A Blue View

GOP Fiscal Hypocrisy On Taxes

In today's NY Times, Bruce Bartlett, an economist who has held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul, defended  Republicans opposed to extending the payroll tax cut that helps working people.

Here's Bartlett's second argument against extending the payroll tax cut:

The payroll tax cut helps many workers who have no need for it and will only pocket the tax savings.

How many people who agree with this line of reasoning will still agree when it is applied to extending the Bush tax cuts do you think?

The Bush tax cuts help many wealthy people who have no need for it and will only pocket the tax savings.

Close to zero I bet.

Grandma Sarah Palin

The dancing babies made me laugh ...

New Ad Suggestion For McCain

From Mike Murphy:

Clothes for Gov. Palin? $150,000.

Time machine to go back two months to late August and ask what the Hell were Schmidt and Davis thinking when they cooked up this idea and sold it to McCain? Priceless.

Statements like this are probably why McCain has "cut off all communication" with his former campaign chair.

"I'd like my money back"

From the Politico:

The Republican National Committee’s $150,000 investment in Sarah Palin’s wardrobe has prompted some teeth gnashing among the party’s big donors about its political sensibility and a feisty debate among campaign finance specialists about its legality.

“As a Republican Eagle and a maxed-out contributor to McCain’s general campaign, I’d like my money back – he can still have my vote,” complained one irate donor on Tuesday.

“I’m not one who says a candidate shouldn’t wear fine clothes,” he added. “I’d just like to think they were successful enough in the private sector to have afforded their wardrobe with their own money, not the party’s or the campaign’s, which is really our money as contributors.”

Another big donor was sympathetic to the effort, but critical of the execution.

Hockey Mom Facade "Crumbles"

From the NY Times {before & after photos here}:

Sarah Palin’s wardrobe joined the ranks of symbolic political excess on Wednesday, alongside John McCain’s multiple houses and John Edwards’s $400 haircut, as Republicans expressed fear that weeks of tailoring Ms. Palin as an average “hockey mom” would fray amid revelations that the Republican Party outfitted her with expensive clothing from high-end stores ...

Such an image is unhelpful at this late stage of the general election, Republicans said, especially when many families are experiencing economic pain, and when the image applies to a candidate, like Ms. Palin, who has run for office in part on her appeal as an outdoors enthusiast and former small-town mayor who scorns pretensions.

“It looks like nobody with a political antenna was working on this,” said Ed Rollins, a Republican political consultant who ran President Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign in 1984. “It just undercuts Palin’s whole image as a hockey mom, a ‘one-of-us’ kind of candidate” ...

Republican officials said all the clothes would be given to charity after the campaign is over. If Ms. Palin kept the clothes, the $150,000 would have to be taxed as income, tax experts said.

Had the purchases been made by the McCain campaign, it would be a conversion of campaign money into personal use, which is prohibited. The same rule does not apply to money from party committees.

“The R.N.C. cleverly used the party committee’s money to avoid the liability that would have occurred if campaigns funds were used,” said Kenneth Gross, a lawyer who is an expert in campaign finance.

I think Ed Rollins was on to something as the chance to go after hypocrisy is just so alluring:

The Bogus Acorn Issue

Watch this video and then forward this post to anyone you think might be falling for this Republican, voter suppression, smear campaign:

Curious about the man behind these Brave New Films videos? Then watch this Stephen Colbert interview with Robert Greenwald.

Joe Takes Over McCain Campaign

From Eve Fairbanks:

It can’t be denied Joe the Plumber has ignited some serious infatuation among McCainiacs. The signs at today’s big McCain rally in Virginia worshipped the idea of Joe:

“Save Joe”
“Our Dad Is Joe”
“Joe the Homeowner”
“Phil the Bricklayer”
“Rose the Teacher”
“The Audacity of Joe’s Hope in the American Dream”

Looking out on the crimson-clad crowd – the campaign had asked supporters to wear red to telegraph Virginia’s true colors – it was striking how much Joe signs had replaced Sarah Palin signs, which until this week were the hottest must-have accessory at a McCain rally. After the convention, it was all about the “Pitbull With Lipstick” buttons, but today, “I Am Joe the Plumber” stickers had largely taken their place. I guess Joe the Plumber is the X-Box to Sarah Palin’s Furby.

