Righter than right

Let's check in with our blogging brethren in Alaska:
http://www.grizzlybay.org/SarahPalinInfoPage.htm

The top 10 things you should know about Sarah Palin:

1) She is presently under investigation in Alaska for abuse of power
2) She believes creationism should be taught in public schools
3) She is opposed to abortion even in cases of rape and incest
4) She strongly supports big oil (her husband works for oil company BP)
5) She has no federal or international experience. Prior to being governor (for less than two years) she was only the mayor of a small Alaskan town and a beauty queen!
6) She believes global warming is a farce and is opposed to listing the polar bear as an endangered species
7) She supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and anywhere else big oil wants
8) She supports Pebble Mine which will destroy the richest salmon run in the world
9) She supports aerial shooting of bears and wolves even though Alaskans voted twice to ban the practice.
10) She used $400,000 of state money to fund a media campaign in support of aerial shooting of wolves and bears

This woman is hard core. She may be your cup of tea. But I think she is dangerous.
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Can you say ... abuse of power?

The whiff of scandal surrounding Governor Sarah Palin will work its way into the Big Money Media soon (their just a bit distracted now). But if you aren't familiar with this story, Josh Marshall has a nice overview of the issues and explains why it is important.

• Getting real about Palin

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It's not a question of if, just how much ...

John McCain and the RNC are trying to give everyone the impression that all of the changes they are making for their national convention are out of concern for the situation in the Gulf Coast. But if ... if McCain was going to explit the situation for any political benefit, what would be the signs to look for? This would be a big one:

McCain was scheduled to deliver his acceptance speech Thursday but now may do so from the devastation zone if the storm hits the U.S. coast with the ferocity feared by forecasters.

Why would the presence of a presidential candidate be needed in the damage zone? With security issues and considering the large entourage they would travel with, this would actually slow or hinder the recovery efforts in any area they decide to visit. But, come one, why would you move your speech to the region? You would only do this if you want to exploit the misery so you can look more presidential.

Slimy.
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Nothin' beats a PTA mom!

Josh sez:

Sadly Nuts:
When asked about criticisms of Sarah Palin's readiness to serve as president, McCain responded:
"If they want to go down that route, in all candor, she has far, far more experience than Senator Obama does."
Set aside the bravado. Can McCain possibly believe that? And if he does, what are we supposed to think of his own fitness to serve? Sen. Obama is certainly new on the national scene. But he's serving his fourth year in the US senate. He's run a successful national primary campaign. He's deeply versed on all the relevant policy issues. Palin has been the governor of one of the smallest states in the country (by pop.) for 18 months. As recently as 2006, she said she hadn't focused enough on Iraq to have an opinion one way or another about the surge. Even now, her off-hand comments about Iraq are completely at odds with Sen. McCain's.
Getting into a discussion about the relative qualifications of the two individuals is too silly to waste time on. But it says a lot about McCain that he says it.

Barack Obama has been in the national spotlight since his campaign against wackjob Alan Keyes for Senate in 2004. He has written several bestselling books placing him in a national spotlight. He gave a keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention ... in the national spotlight. He has been in the Senate addressing national and world issues. He participated in and won one of the longest primary campaigns ever, against one of the strongest political machines ever in the Clintons. He has done hundreds of national interviews, and participated in dozens of debates. Then there are his many years of experience prior to all of this as a community organizer and leader, and as a member of the Illinois legislature.

His experience in days, weeks, months and years may be relatively shorter than most of the other presidential candidates, but it would be wrong to say he is inexperienced.

And today John McCain said his VP pick, Sarah Palin, has "far more" experience (ie: executive experience) than Barack Obama. He not only went back to her time as Mayor of a small town, but he also brought up her experience as a leader of the PTA. Wow!

John McCain is corrupted beyond any hope of redemption. Or he is certifiably insane. Actually, both of these statements are true.
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McCain/Palin '08?

Oh. My. God!?!?!?!?

Un-freakin'-believable.

John McCain just undercut every single argument he has been making as to why he should be president and Barack Obama should not. Every one.

• Here's the real slogan the McCain campaign should now adopt: Putting. Country. Last.

• The McCain campaign's slogan is "country first." It's a good slogan ... But question: If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?

• The selection of Palin doesn't simply, as others have pointed out, undermine the notion that Obama is too inexperienced to be president; it gives Obama the chance to actually take the edge on national security while making John McCain's age a central issue of the campaign.

