McCain fundraiser. Over the years, he has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to the senator's campaigns -- including $1,000 this year.
Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as "an old friend," and McCain sounded like one. "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family," he gushed. "It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."
Which principles would those be? The ones that told Liddy it was fine to break into the office of the Democratic National Committee to plant bugs and photograph documents? The ones that made him propose to kidnap anti-war activists so they couldn't disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention? The ones that inspired him to plan the murder (never carried out) of an unfriendly newspaper columnist?
Liddy was in the thick of the biggest political scandal in American history -- and one of the greatest threats to the rule of law. He has said he has no regrets about what he did, insisting that he went to jail as "a prisoner of war."
All this may sound like ancient history. But it's from the same era as the bombings Ayers helped carry out as a member of the Weather Underground. And Liddy's penchant for extreme solutions has not abated.
In 1994, after the disastrous federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, he gave some advice to his listeners: "Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. ... Kill the sons of bitches."
He later backed off, saying he meant merely that people should defend themselves if federal agents came with guns blazing. But his amended guidance was not exactly conciliatory: Liddy also said he should have recommended shots to the groin instead of the head. If that wasn't enough to inflame any nut cases, he mentioned labeling targets "Bill" and "Hillary" when he practiced shooting.
Given Liddy's record, it's hard to see why McCain would touch him with a 10-foot pole. On the contrary, he should be returning his donations and shunning his show. Yet the senator shows no qualms about associating with Liddy -- or celebrating his service to their common cause.
Hire Those Writers!
Obama gets off a number of funny lines at the Alfred E. Smith dinner. This list compiled by Marc Ambinder:
"People tell me I share the politics of Alfred E. Smith and the earns of Alfred E. Neumann"
"I was originally told that we would able to move this outdoors to Yankee Stadium. Can someone tell me what happened to the Greek columns I requested."
"On the Waldorf Astoria: They tell me, from the doorstep, you can see all the way to the Russian Tea Room."
To Al Smith IV: "I obviously never knew your grandfather, but from everything Sen. McCain has told me..."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's term limits maneuverings caused Bill Clinton to say: "You can do that?"
The housing crisis "has been eight times harder on John McCain."
"The last few weeks, John's been out on the campaign trail asking the question Who Is Barack Obama. I've got to admit, I was surprised by the question: the answer is right there on my Facebook page."
"I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on krypton...."
"I got my name Barack from my father.... it's actually Swahali for "That one."
My middle name, it's not what you think. It's actually "Steve."
"There was a point in my life when I started palling around with a pretty ugly crowd.... that's right... I've been a member of the United States Senate."
"Fox News accused me of fathering two African-American children in wedlock."
ACORN
Hertzburg breaks it down:
During this election cycle, the Times reported today, ACORN has deployed thirteen thousand mostly paid workers, who have registered 1.3 million new voters. One or two per cent of these workers turned in sheaves of forms that they filled out themselves with fake names and bogus addresses, and, even though at least a hundred of these workers have already been fired, the forged forms have been submitted to election boards.
Sounds suspicious—unless you know that groups like ACORN are required by law to submit them, even if they’re obvious fakes. This is to prevent funny business, such as trashing forms that look like they might be Republican (or Democratic, as the case may be).
Sounds suspicious—unless you know that ACORN normally sorts through forms, flags those that look fishy, and submits the fishy ones in a separate pile for the convenience of election officials.
Sounds suspicious—until you reflect that the motivation of the misbehaving registration workers is almost always to look like they’ve been doing more work than they really have, and that the victim of the “fraud” is actually the organization they’re working for.
Sounds suspicious—unless you know that even if one of these fake forms results in a nonexistent person actually being registered, now under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, “any voter who has not previously voted in a federal election” must provide identification in order to actually cast a ballot. This will make it tough for Mickey Mouse, even if registered, to vote, no matter how big, round, or black his ears. Likewise, members of the Duck family (Donald, Daisy, Huey, Dewey, and Louie) who turn up at the polling place will have a hard time getting into the voting booth. (Uncle Scrooge might be able to bribe his way in, but he’s voting Republican anyway.)
Sounds suspicious—unless you know that despite all the hysteria, from 2002 to 2005, only twenty people in the entire United States of America were found guilty of voting while ineligible and only five of voting more than once. By contrast, consider the lede on this story, published a week ago today:
Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.And take it from Sarah Palin: the Times is “hardly ever wrong.”
Scary Ass Footage from a Palin Rally in Ohio
Don't expect any major American networks to pick this up; this was reported by Al Jazeera.
Sad realization
Recently, I was thinking about how much I can't wait for Obama to win this election, just so I don't have to hear about Sarah Palin anymore.
Then it hit me: This is probably just the beginning of her political career.
Or at the very least, the beginning of a career that will keep her in the public eye. The rumor mill is already swirling about her very own post-election talk show. Scary thought? You betcha.
Why College Rankings Are A Joke
Baylor is paying admitted students to retake the SAT. Students get $300 if they retake the test, $1000 if they beat their previous score by at least 50 points.
Joe Not Registered?
Joe the plumber might not be registered to vote. The lunacy of the McCain campaign continues...
Chavez Chides Bush
When a socialist dictator calls you comrade...
Socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez mocked George W. Bush as a "comrade" on Wednesday, saying the U.S. president was a hard-line leftist for his government's intervention of major private banks in the U.S. financial crisis.Chavez, who calls capitalism an evil and ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor, ridiculed Bush for his plan for the federal government to take equity in American banks despite the U.S. right-wing's criticism of Venezuelan nationalizations.
"Bush is to the left of me now," Chavez told an audience of international intellectuals debating the benefits of socialism. "Comrade Bush announced he will buy shares in private
banks."
How They Talked About Abortion
William Saletan on how the candidates talked about abortion during the debate:
McCain has been trying to make the election a referendum on character: Country first, Obama pals around with terrorists, yada yada yada. How does abortion fit that mold? By exposing Obama as an extremist. Here's McCain's key passage tonight:
"Sen. Obama, as a member of the Illinois State Senate, voted in the judiciary committee against a law that would provide immediate medical attention to a child born of a failed abortion. He voted against that. … Then there was another bill before the Senate judiciary committee in the state of Illinois not that long ago, where he voted against a ban on partial-birth abortion, one of the late-term abortion, a really—one of the bad procedures, a terrible. … I don't know how you align yourself with the extreme aspect of the pro-abortion movement in America. … It was clear-cut votes that Sen. Obama voted, I think, in direct contradiction to the feelings and views of mainstream America."
Bad. Terrible. Extreme. Clear-cut. Feelings. Mainstream America. This is the way McCain, Sarah Palin, and George W. Bush talk: There's honor and evil, good guys and bad guys. We fight for the good side. Our opponents don't. They're extreme.