Palin and Joe paraphernalia is so interchangeable because the two of them play the exact same role in the populist drama the McCain campaign wants to mount: the no-bullshit, regular American guy/gal who needs to be protected from the vicious elitists by other regular Americans. (Michelle wrote a great post getting into the Palin/Joe similarities in more detail, if you missed it.)

Unfortunately for McCain, it turned out that Palin was less appealing to regular Americans – who, I suppose, have bigger problems in their lives than the condescension of the New York Times – than to red-meat-cravers who feed on a sense of two-Americas resentment. I suspect this’ll be true of Joe, too. As much as he’s highlighting the content of Joe’s economic concerns, McCain is willingly allowing Joe to be turned into a character in the culture wars: “As Joe has now reminded us all, America didn't become the greatest nation on earth by giving our money to the government to ‘spread the wealth around,’” he sneered at the rally; in response, a detachment of supporters near the press riser turned towards the gathered representatives of the elitist liberal media and shouted anti-communist slogans like “Communists go home!”

Another reason the Joe fad shouldn’t be too reassuring to Republicans? The continuing popularity of secondary figures within the McCain campaign reflects how little excitement its central figure inspires. Can you imagine how depressing it would be if people showed up to Obama rallies carrying 2-to-1 Biden signs and shouting about, oh, say, Sierra the Barista? I mean, seriously, Republicans are less interested in their war-hero nominee than in an anonymous plumber?

When Obama Does It, It's Socialism, When McCain Does It, It's Necessary

John McCain claims Obama is a socialist for wanting to provide refundable tax credits to the working poor & middle class.  Yet his health care plan does EXACTLY the same thing.  In this Fox News Sunday clip, he explains why that he isn't a socialist because people need the health insurance (which must mean he doesn't think they need the tax cut).  Besides being astoundingly craven and hypocritical, isn't the notion of health care being a right kinda socialist too?

Here's Joe Klein's succinct skewering of McCain:

McCain accuses Obama of socialism, even though his own health care tax credit is refundable--and therefore a distribution of wealth downward...Of course, McCain has been on the record for months--years, actually--in favor of redistributing wealth...upward, toward the wealthy, on the theory that it will "trickle down."

McCain Confuses Noam Scheiber (& Everyone Else)

Noam:

So the bailout deal collapses and McCain is headed to ... Iowa?

I'm confused. I assumed the "country-first" move would be to suspend his campaign all over again and hunker down in Washington till we worked things out.

It wouldn't even be that hard. McCain can find more than half the votes we need among his home-state colleagues in the House, all of whom voted against the deal.

Palin Got Zoning Aid, Gifts In Wasilla

From the Anchorage Daily News:

Though Sarah Palin depicts herself as a pit bull fighting good-old-boy politics, in her years as mayor she and her friends received special benefits more typical of small-town politics as usual, an Associated Press investigation shows.

When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception -- and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire hazard.

She gladly accepted gifts from merchants: A free "awesome facial" she raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The "absolutely gorgeous flowers" she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon to take home.

She also stepped in to help friends or neighbors with City Hall dealings. She asked the City Council to add a friend to the list of speakers at a 2002 meeting -- and then the friend got up and asked them to give his radio station advertising business.

That year, records show, she tried to help a neighbor and political contributor fighting City Hall over his small lakeside development. Palin wanted the city to refund some of the man's fees, but the city attorney told the mayor she didn't have the authority.

Palin claims she has more executive experience than her opponent and the two presidential candidates, but most of those years were spent running a city with a population of less than 7,000.

Some of her first actions after being elected mayor in 1996 raised possible ethical red flags: She cast the tie-breaking vote to propose a tax exemption on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one, and backed the city's repeal of all taxes a year later on planes, snowmachines and other personal property. She also asked the City Council to consider looser rules for snowmachine races. Palin and her husband, Todd, a champion racer, co-owned a snowmachine store at the time.

Palin often told the City Council of her personal involvement in such issues, but that didn't stop her from pressing them, according to minutes of council meetings.

Keene Sentinel Editorial: Suspension

Saturday's editorial in this NH paper:

We have decided to suspend our editorial activities today so we can adequately ponder the implications of the economic bailout program.

Next McCain Stunt? A Shotgun Wedding?