• Underneath her attractive and youthful exterior, Sarah Palin is no different from the old white guys running the Republican Party. She doesn't care about good government, she doesn't believe in science, she wants everyone to live in accordance with her Old Testament Christian values. Basically, she's Tom Coburn with boobs.

• The cons:
  Inexperience.
  Palin has been governor for about two minutes. Thanks to McCain’s decision, Palin could be commander-in-chief next year. That may strike people as a reckless choice; it strikes me that way. And McCain's age raised the stakes on this issue. As a political matter, it undercuts the case against Obama. Conservatives are pointing out that it is tricky for the Obama campaign to raise the issue of her inexperience given his own, and note that the presidency matters more than the vice-presidency. But that gets things backward. To the extent the experience, qualifications, and national-security arguments are taken off the table, Obama wins. And it’s not just foreign policy. Palin has no experience dealing with national domestic issues, either. (On the other hand, as Kate O’Beirne just told me, we know that Palin will be ready for that 3 a.m. phone call: She’ll already be up with her baby.)
  Tokenism.
  Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?
  Compatibility.
  It doesn’t seem as though McCain knows Palin well. Do we have much reason to think they would work well together?

• McCain has spent the last several years insisting that the most important qualities in a candidate for national office are experience and a background in national security. Sarah Palin was, up until recently, the mayor of a town of 9,000 people, and is currently the governor of a small state with a part-time legislature, with one-and-a-half years under her belt.
  

• I'm just stunned by the cynicism of the whole thing. I'm sure Palin is a fine person, loving mother, devoted wife, learning her way as governor, and so forth. But a heartbeat away from the presidency? Someone with virtually no serious political experience, and no serious experience of any other kind to make up for it? She's going to shake up Washington? I don't know how she'll do on the stump or in the debates. Maybe she'll be great. Who knows? But a potential leader of the free world? You gotta be kidding.

• John McCain has just done something that Obama has not been able to do yet - prove to the world unequivocably that McCain doesn’t have the judgement to be President. He will never ever be able to hold his head up and say that Obama isn’t “ready to lead”.

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How Much Is Your Obama Tax Cut?

Here is another Andrew Sullivan tip:

How Much Is Your Obama Tax Cut?

(Here is) An interactive site that helps propagate the fact that Obama's tax plans will actually reduce income taxes on a lot of people.

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A remarkable man at a vital moment.

Conservative Andrew Sullivan has supported McCain in the past, but he now supports Obama. He STRONGLY supports Obama here:

Look: I'm biased at this point. I'm one of those people, deeply distressed at what has happened to America, deeply ashamed of my own misjudgments, who has shifted out of my ideological comfort zone because this man seems different to me, and this moment in history seems different to me. I'm not sure we have many more chances to get off the addiction to foreign oil, to prevent a calamitous terrorist attack, to restore constitutional balance in the hurricane of a terror war.

I've said it before - months and months ago. I should say it again tonight. This is a remarkable man at a vital moment. America would be crazy to throw this opportunity away. America must not throw this opportunity away.

Know hope.

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Rachel!

John Cole is a big Rachel Maddow fan, too! He pulls from an article in the Washington Post:

Why Rachel Maddow is Smarter than 99% of The People On Television

One quote:

Unlike Olbermann, Maddow plans to interview some conservative guests. But she is determined to avoid the left-right pairings that sustain much of cable news.

“It creates fake balance,” she says. “I’m sorry—we’re going to have a debate about whether or not the Earth is flat? It doesn’t make sense to have a debate about whether offshore drilling is going to bring down gas prices. You know what? It’s not. The fact that it’s false ought to be reported, or you’re advancing a lie.”

The reason our news is so bad is because of this artificial concept of balance, where we have to present both sides, even if one is batshit crazy.


Remember ... watch Rachel Maddow on MSNBC starting Monday night, September 8.

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Quote 'em, Dano!

More great quotes from the Democratic Convention found on DailyKos.com:

• John Kerry reporting for duty ....

Before John McCain debates Barack Obama, he needs to finish the debate with John McCain.

• Clinton just laid some branding on the Democrats and made the Republicans own the last eight years as we saw their ideology in practice.

They want us to reward them for the failures of the last four years with four more years. The third time is not the charm.

• Jon Stewart examines the media’s bizarre obsession with questioning Michelle Obama’s patriotism in the context of her amazing convention speech.