Obama argued that "women, in consultation with their families, their doctors, their religious advisers, are in the best position to make this decision." But his key passage was very different from McCain's:
"This is an issue that—look, it divides us. And in some ways, it may be difficult to—to reconcile the two views. But there surely is some common ground when both those who believe in choice and those who are opposed to abortion can come together and say, "We should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and that they should not be engaged in cavalier activity, and providing options for adoption, and helping single mothers if they want to choose to keep the baby." Those are all things that we put in the Democratic platform for the first time this year, and I think that's where we can find some common ground, because nobody's pro-abortion. I think it's always a tragic situation. We should try to reduce these circumstances."
Common ground. Prevent. Options. Help. Reduce. These are defusing and calming words. They fit Obama's personality. But more than that, they're pragmatic. They convey action, progress, solution. Obama has been talking about abortion this way all along, when the subject comes up. He doesn't like us-and-them language. He doesn't like fights. Even on this issue—one of the nastiest, angriest, most polarizing topics in modern politics—he looks for a course most of us can agree on.
The Playmate Indicator
From Marginal Revolution:
The Environmental Security Hypothesis says that in tough times men will prefer women who are good at production, generally older, taller, heavier, less curvaceous women with less body fat. In good times, they will prefer women who are good at reproduction, generally younger, shorter, lighter, more curvaceous women. Pettijohn and and Jungeberg look at the characteristics of playboy playmates from 1960 to 2000 and find:
Consistent with Environmental Security Hypothesis predictions, when social and economic conditions were difficult, older, heavier, taller Playboy Playmates of the Year with larger waists, smaller eyes, larger waist-to-hip ratios, smaller bust-to-waist ratios, and smaller body mass index values were selected. These results suggest that environmental security may influence perceptions and preferences for women with certain body and facial features.
Econometricians who wish to investigate further may download the data here (yes really).
Obama Debate Spin
David Plouffe:
We came into the debate with two thirds of the American people thinking that John McCain is running a negative campaign, and Senator McCain spent 90 minutes trying to convince the other third.
Why You Can No Longer Support Palin
She is a sports-team panderer:
Ms. Palin visited Salem, N.H. Wednesday night and said she looked forward to watching Senator John McCain debate Senator Barack Obama “right here, in the heart of Red Sox Nation.” Ms. Palin said that “Red Sox fans know how to turn an underdog into a victor,” a timely applause line given that the Sox trail the Tampa Bay Rays three-games-to-one in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series.It seems, however, that Ms. Palin voiced a similar sentiment – actually, identical sentiment – last week at a rally in Florida.
“How about those Tampa Bay Rays?” Ms. Palin said after the Rays defeated the Chicago White Sox.
“You know what that tells me? It tells me that the people in this area know a little something about turning an underdog into a victor.”
Silent Debate
Watching the debate with the sound off.
The images and body language of Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain spoke volumes tonight, even with the television muted. I watched a good portion of the debate with the sound off because I was writing on deadline.
C-Span showed the entire debate in split screen and whenever I looked up I saw Mr. McCain looking across at Mr. Obama with a strained look of incredulity, or the pained smile of an indulgent teacher listening to a recitation from a particularly dim-witted student.
There were obvious flashes of anger and aggression, when it looked as if Mr. McCain might actually cross the vertical split-screen line separating the combatants and wring Mr. Obama’s neck. (I may have been watching too much “Saturday Night Live.”)
Toward the end of the debate, I saw Mr. McCain use the universal “air quotes” gesture, a clear sign he was mocking something Mr. Obama had said. It almost didn’t matter what.
Mr. Obama, for his part, either listened stolidly, scribbled notes or smiled at his opponent with that Ronald Reagan “There you go again” smile.
For much of the time Mr. McCain was on the attack, Mr. Obama just sat there absorbing the blows as if wearing body armor. Which, in a sense, he was, in the form of a double-digit lead in national polls.
Someone Thinks McCain Won Debate
An Associated Press writer!
The feisty Republican tried hard to find a lifeline Wednesday night, challenging his Democratic rival at every turn over his truthfulness, associations and record.
By that measure, McCain won the last debate of the 2008 campaign.
Rear Their Head Watch
Palin, asleep on the job:
The campaign of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said the Alaska governor was unaware of a visit by Russian oil officials to Anchorage on Monday.
Eight high-level officials from Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled oil conglomerate, traveled to Anchorage earlier this week to meet with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and the chief executive of ConocoPhillips to discuss energy projects and the possibility of expanding into new markets.
Pro-Abortion Movement And Women's Health
McCain mentions the pro-abortion movement and dismisses women's health as a subterfuge for more abortions.
NYT Editorial: McCain Is Nasty
The New York Times did not approve of McCain's (non)message:
When John McCain embarrassed himself last month by declaring that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong,” he quickly claimed that he was talking about his belief in the American worker — and darkly implied that anyone who disagreed was less than patriotic.For all of that concern, it’s a shame that Mr. McCain hasn’t come up with policies that would actually help America’s workers. Instead, he’s served up the same-old trickle-down theories and a government-is-wrong, markets-are-right fervor that helped create this economic disaster.
Wednesday night’s debate was another chance for Mr. McCain to prove that he is ready to lead this country out of its deep economic crisis.
But Mr. McCain stuck to his script, and the nasty tone of his campaign, including a rather bizarre claim that Barack Obama had told a plumber in Ohio that Mr. Obama wanted to take away his wealth.
In one astonishing exchange, Mr. McCain acted as though he was the truly aggrieved party. And he insisted that he had repudiated all of the attacks on Mr. Obama by surrogates and misguided supporters. Mr. McCain didn’t mention that his vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, is one the loudest attackers — and he certainly didn’t repudiate her absurd, repeated charge that Mr. Obama has been “palling around with terrorists.”
McXplosion
Ambinder on the debate:
Debates aren't usually won on points.
They're won on valence and visuals.
Emotions and body language.
And tonight, we saw a McXplosion. Every single attack that Sen. McCain has ever wanted to make, he took the opportunity tonight to make. Around 30 minutes in, McCain seemed to surrender the debate to his frustrations, making it seem as if he just wanted the free television.
McCain Rolls Eyes At Assasination
McCain rolls his eyes during last night's debate when Barack Obama mentioned Columbian union leaders being killed.
Obama Wins Debate
From CNN's instant poll:
Fifty-eight percent of debate watchers questioned in the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll said Democrat Obama did the best job in the debate, with 31 percent saying Republican Sen. John McCain performed best.
The poll also suggested that debate watchers' favorable opinion of Obama rose during the debate, from 63 percent at the start of the debate to 66 percent at the end of the debate. The poll indicates that McCain's favorables dropped, from 51 percent to 49 percent.