“She’s got to [prove her patriotism]! She’s a Democrat. She must prove she loves America, as opposed to Republicans who everyone knooows love America. They just hate half the people living in it.”

• Bob Casey had one of the best lines of the night:

John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush more than 90% of the time...that's not a maverick, that's a sidekick.
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Maverick is in the danger zone.

John McCain is only leading Barack Obama in Arizona by six points, 47%-41%. AmericaBlog has more and asks ... why isn't this a bigger story in the media

He's not even breaking 50% and barely breaking 45%. That's why John McCain has to campaign in his home state. Arizona is the place where McCain has most of his houses. The people who know him best don't really like him. Take a look at Pollster.com's trend chart for Arizona. This is McCain's home state and he's barely winning. This should be a HUGE political story -- it really is one of the untold stories of the 2008 election. In any statewide race, an incumbent who is stuck at 45% would be in the danger zone. This should be a HUGE story, but too many reporters like McCain so they can't grasp that others don't. (And, those reporters like going to John McCain's biggest house -- the compound in Sedona with the private lake.)
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Quotables

Over at DailyKos.com they pulled out some of the better quotes from the early evening speeches at the Democratic Convention:

• Instant classic from Janet Napolitano:

Barry Goldwater ran for president, and he lost. Mo Udall ran for president, and he lost. Bruce Babbit ran for president, and he lost. For this next election, that's one Arizona political tradition I'd like to see continue.

• Gov. David Paterson on John McCain:

If he's the answer, then the question must be ridiculous.

• Kathleen Sebelius delivers the line of the century about John McCain:

John McCain's version: There's no place like home...or a home...or a home...or a home...or a home...

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What a wonderful world ...

Three days ago Sharyn told me that using a modified version of this song with lyrics targeting McCain would be a huge hit. I should have listened to her, but whoever did this did it right. Well done!

Again? So soon?

From Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central:

John McCain POW-POW-POWs yet again to deflect criticism of the number-of-houses crack, this time during a taped segment with Jay Leno that's set to air later tonight:

"You've got enough of those," Leno cracked. "You need a white one, too." Later, he asked McCain: "For $1 million, how many houses do you have?"

At that, McCain got serious, saying he had been imprisoned for five-and-a-half years during the Vietnam war, and that "I didn't have a house. I didn't have a kitchen table. I didn't have a table."

Dunno, seems to me that there's a pretty severe risk for McCain in POW-POW-POWing on Leno, of all places. McCain is already drifting dangerously close to late night comedy territory when he POW-POW-POWs in serious settings.
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Is America f**ked?

During this topsy-turvy presidential campaign my emotions have ranged from hope to depression, idealism to cynicism, happiness and joy to fear and loathing. And sometimes I went through all those emotions in just one evening in front of the TV watching the horrible media coverage. But the recurring cynical thought that rises up every so often is that Americans ... are dumb, apathetic sheep. Since you are reading a blog or blogs, the odds are that I am not referring to you! But the polls (if they are even close to being correct) show a population of low information voters who often vote against their own (and perhaps their country's) best interests.

Insulted? Then explain these numbers from Marty Kaplan at HuffingtonPost.com:

Going into the Democratic National Convention, depending on which poll you read, somewhere between 10 percent and 15 percent of American voters thought that Obama is a Muslim. A Newsweek poll found that 26 percent thought he was raised as a Muslim (untrue), and 39 percent thought he grew up going to an Islamic school in Indonesia (also untrue).

Or maybe it isn't ignorance? Kaplan says it could be misdirection:

On the other hand, "But-he's-a-Muslim!" does raise the issue of whether people lie to pollsters when they're embarrassed to say what they really think. This argument -- called "the Bradley effect," after the Election Day disappearance of the lead that Los Angeles' African-American mayor, Tom Bradley, had held until then in the gubernatorial campaign -- says that the percentages that black candidates get in polls should be discounted by the reluctance of no small number of white voters to admit that race is a factor in their choice.

Kaplan, however, isn't surprised by any of this:

I'm not shocked by Americans' ability to think untrue things. After all, under the relentless tutelage of the Bush administration and its media enablers, nearly 70 percent of the country thought that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in planning the Sept. 11 attack. In fact, if you told me that double-digit percentages of voters believe that Jewish workers were warned to stay home on Sept. 11, or that the American landing on the moon was faked, or that every one of the words of the Bible is literally and absolutely true, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

And this is where Kaplan articulates what I've been thinking so much better than I ever could:

It might make me think about the downsides of universal suffrage, the challenges facing public education, the limitations of "fact-checking" as a corrective to Swiftboating, the coarsening of public discourse, the devolution of news into entertainment, the risks to democracy of Rovian demagoguery -- stuff like that -- but it wouldn't make me question the methodology of the polls.

So, while I watch and get inspired by some of the highlights of the Democratic convention in Denver, there are other poll numbers that make me question the intelligence and sanity of a large part of the U.S. population. This is some perspective from "across the pond":

It seems incredible, but as the Democrats gather in Denver to anoint Barack Obama, America could be on course to re-elect a Republican as their President. Not just any Republican either, but a belligerent 71-year-old who can't remember how many houses he owns, would happily nuke Iran and whose answer to global warming is to drill for oil in environmentally sensitive areas off the coast of America which don't even have much oil. But according to the polls, John McCain is drawing level with Barack Obama, and even pulling ahead.

Really, America is a strange, strange country. After a disastrous and illegal war, in which 4000 American soldiers have died, in the middle of an economic crisis largely caused by the investment houses that finance the Republican party, you would have thought it almost inconceivable that the Republicans could be re-elected. Could any political brand be more toxic? Has any party in history deserved to be thrown out at an election more than the Republicans in 2008?

George W Bush has been recognised even by many neo-conservatives as the worst US President in modern history. Ten million people risk losing their homes over the next two years as a result of the credit crunch. Real wages have been declining in America for the past five years. The country is awash with credit card debt.

America's image in the world, so vibrant after 9/11, has been seriously tarnished by a series of epic foreign policy mistakes under the Republicans, the worst of which is, of course, Iraq. Yet enough American voters believe that John McCain might have the answers for him to become a serious contender. Which is scary. McCain is not an unknown quantity - he is a highly excitable politician with a notoriously short
temper, who would bring his impetuous and confrontational style into American foreign policy. With the world entering a global economic slump, and old enmities raging in Europe, John McCain as President would be like a flamethrower in a fireworks factory.

I LOVE THAT!!!

"John McCain as President would be like a flamethrower in a fireworks factory."

I feel a little bit better now ...
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Funny Money

OK, below is the video of John McCain bringing up his P.O.W. experience in response to a question about his inability to remember or even know how many homes he and Cindy own. But there is something else to note in the video. He also uses the military experience of his father-in-law to deflect the criticism. But now he has opened the door wider for people to take a close look at Cindy's father, Jim Hensley, and his divorce, his wealth and how he got it (are there ties to organized crime?).

It is a story that most of the Big Money Media is ignoring, but the New York Times hit the story hard on Saturday. Check out the entire article here:

"But the Hensley family wealth, from its rough-and-tumble origins to prominence in Arizona’s corporate world, is also the fortune that propelled John McCain into national politics. A clearer picture of that fortune emerges from a review of public records and interviews with employees, business associates, friends and relatives."

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Energizer Bunny ... keeps going and going ...

Every time John McCain or someone from his campaign does this, I will post it here:

Here is from Andrew Sullivan:

POW Watch
He can't help himself:

"I am grateful for the fact that I have a wonderful life," McCain said. "I spent some years without a kitchen table, without a chair, and I know what it's like to be blessed by the opportunities of this great nation."

Jeez. This is clinical. He's responding to middle class economic anxiety by referring to the Hanoi Hilton?

But it looks like we will be hearing and seeing a lot more about P.O.W. John McCain:

This is from Ben Smith

The POW card, cont'd
First Read quotes unnamed McCain aides suggesting that McCain's prisoner of war experience may become his first response to the attack on his having lost track of his real estate holdings — a non-sequitur, perhaps, but emotionally powerful.

"They will be prepared to show McCain's 'home' in Hanoi by using images of his cell. They claim they have not overused the POW element and insist they have 'underused it.'"

And sure enough, McCain goes there on CBS:

"I spent some years without a kitchen table, without a chair, and I know what it's like to be blessed by the opportunities of this great nation," he says in response to a question about his houses.

Ad nauseum ...

Well, this video slams back ... hey, it's just a little humor ... lighten up.



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Jed is the man!

Some of the best videos on the Web right now are being produced by this guy, Jed Lewison at the JedReport.com. Here is a devestating one about John McCain's multiple houses and his economic policies that will benefit people like him.