Obama Blows Out McCain
According to CBS's instant poll, Obama won the debate 53%-22%. More findings:
More uncommitted voters trusted Obama than McCain to make the right decisions about health care. Before the debate, sixty-one percent of uncommitted voters said that they trust Obama on the issue; after, sixty-eight percent said so.
Before the debate, fifty-four percent thought Obama shared their values. That percentage rose to sixty-four percent after the debate.
Before the debate, fifty percent said they trusted Obama to handle a crisis; that rose to sixty-three percent afterwards.
[M]ore trusted Obama than McCain to make the right decisions about the economy. Before the debate, fifty-four percent of uncommitted voters said that they trust Obama to make the right decisions about the economy; after, sixty-five percent said that.
Before the debate, sixty-six percent thought Obama understands voters’ needs and problems; that rose to seventy-six percent after the debate.
The Critical Anchor
Jon Stewart puts the other nightly news anchors to shame on occasion. This is one such occasion.
Pro-Abortion Movement
During last night's debate John McCain spoke of the "pro-abortion movement". He did so on multiple occasions. He clearly is under the impression that there is a group of people in this country sizable enough to be called a movement that is interested in going around and aborting babies.
On the right you have the champions of life. On the left you have the champions of choice. And then somewhere else -- probably between McCain's ears -- you have the champions of abortion. Huh?
On weekends do they get together, impregnate the female members, wait eight weeks, and then have group abortions? Do they have a Meetup.com group?
Take My Word For It
Until (unless?) I find a screen grab you'll have to trust me when I tell you that during the debate women didn't take kindly to McCain saying Palin was a role model for women. At least not those undecided female voters in Ohio turning the nobs for CNN.
Passports And Experience
Sullivan makes a good point during his live blog of the debate:
"Maybe you ought to travel down there." C'mon, McCain, this is weeeaaak. And petty. And incoherent. McCain's veep only got a passport last year and McCain is attacking Obama for not visiting Colombia. He needs to look like a big man to become an independent president. Instead this campaign has made him look very, very small. Even against a freshman senator.
Obama Cracks 95%
Nate gives Obama a 95.1% chance of winning the election. Interesting finding:
[O]ur model is starting to make some decisions about just where it thinks Obama's momentum is manifesting itself. Specifically, it thinks that he's gained the most in states with lots of white, working class Clinton voters -- a result which might be intuited by the huge numbers that he's posting in Pennsylvania, or the fact that there's now another West Virginia poll out that shows the race nearly tied.If Obama wins West Virginia and Arkansas he's cracking 360 electoral votes. It'll be a massacre.
As a result, we're now coloring West Virginia white (toss-up) rather than pink (lean McCain). The model also thinks that Arkansas could be quite interesting the next time that it gets polled. The flip side is that Obama doesn't seem to have quite as much momentum in the Western half of the country, where Clinton generally performed poorly during the primaries.
RNC Not Spending In Wisc, Maine
The Republican National Committee is pulling its money out of Wisconsin and Maine to focus on the red states Bush won in 2004. You don't need to be a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing.
[Am I a) an elitist hippie snob for quoting Bob Dylan or b) a terrorist for quoting the line that inspired the name of the Weatherman or c) both?]
Debate Thought
McCain was having his strongest debate performance right up until the moment when he claimed to be the victim of negative advertising. From that odd moment he went on to say that he's proud of the people that come to his rallies, which includes people calling Barack Obama a terrorist. Then McCain hit on ACORN committing the greatest voter fraud in history, which is both outlandish and technically not true. (If ACORN is committing any fraud it's registration fraud.) He said that ACORN was threatening the fabric of democracy.
The story of the night thus far is that McCain seems like the reflective candidate who's looking back on the campaign and trying to piece together how things went wrong. Obama keeps steering the conversation back to the issues.
(Would be nice if he'd raise his voice at McCain when McCain keeps repeating lies, but then we'd have an angry black man moment. It wouldn't be worth it.)
McCain Lies About Negative Ads
And MSNBC fact checks him immediately:
McCain was wrong... when he said that 100% of his ads weren't negative. According to a recent study by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project, 100% of McCain's ads have been negative.
US To Surrender In Iraq In 2011
Wonder what John McCain and Sarah Palin have to say this:
Washington and Baghdad have reached a final agreement after months of talks on a pact that would require U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq by 2011, U.S. and Iraqi officials said on Wednesday.The bilateral pact replaces a U.N. Security Council resolution enacted after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and will give Iraq's elected government authority over the U.S. troop presence for the first time.
Iraq said it had secured the right to prosecute U.S. soldiers for serious crimes under certain circumstances, an issue both sides had long said was holding up the pact.
Read that last sentence again. Not only are we surrendering but we're allowing them to arrest us on the way out. Right, John?
Bad Cell Phone Reception?
Too bad your name is not Cindy McCain. Because if it were you could request your own cell phone tower and then let your husband, who sits on the committee that oversees the telecom industry, deliver it to you.
In June, Verizon delivered a portable tower free of charge to the ranch property after an online request from Cindy McCain's staff.The "cell site on wheels" is ordinarily reserved for restoring service during emergencies.
AT&T brought in a tower in July.
The Illusion Of An Imagined World
Sarah Palin does not live in the same world as you do:
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin rejected the idea that she has launched negative attacks against Barack Obama Wednesday.
“What I’ve done is call Barack Obama out on his record,” Palin said in an interview with WMUR, a New Hampshire television station. “That’s fair and that’s appropriate and it’s what is best for the American people to know what the choices are.”
“I do not think it is negative or mean-spirited at all, not whatsoever, when you call someone out on their record. And of course when we talk about Barack Obama’s associations that he has had in the past, and may have today, when we talk about ACORN, when we talk about Bill Ayers, those things are fair game,” Palin said.
“I don’t characterize at all our campaign being negative when we talk about someone’s record and associations. That’s what the electorate deserves to hear.”
Fact-checking Joe the Plumber
From The Washington Post:
Joe the Plumber
10:08 p.m.
McCain was wrong to state that small businessman "Joe the Plumber" would end up paying a fine if he refused to provide his workers with health insurance. Under the Obama plan, small businesses are specifically exempted from a requirement imposed on large companies that they contribute to a national health fund if they fail to make "a meaningful contribution" to their employees' health care costs.
--Michael Dobbs
Live Blogging
No, not by me or by Joel, but Elizabeth Edwards and former McCain advisor Todd Harris had at it during the debate last night. Click here for the transcript.
Sideways Or Just Backwards?