UPDATE:
This is another great post at JedReport.com and if the Obama/Biden campaign doesn't use this line they will miss a great opportunity.

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

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

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

Gaffe Express

As a matter of courtesy, I hate reprinting entire posts from other blogs, but this one is too good ... it's brilliant, in fact. Follow the link here and read more at this blog.

***************************************************

FOUND: John McCain - Get out of Gaffe Free Card
by tbctbc

In honor of the fact that every time McCain screws up, the McCain campaign predictably deflects the gaffe by using the fact that he was a POW 40 years ago to silence any criticism... this is the card that the McCain campaign quietly slips to the media to insure that it will not be covered:

This card may be used as an excuse for:

• Cheating on your 1st wife, to marry a a younger, richer one
• Being a major player in the Keating 5 Scandal
• Stating that you don't know about economic issues while running for president
• Being known as being "angry" - to such an extent that fellow Congressmen (from your own party) question your mental stability to be president
• Repeatedly mistaking "Shiite" for "Sunni" while at the same time claiming to be an expert on foreign policy
• Running for president while being aligned with George Bush 99% of the time, at the same time that he is the most unpopular president in the history of polling
• Egging on Russia, and giving unquestionable support for Georgia - at a time when diplomacy could diffuse the situation
• Not being able to remember the number of homes you own - cause, you know, who can remember something as tough as that?
• Thinking that someone making $4.9 million a year is still "middle class"
• Agreeing that the US will only be at its strongest when we reimplement the draft
• Stating that Americans would not pick lettuce for $50/hour (I WOULD!!)
• Having your top economic policy advisor state that the US is "a nation of whiners" in a "mental recession" cause most Americans aren't happy with the current economy
• "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb bomb Iran"
• Acknowledging that you have been in a "cone of silence" when actually you were in a car with your aids, who all had Blackberries and (I would assume) internet/radio/tv access...hmmm...
• Saying that ABBA if your favorite musical group
• Running for president - but only holding one campaign event per day
• Helping to write the campaign finance law, and breaking the rules of that law with your own campaign...
• Wearing $500 shoes, having 8-10 houses, and a wife worth $100 million - while declaring that the other candidate is elitist for like arugula...
• Plagiarizing Wikipedia articles to show your "foreign policy expertise" - and not getting called on it
• Claiming, rightfully so, that the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are agents of intolerance in the 2000 election and then actively seeking out the likes of John Hagee, who compares the Catholic Church to a prostitute and says that Hitler was doing God's work vis-a-vis the Jews.

I wondering how many of these cards he has??

A noun, a verb and P.O.W.

Well, that didn't take long. Bringing up your POW experience multiple times over the course of the past week as the primary retort to criticism has awakened some of the traditional press. The McCain campaign has been successful for a long time at convincing members of the Big Money Media that "the hero" doesn't bring up his POW background, or only does so reluctantly. That narrative seems to be weakening:

• Huffington Post: The McCain campaign--realizing this was trouble--retorted the only way they knew how: With a truly stupefying response from McCain spokesman Brian Rogers: "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," referring to the prisoner of war camp that McCain was in during the Vietnam War. Yes, you read that right. McCain justified not knowing how many houses he has by saying he was a POW in Vietnam, four decades ago. I have some things to say about this: 1. Being a POW is not an excuse for everything.
• Ana Marie Cox: "The McCain campaign's constant invocation of the candidate's POW past is weird bordering on irrational."
• Talkingpointsmemo.com: "McCain Camp Responds On Houses Gaffe: He Was A POW!
• Americablog: "McCain's housing gaffe doesn't matter because - are you ready? - he was a POW"
• Ben Smith at Politico: "McCain aides referred back to McCain's time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam in defending him from the mockery over his houses. This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," says spokesman Rogers. It does seem like they're flirting with Giuliani/9/11 territory here, in which at subject that seems utterly immune to humor, used as a first resort, suddenly becomes a running joke among your political enemies and your late night comic friends."
• You Knew This Was Coming ...by hilzoy: "It didn't take more than a few hours for McCain's people to cite his experience as a POW in response to his gaffe about his houses."

McCain's bad week is just getting better ... for the Democrats

Thank you, Bill in Portland Maine:

"And just to recap what we know about The Real John McCain:
>> He doesn’t remember how many houses he owns, and even the press can't figure out if it's 7, 8, 9, 10 or 12
>> He needs a 9-car motorcade to buy a Cappuccino at Starbucks
>> He needs to look at notecards to "remember" the price of milk
>> His household budget includes $273,000 for servants
>> He thinks $5 million is the line between the middle class and the rich
>> He thinks our economy is basically sound
>> He doesn’t think anyone would accept an offer to pick lettuce for $50 an hour
>> He plans to announce his running mate with balloons and cake on August 29 while the rest of the country is mourning the victims of hurricane Katrina on the third anniversary of its arrival.
A real man of the people---the top 0.01 percent of them, anyway. Is it possible the Republican party has found someone more clueless than George W. Bush? Now that's what I call finding a needle in a haystack."

Priceless.
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Rachel hits the Big Time!

She gets a show of her own on September 8 and from Day 1 it will probably be the smartest news show on television. She ...
is Rachel Maddow, and if you haven't seen her yet on MSNBC make sure you tune in and get to know her.

Here are some testimonials:

• Andrew Golis writes: "She, unlike almost every other political pundit on television, is rigorously fact-based, refreshingly unhackish when it comes to defending or attacking the Democratic Party, and rarely goes with easy vilifying of those with whom she disagrees."
• The Kansas City Star: "Rachel Maddow went to Stanford and won a Rhodes Scholarship. She earned a doctorate in political science at Oxford. So far so good.A couple of years ago I wondered in a column if Olbermann was the future of TV news. I’ve since realized that he’s a singular figure — part sports anchor, part “Bob and Ray Show,” part Murrow seance — and not likely to be cloned. The future of TV news, rather, now looks more like Rachel Maddow and Chuck Todd, two clever nerds who don’t believe in information overload and are fluent in irony."
• Huffington Post: "Keith Olbermann had Rachel Maddow on "Countdown" Tuesday night to celebrate and discuss the news. In the clip, Rachel said that the show will discuss politics and weird news — like stories on the Iraqi national soccer team and domestic crimes committed by naked men — and that she will remain on Air America."

Bravo to MSNBC for doing the smart thing and hiring a smart, progressive voice to complement Keith Olbermann. But they are taking some heat from concern trolls.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon writes a terrific post hitting back at the critics:

"Maddow is unquestionably one of the smartest and most incisive commentators anywhere on television -- perhaps the smartest. One would think that the presence of smart commentary in the wasteland known as "cable news" would be cause for celebration ..."

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Telling stories and lies ... the memories of John and Cindy McCain

There have already been numerous examples in the presidential campaign of candidates embellishing or fudging aspects of their life stories to boost their appeal. Some of the more famous examples are Hillary taking sniper fire and John McCain changing his football allegiances.

We have recently added John McCain adding to his POW memories and now another one on the McCain front -- this one involving Cindy. There is a lot of evidence pointing to the campaign changing this story within the last few years (actually months) to add whipped cream and a cherry on top.

"As was pointed out yesterday by the Christian Science Monitor, the McCain campaign was called out for lying about the purported urging of Cindy McCain by Mother Teresa herself to adopt two children at her orphanage back in 1991. Turns out, McCain never met or even spoke with Mother Teresa on that trip. Once confronted by the Monitor about the deception, the campaign quickly erased such claims from the website, as it did with Cindy's family recipes, which were proved to be lifted from the Food Network. But after doing some research, this deception was no careless accident, but rather another shameless and deliberate attempt by the campaign to reinvent and embellish the McCain family history in time for his 2008 presidential bid."

Some other bloggers take offense at the deception. Andrew Sullivan from the Left:

"This is the pattern: A story that shows the McCains' genuine compassion and faith is embellished over the years to make the story a little more perfect, a little more salient, a little better as a narrative. It's especially important to add these embellishments when your goal is to appeal to a fundamentalist base, when your own prickly, personal and private faith isn't very marketable. And when your adopted daughter is Bangladeshi, and when that fact has been disgracefully used against you by the Bush machine in 2000, and when some fringes of your base get queasy about multi-racial families, what better way to describe the adoption than as something Mother Teresa herself "implored" you to do? More interesting: the first actual reports of this event do not mention this fact. They are added later."