From Poynter:
More than 100 demonstrators picketed the Register building in downtown Napa to show their opposition to the paper's endorsement of John McCain. "I made the final decision, and I stand behind the process, and I welcome the conversation to continue on the editorial page and on our website," says publisher Brenda Speth.
If you care, read the endorsement here.
It's A Little Late, But...
Roland Martin wants Sarah Palin to "sit down and answer tough questions. "
With less than three weeks to go, this is doubtful. But a man can try.
Taxi Talk
Last week, my cabbie asked me to help him get an absentee ballot so he could vote for Obama (in Florida of all places).
Tonight, my cabbie told me he thought Obama was a Muslim.
You just never know what you're going to get.
Enter the adorable Andrew Romano and his column Taxi Talk.
On the Record with Remnick
David Remnick joked some say the difference between writing and editing is like the difference between a wife and a mistress - though he added he has never actually had a mistress.
"When you are writing, it's you and your thing. And when you're the editor, it's the work of others," said Remnick, editor of The New Yorker and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.
"One's a wife and one's a mistress, but never having had the latter, it's hard to distinguish the difference in relationships. But there is one," he joked.
...
One of the questions from the audience was about the controversial July 21 New Yorker cover of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.
The cover portrayed Obama as a terrorist and unpatriotic, while Michelle was shown as a modern-day black panther.
"Around July during the Obama campaign, there was a persistence of racism in some parts of the United States," Remnick explained. "What we wanted to do in this one image was throw all the - excuse me - bullshit into one image."
Remnick said he believed The New Yorker's readers would understand the intent of the cover.
"It was my feeling that the New Yorker readership was smart enough and clued in enough to figure out what we were doing," he said of the Obama cover. "We were not branding him or charging him with this. We were, however, attempting to rip this image out of the psyche of Americans who believed this."
Read the rest, from the Daily Orange, here.
Censorship At Its Finest
From 60SecondSmackdown:
For days now, I've been hearing how critics are "raving" over Oliver Stone's new movie about George Dubya Bush. I am not, however, hearing this from the critics. I live in Houston, you see. For some reason, Lionsgate has chosen not to show the film to critics here in Daddy Bush's home town. Even critics who live elsewhere but who write for Houston publications were out of luck. The Houston Chronicle's reviewer lives in Albany, N.Y., for some reason. Lionsgate wouldn't screen it for her.
Whoops
From Think Progress:
McCain called education the civil rights struggle of the 21st century, but he voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1990.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Gergen's Straight Talk
Anderson Cooper: If you were John McCain tomorrow ... what is the message? How does the race change now for John McCain?
David Gergen: Beats the hell out of me. ... You need to see if you can leave this with your honor intact.
Correct Me if I'm Wrong
McCain: Sarah Palin knows about kids with autism more than most [people].
Last time I checked, Sarah Palin's son has Down's. He's not autistic...
Crush of the Week
I'm not in love with David Gergen, but I'm jealous of Jessi Klein's Crush of the Week column.
What a great idea...
Obama Wins Fox Pseudo-Poll
A clean sweep for Obama:
Virtually the entire Frank Luntz focus group on Fox News, which was staged tonight in Miami, said that Barack Obama won the debate. Luntz termed it a "clear majority," but not one person raised their hand when asked if they thought McCain won.Said Luntz: "None had made a decision to support Sen. Obama before the debate, but more than half supported him after the debate. It was a good night for Barack Obama."
No Nailin' Paylin' While Flyin'
From Wired:
Carriers Say No to Airporn
People get bored on long flights, which is why we love in-flight Internet access. It lets people check email, read Wired.com, watch the stock market collapse and enjoy their favorite scenes from On Golden Blonde and Forest Hump.
Airlines, worried the wi-fi services they're rolling out will turn planes into flying porn theaters, are installing filters to prevent passengers from surfing smut. The decision is hailed by flight attendants -- who've so far been responsible for preventing porn peeping -- and by activists concerned that children and other passengers might be subjected to objectionable material. They also worry unfettered onboard Internet access poses a security and safety risk.
American Airlines says it will "implement technology to filter pornographic content over it's Gogo in-flight Internet service." It's an about-face for the airline, which had said it would leave the nannying to flight attendants. The course correction was prompted in part by the vocal concerns of flight attendants who didn't want to be morality cops after the airline started offering in-flight wi-fi last month.
"Flight attendants are on board to provide security and safety for passengers, not to monitor their Internet usage," Corey Caldwell of the Association of Flight Attendants told Wired.com. "We're glad the airlines have responded to our concerns and to those of passengers."
But at least one privacy rights advocate opposes the idea and says blocking porn is the first step down a slippery slope.
Blogging As A Literary Form
Sullivan's article on blogging as a literary form from the new Atlantic. It's worth reading in its entirety but since I like etymology I enjoyed this passage on the origins of the word log:
A ship’s log owes its name to a small wooden board, often weighted with lead, that was for centuries attached to a line and thrown over the stern. The weight of the log would keep it in the same place in the water, like a provisional anchor, while the ship moved away. By measuring the length of line used up in a set period of time, mariners could calculate the speed of their journey (the rope itself was marked by equidistant “knots” for easy measurement). As a ship’s voyage progressed, the course came to be marked down in a book that was called a log.
Obama Tax Cut Ad
A friend of a friend who works for the Obama campaign made the following video, which was released yesterday.
McCain's Brother Speaks Out
From The Swamp:
John McCain has few stronger supporters than his younger brother Joe, who recently got himself into hot water when he described the fiercely contested Northern Virginia suburbs as "communist country." But that remark pales beside Joe's latest blast, in a new email to friends, that criticizes the conduct of those piloting McCain's campaign as it sails into shoals and makes a desperate plea for the campaign to change course. ...
He also pleads with the campaign's top managers to "let us talk to these reporters and tell them of the John McCain we know. Some reporters will get it wrong, most will not get it perfectly, but almost all will appreciate the reopening of the gates of information and reward us for it."
Read the rest, and the email he sent, here.
Lovely Ladies
All of Joe Biden's ladies, photogrpahed in the latest issue of Vogue.
Read the article here, courtesy of Style.com.
Soldier Just Wants Her Puppy
WASHINGTON - More than 10,000 people have signed an online petition urging the Army to let an Iraqi puppy come home with a Minnesota soldier, who fears that "Ratchet" could be killed if left behind.
"I just want my puppy home," Sgt. Gwen Beberg of Minneapolis wrote to her mother in an e-mail Sunday from Iraq, soon after she was separated from the dog following a transfer. "I miss my dog horribly." Beberg, 28, is scheduled to return to the U.S. next month...