And from the Right:

"Cindy McCain Should Know Better: I hate to admit it, but Cindy McCain appears to have been caught telling an embarrassing untruth about how she came to adopt her daughter. Originally, she was claiming that Mother Theresa personally convinced her to adopt her daughter Bridget. This is disappointing, not just because it's apparently untrue that Cindy McCain spoke to Mother Theresa, but because it makes you scratch your head. The McCains adopted a little girl from overseas. That's an amazing, incredibly compassionate thing to do. Why embellish a story like that? Granted, "fish stories" aren't necessarily unusual. People will add a little detail here or there to make a story better, but it doesn't look good when a politician does it -- and since John McCain has repeated the story, it looks like Mr. "Straight Talk" is going to end up having to explain on the campaign trail why he and his wife fudged a story about something as intimate as the circumstances under which they came to adopt their own daughter. They should know better than that."

They cheapen their story with crap like this.
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It's time to hit back ...

Here are some new vids to check out.



And this one ...

Baracky II

This is a fun, well-made video:

Military Matters

Looks like the troops are voting with their wallets:

"Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain."

Tough, Hard Hitting Anti-McCain Ad

Squirrel Finds Nut

Here is a great post by Time's Joe Klein:

But there is no excuse for what the McCain campaign is doing on the "putting America first" front. There is no way to balance it, or explain it other than as evidence of a severe character defect on the part of the candidate who allows it to be used. There is a straight up argument to be had in this election: McCain has a vastly different view from Obama about foreign policy, taxation, health care, government action...you name it. He has lots of experience; it is always shocking to remember that this time four years ago, Barack Obama was still in the Illinois State Legislature. Apparently, though, McCain isn't confident that conservative policies and personal experience can win, given the ruinous state of the nation after eight years of Bush. So he has made a fateful decision: he has personally impugned Obama's patriotism and allows his surrogates to continue to do that. By doing so, he has allied himself with those who smeared him, his wife, his daughter Bridget, in 2000. Those tactics won George Bush a primary--and a nomination. But they proved a form of slow-acting spiritual poison, rotting the core of the Bush presidency. We'll see if the public decides to acquiesce in sleaze in 2008, and what sort of presidency--what sort of country--that will produce.

Read the whole thing.

Great Moments In Olympic History Part III

Great Moments In Olympic History Part II

Great Moments In Olympic History Part I

Warmongers Among Us!

The situation between Georgia and Russia is very serious, as you know. But much of what you may be seeing or reading in the Big Money Media is being pushed by the same neocons and wingnuts who got us into the Iraq mess ... and they apparently are partially responsible for emboldening the Georgian president to make his "bold" and stupid move against the Big Bear.

And anyone who says that McCain is showing his strength in foregn policy isn't paying attention. McCain is a bigger hawk that George Bush has ever been. McCain is much more aligned with the Dick Cheney school of diplomacy, which is speak loud and threaten with a big whiffle ball bat. Thanks to 7+ years of Bush/Cheney rule, we have no leverage to stop anything Russia is doing and the only thing left would be direct action by our military. And McCain, Cheney and others would love another war, or two, or three.

Check out this article by Gregory Djerejian at The Belgravia Dispatch blog:

"Meantime, a Georgian soldier tells a U.S. reporter in the same piece: "Write exactly what I say. Over the past few years, I lived in a democratic society. I was happy. And now America and the European Union are spitting on us." They are, aren't they? They had no business making the cheap promises and representations that were made. No business on practical policy grounds. No business on strategic grounds (though I guess it got Rummy another flag, near the Salvadorans, say, for the Mesopotamian "coalition of the willing"). And now our promises are unraveling and nakedly revealed for the sorry lies and crap policy they are, with the emperor revealed to have no clothes, yet again. This is what our foreign policy mandarins masquerade about as they play policy-making, in their Washington work-stations. It's, yes, worse than a crime, rather a sad, pitiable blunder."

Maybe McCain does not equal Bush. He may be much worse.
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The title says it all.

TPMtv: Dazed and Confused

Bastards!

From ThinkProgress.org:

• Flashback: Seven years ago today, Bush received ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.’ memo.

Digby adds this:

Seven years ago today:
An unnamed CIA briefer ... flew to Bush's Texas ranch during the scary summer of 2001, amid a flurry of reports of a pending al-Qaeda attack, to call the president's attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US."
Bush reportedly heard the briefer out and replied:
"All right. You've covered your ass, now."
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I care!

In his post, Phoenix Broiling: Apocalypse Now or Later?, Jon Talton has some good memories of growing up in the Valley many years ago. It was a much more enjoyable and tolerable place to spend a summer.