Operation Baghdad Pups' program coordinator, Terri Crisp, is scheduled to arrive in Baghdad on Wednesday. Crisp said the adopted dogs left behind face death on Iraqi streets.She said Iraqis view dogs and cats as nuisances and carriers of disease, and U.S. soldiers have rescued many of them from abuse.
You can sign the petition here.
This Guy Is A Genius
From the Chicago Sun Times:
Obama will be the first candidate to advertise in video games
Sen. Barack Obama is taking his presidential campaign somewhere no political campaign has gone before — to video games.
The Obama camp has bought “billboard space” within nine video games, all from Electronic Arts: “Madden ’09,” “NBA Live ’08,” “Burnout Paradise,” “Nascar 09,” “Need For Speed Carbon,” “Need For Speed Pro Street,” “NFL on Tour,” “NHL ’09” and “Skate.”
The virtual ads in the games are frequently updated with real advertising through online downloads. They feature a photo of the senator with text indicating early voting has begun and direct gamers to the Obama Web site voteforchange.com.
Not that EA is endorsing the Chicago Democrat. “Like most television outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates,” said Holly Rockwood, a spokeswoman for EA, the video-game giant.
John McCain’s campaign was also approached but passed on placing any ads, Rockwood said.
Bill Ayers On the Downlow
Short but interesting piece about Bill Ayers in this morning's Chicago Tribune.
Personally, I love the way his office door is decorated:
Ayers' office door is decorated with pictures of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Che Guevara and Malcolm X. It is also home to pictures of children, bills of rights for students and parents, and a rainbow-hued greeting card advising "How to Be Really Alive." A place of prominence is give to a New Yorker cartoon of a man interviewing for a job. The interviewer says, "I'm trying to find a way to balance your strengths against your felonies."
Colin Powell To Endorse
It seems that Colin Powell is ready to endorse...Barack Obama.
Read the rest here.
On What Authority
David Post echoes my question on what authority the Treasury has to force banks to accept the government bailout:
Did I miss it, or is nobody even paying lip service to the idea that only the Board of Directors can make decisions for (banking) corporations of the kind the banks have apparently made by "accepting" the Treasury's latest plan? As I understand things, Bernanke, Paulson, Geitner and the other gov't officials met with the CEOs of the 9 big banks and laid out their plan and sought the banks' "voluntary" acceptance — yes or no, all or nothing. The conversation presumably went something like this:
Paulson: "Here's the plan: We inject capital and we take equity back. You agree to certain conditions (on e.g. executive compensation), we'll extend the FDIC guarantees to all your deposits. Etc. We could force you to accept the deal (or at least we'd argue that we could, based on authorization contained in the bailout bill to re-capitalize the banks), but for various reasons we don't want to — we want you to accept the deal voluntarily. We have to get all of you on board at once — otherwise, if we went one bank at a time, it would look like the bank we're helping out is in particularly bad shape, and that would send the wrong message to investors."And the CEOs agreed (and the market went up 900 points).
The CEOs, though, can't possibly have the power to agree, on behalf of their corporations, to a deal of this magnitude, can they? Surely the Boards of Directors, and only the Board of Directors, can commit the banks to a plan involving the issuance of billions of dollars of new equity. It's possible, I suppose, that each of the CEOs spoke to a specially-convened Board meeting and the Boards all voted to go along (and nobody mentioned anything about it because it's just too boring). Or maybe everybody is assuming that the respective Boards will just retroactively rubber-stamp the deal some time this week (though from what I hear from a source inside JP Morgan/Chase, there are a whole lot of people there who are very unhappy with this deal (and the dilutive effects on the value of current shareholders' shares).
How Smart is McCain?
John McWhorter, left, of the Manhattan Institute and Glenn Loury of Brown University debate John McCain's intellectual force. From the New York Times.
Ohio Voter Issues
If it's Wednesday it must mean there's been a new hiccup with voting in Ohio. The AP has the latest:
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered Ohio's top elections official to set up a system by Friday to verify the eligibility of newly registered voters and make the information available to the state's 88 county election boards.The full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld a lower court ruling that Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must use other government records to check thousands of new voters for registration fraud.
A three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit had disagreed last week. The full court's ruling, in which nine of 16 judges concurred, overturns that decision.
Ohio Republicans had sued Brunner, a Democrat. Her spokesman had no immediate comment Tuesday.
About 666,000 Ohioans have registered to vote since January, with many doing so before the contested Democratic presidential primary election last March between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. The presidential election is Nov. 4.
Since the primary, Ohio Republicans have filed a series of challenges to the registrations and Brunner's administration of election rules. They have helped voters file lawsuits against local boards of election over registration rules, absentee ballot requests and a weeklong period that allowed registration and voting on the same day.
Brunner previously said sufficient systems exist to verify new voter registrations and there was no way to set up the court-ordered system with such speed.
Last week, the three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit had sided with Brunner, but the full panel sided with the GOP and U.S. District Judge George C. Smith in Columbus after hearing an appeal. Smith had ordered Brunner to develop a way to verify voter registration information and make it available to local election boards.
Buckley On Why He Left
Echoing the sentiments those who champion small government and intellectual honestly, Christopher Buckley writes about leaving the National Review:
William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much...
So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.
So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.
Olbermann: Special Comment On McCain Campaign
Text:
And this is where the satire ends and the Special Comment begins. Because this is not even remotely funny.
1:25 p.m. Eastern Time, today, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. During the warm-up act by a red meat Congressional candidate aptly named Chris Hackett, Hackett mentions Obama and a Palin audience member shouts, “Kill Him.”
Story continues below ↓advertisement
And Gov. Palin, as usual, does nothing about it; says nothing to these thugs and psychos. She may not have heard this one. It is impossible to believe that by now she has not heard about the other ones. Her silence is deafening. Just as, Senator McCain, you have done nothing when violence has been asserted. Correction. You have done one thing.
Asked why, in real time, you do not repudiate this hatefulness, you act as if you are the victim. Speaking today to our NBC Station in Washington:
McCain: “Sure and I repudiated it as I have on several occasions. Unfortunately, Congressman John Lewis is an American hero who I admire who made the worst, most unacceptable statement a couple days ago that I have ever heard. He accused me and Sarah Palin of being involved in segregation, George Wallace and even made reference to a church bombing where children were killed. Senator Obama has not repudiated that statement. Senator Obama should do so immediately. Its the most outrageous thing that I have heard since in politics…it is disgraceful.”
Disgraceful?
Obviously, Senator, you haven’t heard your own speeches, and Gov. Palin’s, and what people shout during them. And you haven’t heard your state GOP Chair in Virginia, Jeffrey Frederick, giving talking points to 30 of your field-operatives heading out to canvass voters in Gainesville, Virginia, with a reporter present, telling them to try to forge a connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden to emphasize bombings and terrorism. And you haven’t heard those volunteers, your volunteers Sen. McCain, shout back, “And he won’t salute the flag” and “We don’t even know where Sen. Obama was really born.”
Sen. McCain, these people are speaking for you! And how dare you try to claim Congressman Lewis was linking you to Gov. George Wallace’s segregation? He was linking you, aptly, to Gov. George Wallace’s lynch-mob mentality.
“As public figures with the power to influence and persuade,” said Congressman Lewis, “Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all.”
Sen. McCain, your supporters, at your events, are calling Obama a terrorist and traitor and are calling for him to be killed. And yet you keep bringing back these same rabid Right Wing nuts to deliberately stir these crowds into frenzies. And then you take offense when somebody who remembers the violence in our political past, calls you on it. You, sir, are responsible for a phalanx of individuals who are shouting fire in a crowded theater.
There are some things to respect and honor about you, Sen. McCain, but on this you’re not only a fraud, Senator, but you are tacitly inciting lunatics to violence. If you want to again grand-stand and suspend your campaign here’s your big chance. Suspend your campaign now, until you, or somebody else, gets some control over it and it ceases to be a clear and present danger to the peace of this nation.
Rachel Maddow Is The Bomb
Forgive me for being late on this, but I just found out about it tonight (I crashed on the couch way too early last night).
On Monday, David Frum, Bush speechwriter/National Review contributor, battled Rachel Maddow and essentially tried to make the argument that the "tone" of her show is the equivalent of people yelling "terrorist" and "off with Obama's head" at McCain/Palin rallies. Unreal. But Rachel held her own and kicked ass.
Start watching around 3:30.
And then later on, someone in the media (yay Rachel!) finally called Palin out for being a liar.
Baby Daddy Can't Vote
Bristol Palin’s baby daddy: Ready for fatherhood, not registered to vote
From Yahoo!
As for attending the Republican convention, the high school dropout says, "At first, I was nervous. Then I was like, 'Whatever.'" Levi says he wasn't forced to campaign for Sarah Palin and while he's rooting for her and McCain to win, he won't be voting on Election Day as he didn't register in time.
Crazy Lady Speaks Out
Gayle Quinnell, the woman who called Obama an "Arab" at a recent rally, speaks out.
It's tough to hear everything she says, so if you want to read the transcript, click here, courtesy of the HuffPo.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Late Night Imagination
McCain's attacks, Palin, torpedoing his campaign.
Nate tempers your happiness about that 14-point lead...
...But gives Obama a 95.8% chance of winning.
The benefits of opting out of public financing: massive amounts of commercials.
Negative ads more informational than positive ads.
Biden says Obama will win West Virginia.
Only 21% of you trust banks.
The rich support McCain, the super rich support Obama.
The over-spending meltdown myth.
Did PBS cave to White House over torture documentary?
Newborn named Sarah McCain Palin.
Wasilla actually not microcosm of America.
Can Obama reform healthcare?
Obama for the women, Erica for the men.
Endorsement Watch
From Editor & Publisher:
One of the most closely-watched editorial endorsements in the race for the White House is that from the Los Angeles Times. True, it is not based in a swing state. But it has a firm recent history of choosing not to endorse any candidate for president. And with a conservative new owner, Sam Zell, will it tilt right or continue its non-endorsement policy?
The answer seemed to emerge this morning.
The paper's editorial has been running since Sunday essays it bills this way: "A series of editorials on the issues facing the next president as a lead-up to The Times' endorsement for the White House." So that takes care of one thing: The paper WILL reverse policy and endorse.
And today it seem to broadly hint which candidate will earn that nod.
Sad Day For Conservatives
Christopher Buckley has effectively been forced to resign from the National Review, the magazine his father founded in 1955. From the NYT:
Mr. Buckley said he had “been effectively fatwahed by the conservative movement” after endorsing Barack Obama in a blog posting on TheDailyBeast.com; since then, he said he has been blanketed with hate mail at the blog and at the National Review, where he has written a column.
As a result, he wrote to Richard Lowry, the editor of the National Review, and its publisher, Jack Fowler, offering to resign, and “this offer was rather briskly accepted,” Mr. Buckley said.
Mr. Buckley said he did not understand the sense of betrayal that some of his conservative colleagues felt, but said that the fury and ugly comments his endorsement generated is “part of
the calcification of modern discourse. It’s so angry.” Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan’s quote about the Democrats, Mr. Buckley added, “I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.”
From Austin, Texas
From an email my friend Claudia, who is a journalist living in Austin, sent this morning:
You know this place: red red red. But Austin/Travis County still looks blue. My neighborhood, for example, has Obama signs up, I'd say at a ratio of 9 to 1. It's amazing how many of the O signs have cropped up in recent weeks. Seems folks are really energized. Outside of Austin, though, it's still looking pretty committed to McCain and they are in love with Palin. That's the sense I get anyways from talking to sources in the Hill Country.
The Real Pro-Life Vote
Pro-Choice Catholics for Obama
From Newsweek:
The most visible of the pro-Obama Catholic pro-lifers has been Pepperdine University law professor Douglas Kmiec, formerly dean of the law school at the Catholic University of America and a minor official in the Justice Departments of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Kmiec began the 2008 cycle as co-chairman of Mitt Romney's campaign, but recently told the Chicago Tribune that, as the campaign unfolded, "I kept discovering that Obama was sounding more Catholic than most Catholics I know" on issues like the family wages, health-care costs and the war in Iraq. With Romney out of the race, Kmiec announced his support for Obama on Easter Sunday, arguing that "Senator Obama comes reasonably close" to embodying "an alternative way to be pro-life." Kmiec develops that arresting claim in a new book, "Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Questions About Barack Obama," published in mid-September.
Other pro-Obama Catholic intellectuals include Notre Dame professor M. Cathleen Kaveny, whose Obamapologetics are frequently found on the Commonweal blog, and Duquesne University law professor Nicholas Cafardi, one of the original members of the U.S. bishops' National Review Board to study problems of clerical sexual abuse. In a recent statement, "Senator Obama: A Moral Choice for Catholics," Cafardi summarized the three most frequently deployed arguments of self-declared pro-life Catholics who support Barack Obama for president.
First, according to Cafardi, Catholics have, as a matter of law, "lost the abortion battle ... and I believe that we have lost it permanently." Second, abortion is not the only "intrinsic evil" of the day; the Bush administration has been guilty of committing acts that are "intrinsically evil" in its policies on interrogation of terrorist suspects, in its failures after Hurricane Katrina and in its detention of terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay. Third, Senator Obama "supports government action that would reduce the number of abortions," including an "adequate social safety net for poor women who might otherwise have abortions."