"The Republic devoted a magisterial nine sentences today to the fact that Phoenix is on track to meet or exceed last year's record 32 days of 110 degrees or above.
Not that anybody living there now cares, but as late as the 1960s, the Salt River Valley had hard frosts in the winter (thus, far fewer mosquitoes, no West Nile virus). We went back to school in September, in un-air conditioned classrooms, because it was cooling down enough to open the windows. Night-time cooling in summer was significant, and the summers were not as hot, nor did they last as long, as now. The idea of more than a month of 110-and-above would have seemed frighteningly absurd.
Contrary to the mantra of "it's a desert, shut up about the heat!," these man-made changes in the Phoenix weather are a Big Deal. So far, they are mostly a local event, caused by the massive loss of agriculture and gargantuan increase in paved sprawl. Global warming's consequences haven't really started to kick in.
What happens then?"

Read his post at Rogue Columnist.
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The Mocking Game

Greg Sargent at TMP Election Central notes that "the realm of mockery being one where the GOP has enjoyed a distinct advantage in the last two presidential elections."
Remember Al Gore and earth tones, or the kiss, or inventing the Internet?
Remember John Kerry and windsurfing, or purple heart bandaids?
Well, they have been trying it again with Barack Obama and ... tire gauges.
And, as usual, they are wrong on the facts. But that isn't the point. The goal is to mock and deflate Obama by ridiculing him as not being serious. But it looks like they might have misjudged this one badly, because their ridicule is making them look petty and out of touch.
Did you know one of your best weapons in the war on gas prices was a tire gauge?

"Our friends at Politifact have also looked into Sen. Barack Obama's claim about tire inflation and found it to be true -- not merely that car tune-ups and proper tire inflation will save millions of barrels of oil per year, but that it will save more energy than new off shore drilling would yield.

...such measures are serious. Why the Republicans are mocking them at a time of energy crisis seems bizarre."

Keith Olbermann has more here:



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Sums it up ...

From Altercation:

Name: David Shaffer
Hometown: Harleysville, PA

In thinking about all the nonsensical criticism going on lately about Obama (he's too young, he's too 'exotic', he's too thin, ad nauseam), I have finally figured out the fundamental difference between the campaigns.

The McCain campaign is counting on our fear; the Obama campaign is counting on our courage.

Let's hope America finds its backbone in November.
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Boiled My Brain

Well, I gave the family a bit of a scare this past weekend.
I woke up early Saturday morning and started doing yard work to get ready for a pool party and family gathering later in the day. Even though I started early, I'm sure the temp was near triple digits, and as the morning wore on it got much hotter and more humid. But I kept going. I did try to rest every so often and drink some water in the shade or inside the house. But I guess I didn't get enough fluids into my system.
Anyway, I finished up after several hours and as I got ready to take a cool shower I could tell that I overdid it. But I soon felt a little better, went grocery shoping and got ready to BBQ. But, the problem is I forgot to keep drinking water. After working over the hot grill preparing burgers and hot dogs we all sat down to eat and socialize. I started feeling like crap soon after that, and two hours later I still was hurting. Reluctantly, I had Sharyn take me to the hospital. That was Saturday night at about 8 p.m.
It looks like I didn't get full blown heatstroke, but I was dehydrated enough to stress out my body to near the breaking point. They pumped me full of fluids, reloaded my electrolytes, and ran some tests on my heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and other organs (all the results were good news). I started feeling good about 36 hours after I got there, and they let me go home at 4:30 p.m. Monday.
I learned a few things along the way.

• One, the staff at Chandler Regional Hospital is excellent! The nurses were very friendly, helpful and professional (a big shout out to Holly for her excellent care!). The doctors were great, and so was everyone else, from the meal delivery staff to the patient transport crews.
• Two, my family knows how to rally around each other. I experienced a tremendous amount of concern and love from everyone. Sharyn, Hannah and Ryan, mom, JoAnne, Carrie, they all came to my side. I also heard from Jay, Kenny, Maddy & Howard, Rich, Steven, and friends from work. I'm sorry they had to worry so much, but I am glad to know how much they care.
• Three, you would think I would know better after living in the desert my entire life, but you can never drink enough water when you are working in the summer heat. I got careless and it cost me. I think I'm done working in the yard this summer, let the damn weeds grow!
• Four, it is too damn hot here!

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