Her argument, in sum: the constitutional and legal arguments that have raged since Roe vs. Wade are over, and Catholics have lost; there are many other "intrinsic evils" that Catholics are morally bound to oppose, and Republicans tend to ignore those evils; liberalized social-welfare policies will drive down the absolute numbers of abortions and Senator Obama is an unabashed liberal on these matters. Therefore, a vote for Obama is the "real" pro-life vote.
Too Bad They're Under 18
The Scholastic kids' poll has predicted the correct president for the past 40 years:
Deconstruction Watch II
Misused in an article about, well, I'm not totally sure, but the words postmodernism and semiotics are used in relation to meta-analysis of the media's coverage of the election:
Are the great American habits of directness, foursquare honesty, and a hearty handshake being undermined by fancy-pants French critical theory? You betcha! From the Obama-McCain struggle to find the proper meta-analysis of the word celebrity to the deconstruction of the mainstream media's treatment of John Edwards, from the "framing" and "repackaging" of political constructs to the rise of identity politics for white people, the trend is clear: We are all postmodernists now.Again, deconstruction is not a synonym for "unpacking".
So We're Clear About ACORN
Josh Marshall explains:
Let's be clear about what this is. These are random stories about fake vote registrations. The Drudges and Fox scoundrels of the world seem to think that if someone fills out a voter registration card for Mickey Mouse, that Mickey Mouse might show up and cast a vote they're not entitled to cast. It doesn't and there is zero evidence of any voter fraud or anything that would make voter fraud more likely. The level of lying, bad faith or at best ignorance of the people making these claims is really beyond imagining. This isn't vote fraud. There's no evidence of vote fraud. Nothing.
Bill Ayers: Obama Ghostwriter
This little piece from RedState.org made me laugh out loud:
Jack Cashill is an Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and novelist who has written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine and The Weekly Standard. He is a regular contributor to WorldNet Daily.
Cashill has done an exhaustive comparison of Dreams From My Father, the literary coming-out party of Barack Obama, and Fugitive Days, the terrorist memoir of Weatherman founder - turned Academician William Ayers. The two memoirs bear such striking similarities that they appear to have been written by the same person.
Since it is highly unlikely that Sen Barack Obama wrote both, the obvious conclusion would be that Ayers worked closely with Obama in ghostwriting the latter's book. This would seem to put a lie to the fact that Sen Obama hardly knew Ayers, but would suggest, along with the other mounting evidence that the two had a long-standing and obviously close relationship.
The following is a brief excerpt from Fugitive Days by William Ayers.
“I picture the street coming alive, awakening from the fury of winter, stirred from the chilly spring night by cold glimmers of sunlight angling through the city.”
The following is a similar poetic excerpt from Dreams From My Father by Sen Barack Obama.
“Night now fell in midafternoon, especially when the snowstorms rolled in, boundless prairie storms that set the sky close to the ground, the city lights reflected against the clouds.”
The connection is so OBVIOUS.
Gut Feeling
From the HuffPo:
Bush Strategist: McCain Knows He Put Country At Risk With Palin Pick
Matthew Dowd, a prominent political consultant and chief strategist for George W. Bush's reelection campaign eviscerated John McCain on Tuesday for his choice of Sarah Palin as vice president.
Dowd proclaimed that, in his heart of hearts, McCain knew he put the country at risk with his VP choice and that he would "have to live" with that fact for the rest of his career.
"They didn't let John McCain pick the person he wanted to pick as VP," Dowd declared during the Time Warner Summit panel. "When Sarah Palin got picked instead of Joe Lieberman, which I fundamentally believed would have given John McCain the best opportunity in this race... as soon as he picked Palin, that whole ready versus not ready argument was not credible."
Saying that Palin was a "net negative" on the ticket, he went on: "[McCain] knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the ballot. He knows that in his gut, and when this race is over that is something he will have to live with... He put somebody unqualified on that ballot and he put the country at risk, he knows that."
McCain + Saddam Hussein
From the HuffPo:
McCain Transition Chief Aided Saddam In Lobbying Effort
William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.
The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government.
During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.
They Were Obsessed
Conor Clarke read the entire Troopergate report. Does this sound like the behavior of people with their head on straight?
So they stalked the trooper and then said they feared for their lives. These people are clinically unfit to be near the White House.In support of its contention that Palin acted unethically, the report cites 18 separate events in which Palin, her husband Todd, or one of her employees put pressure on Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan to fire Trooper Michael Wooten, the ex-husband of Palin's sister. Of these my favorite is an occasion in fall of 2007 in which Wooten "was seen [by Todd Palin] dropping off one of his children at school" in his patrol car. Palin called Wooten's supervisor and complained in the hopes of getting him fired. Months later a top Palin aide saw Wooten "driving around the Good Shepherd Church early in the morning dropping off one of his kids in a marked patrol vehicle." The aide also called and complained. Both calls were made in the fervent hope that dropping children at school or church in one's work vehicle was a sackable offense. And on both occasions it was found that Trooper Wooten had obtained permission to drop off his kids.
The McCain campaign tries gamely to put the law-and-order spin on this sort of thing by noting that the Palin family was "Understandably concerned about a pattern of behavior demonstrated by someone entrusted with the responsibilities of law enforcement," and thus "reported the behavior to the appropriate authorities." Nice try. Perhaps the Palins really thought Trooper Wooten was a threat to Alaska's first family and an embarrassment to the state, but if you're afraid of someone it's probably not a great idea to hang around outside the school to understand the manner in which he drops off the offspring.
In What World Does She Live?
Welcome to Sarah Palin's Make Believe World.
Rush Limbaugh: The media is covering up for him. That is why there's so much admiration for you. The New York Times said you were a great speaker....your forcefulness and your opinions are driving away moderates. This is just an attempt to get you to stop.No, Sarah. Quite the contrary. We want you to talk to the media. Are you not aware of this?
Sarah Palin: Well, yes, I guess that message is they do want me to sit down and shut up, but that's not gonna happen. I care too much about this great country.
On What Authority?
One thing I'm unclear about is what authority the Treasury has to force banks to do something. For instance, Paulson has told the banks that they must accept the $250 billion he's injecting. Then there's this:
“The needs of our economy require that our financial institutions not take this new capital to hoard it, but to deploy it,” Mr. Paulson said...So first the banks must accept the money and now they're forced to use it as the government sees fit. What if they refuse? What legal authority does the Treasury have here?
Kill Him!
The Times-Tribune via TPM:
Chris Hackett addressed the increasingly feisty crowd as they await the arrival of Gov. Palin.Each time the Republican candidate for the seat in the 10th Congressional District mentioned Barack Obama the crowd booed loudly.
One man screamed "kill him!"
Nothing To Lose
From Time:
The GOP veep candidate calls into El Rushbo during Tuesday’s program, says when asked about whether the McCain camp is giving her more latitude than their candidate to attack Obama:Nothing to lose because her dignity is already lost.
“I’ve got nothing to lose in this and I think America has everything to gain by understanding the differences, the contrasts here between Obama and McCain.”
It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over
From Adam Nagourney at The New York Times:
Some things to keep in mind:
1 — There have been huge surges in voter registration reported in key states like Florida and Colorado, by all accounts reflecting the intense interest in Mr. Obama, his campaign’s aggressive effort to sign up new voters, particularly younger and black voters, and the declining fortunes of the Republican Party. That is the one big reason Mr. Obama’s senior advisers are feeling so bullish these days.
Still, it is one thing to register to vote; which can often be accomplished by filling out and signing a form provided to you on the street or at your doorstep. It’s quite another to get them to come out and vote. If Mr. Obama’s campaign succeeds at what it has promised, it is possible that Mr. McCain will lose in an Electoral College landslide, winning a bunch of Republican states by slim margins driven by get-out-the-vote operations. Still, first-time voters are inexperienced voters and, Mr. McCain’s advisers are no doubt hoping, less likely to turn out if, say, the weather is bad.
2 — As my colleague Jeff Zeleny reported on Sunday, the Obama campaign has invested millions of dollars and thousands of volunteers into developing highly sophisticated operations to identify supporters and get them to the polls. The campaign is building on — and presumably improving upon — the model that the Republican National Committee set up starting in 2000, under Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s chief strategist, and Ken Mehlman, the former Republican National chairman.
Still, there is one important difference: These are to a considerable extent new operations. The Republican turnout operations got better with each cycle because party leaders figured out what worked and what did not.
That is not to say that Mr. Obama’s operation cannot do exactly what his aides say it will. It’s just that there really is no way to accurately judge which campaign has the better turnout operation until the votes are counted.
3 — Campaigns have rhythms, and inevitably swing back and forth for all kinds of reasons, including mistakes by candidates (think Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants) and the news media’s desire for a competitive race and tendency to find the “underdog is surging” story line irresistible. The pendulum theory is certainly one that Republicans are grabbing onto these days.
“I think over these last 30 days, there’s going to be a change in how the American people view this campaign,” said Jim Greer, the Republican chairman of Florida, a state where Mr. McCain finds himself in a particularly tough fight with Mr. Obama.
The question for Mr. McCain, of course, is whether there is enough time left for the pendulum to swing one more time, absent a big mistake by Mr. Obama, or ... .
4 — Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who ran for president in 2004, has argued that he would have beaten President Bush had Osama bin Laden not released a video message just days before Election Day. Whether the tape’s effect truly was decisive is debatable, but it is clear that Mr. bin Laden gave that election a very big jolt in the direction where Mr. Bush wanted to fight it, much the way the Wall Street crisis in September moved the 2008 election onto Democratic turf.
This race has been filled with surprises, so it would almost be a surprise if something else didn’t happen before the polls open. Mr. McCain clearly has an edge over Mr. Obama on national security; Democrats and Republicans agree that a serious domestic terrorism threat or attack could shuffle the deck of cards going into the final days.
5 — Race is, of course, the question that has hovered over the contest for two years. Are there a significant number of white voters who will not support Mr. Obama because he is black, no matter what they tell pollsters? Some Republicans said they have come to look at this as Mr. McCain’s last, best hope.
6 — Mr. McCain has clearly decided to go into the final weeks of the campaign hitting Mr. Obama about his passing acquaintance in Chicago with William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground, while Republicans have been pushing Mr. McCain to hit Mr. Obama on his relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Mr. Wolfson argued that this would not work because concerns about the economy were so strong, and many Republicans said that this late in the game, Mr. McCain was going to have an awfully tough time raising questions about Mr. Obama’s character.
This kind of attack — the overall idea, as Mr. McCain keeps suggesting, that people don’t really know (and thus can’t trust) Mr. Obama — sometimes creeps up on an opponent, gathering force and credibility. But even some Republicans think that might be tough with Mr. Obama.
“People think he’s basically a decent guy,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican member of Congress from Minnesota. But Mr. McCain’s advisers said he intended to keep hitting the Ayers question in the days, if not weeks, ahead, in the belief that this might be what it takes to get his campaign on track.
Endorsements Palin Won't Be Getting
One assumes the Anchorage Daily News won't be endorsing Palin after dropping this editorial bomb on her head:
Sarah Palin's reaction to the Legislature's Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation.It gets better.She claims the report "vindicates" her. She said that the investigation found "no unlawful or unethical activity on my part."
Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian.
A Mama Bear in Idaho?
From Stumper:
Judging by the polls, Sarah Palin may not propel John McCain to the presidency. But at least she'll make the path to Election Day a little more melodious.
At Palin's rally yesterday in Richmond, Va., the loudest applause was reserved not for the Mooseburger Queen of Wasilla but for her special guest, Hank Williams, Jr., who performed a new, pro-McCain rendition of his late-1970s hit "Family Tradition." "The left-wing liberal media have always been a real close knit family," he sang, somewhat redundantly. "But most of the American people don't believe 'em anyway, you see." Later verses blamed Democrats for "bankrupt[ing] Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac"; accused Bill Clinton of forcing "bankers" who "didn't want to make all those bad loans" of doing just that; and praised Palin for "protecting your family's condition" like a "mama bear in Idaho" protecting her "cubs." History? Hardly. Poetry? Not quite (sadly, the lilting, lonesome line "I have loved some ladies/and I have loved Jim Beam" was inexplicably AWOL). But certainly entertaining--even if Stumper greatly prefers Hanks I and III to Bocephus.
Arab and Muslim: Dirty Words?
In February, I spent a day calling undecided Wisconsin voters, urging them to vote, making sure they were registered, helping them find their polling precincts, etc.
Before I went down to Obama headquarters, Tegan and I had a long conversation about the types of rebuttals I may run into from wary voters. The one that made me the most nervous? "I can't vote for Obama because he's a Muslim."
My gut reaction was, "No, no, he's not." I mean, how hard can it be just to tell people he's Christian?
Then I realized that simply saying "no" seems to condone that being Muslim or Arab is wrong. And it shouldn't matter one way or the other. But crafting and navigating a sensitive response was a difficult task—one that I obsessed over all the way to Michigan Avenue. (Luckily, every single person I called planned to vote for Obama and no one mentioned race or religion at all.)
In this clip, Campbell Brown articulately and wonderfully reminds us that when people accuse Obama of being Muslim or Arab, not only are they dead wrong, they're disrespecting the 5-7 million Muslim-Americans living in our country.