From the UK's Timesonline:

Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”

How McCain Screwed Up The Bail Out Plan

Jonathan Weismann has an excellent, seemingly impartial account in the Wash Post of the specific impact McCain had on the bail out negotiations ... you know, when he "suspended" his campaign to "focus" on the economic crisis and made it all worse:

McCain listened, then, with Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), he burst into the Senate Republican policy luncheon. Over a Tex-Mex buffet, Sens. Robert F. Bennett (Utah) and Judd Gregg (N.H.) had been explaining the contours of a deal just reached. House Republicans were not buying it. Then McCain spoke.

"I appreciate what you've done here, but I'm not going to sign on to a deal just to sign the deal," McCain told the gathering, according to Graham and confirmed by multiple Senate GOP aides. "Just like Iraq, I'm not afraid to go it alone if I need to."

For a moment, as Graham described it, "you could hear a pin drop. It was just unbelievable." Then pandemonium. By the time the meeting broke up, the agreement touted just hours before -- one that Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), the No. 3 GOP leader, estimated would be supported by more than 40 Senate Republicans -- was in shambles ...

McCain also spoke in the starkly personal terms of a presidential candidate in trouble: "You all put me on the hook for $700 billion," he told his colleagues, according to an aide familiar with the lunch.

Btw, the Post also provides a nice account as to why the House Republican's insurance plan will not work:

Banks should have to pony up money for a new federally administered insurance program, like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Banks suffering from mortgage defaults would then be able to draw funds from the insurance pool to remain solvent.

It was not a new idea, White House and Treasury officials said. Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke had considered a similar option and rejected it. For one thing, asking banks teetering on the edge of bankruptcy to pay into the insurance fund would be like asking a patient facing heart surgery to buy health insurance before being wheeled into the operating room. The banks would be too weak to pay, and the cost of the insurance would be so high, drawing on the fund after a round of mortgage foreclosures would merely be repaying the banks what they had paid in. 

Besides, one Treasury official said, it would do nothing to address the problem at hand. Banks would have no more money than they do now to lend. And they would still be holding the bad assets that are making it impossible for them to borrow.

The Media Is Being Gullible In Falling For McCain's "Suspension"

From David Kurtz:

Jeffrey Toobin threw a monkey wrench into the media narrative that persists in crediting John McCain with having "suspended" his campaign:

Late Update: The Obama camp tells TPM Election Central that the McCain campaign is directing TV stations across the country to start airing its ads again beginning Saturday, which would mean McCain will be off the air all day Friday only. It also suggests that McCain isn't waiting until the bailout plan is approved to resume campaigning.

Leadership: Examples Of Its Presence & Absence

I cannot think of a better example of rational, adult, post-partisan leadership than this 12 minute, impromptu press conference Obama had yesterday. I was particularly struck by the section at the end where Obama said there were things he doesn't like about the bailout bill as well as other things he wanted in it, but for the sake of the economy, he's willing to fight for those things in a subsequent bill so that this one can be quickly passed.

Unlike the childish House Republicans who, at the last minute, are willing to kill a critical bill and risk tanking the economy because they haven't gotten their way.  And craven McCain who is doing nothing other than trying to walk the tightrope between conservatives and doing the right thing, a tightrope he himself impetuously created (McCain: "I would rather wreck an economy than lose an election").

People Who Live In Glass Houses ...

From Noam Scheiber:

Rick Davis Learned A Lesson Today

Namely: If you're GOP operative with a lucrative lobbying business, you probably want to lay off attacking a Democrat for connections to a firm that skews Democratic. It just never ends well.

To wit:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure undercuts a statement by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House. ...

On Sunday, in an interview with CNBC and The New York Times, Mr. McCain responded to a question about Mr. Davis’s role in the advocacy group through 2005 by saying that his campaign manager “has had nothing to do with it since, and I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.”

Such assertions, along with McCain campaign television ads tying Mr. Obama to former Fannie Mae chiefs, have riled current and former officials of the two companies and provoked them to volunteer rebuttals. The two officials with direct knowledge of Freddie Mac’s post-2005 contract with Mr. Davis spoke on condition of anonymity. Four other outside consultants, three Democrats and a Republican also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the arrangement was widely known among people involved in Freddie Mac’s lobbying efforts.

Undercutting Is The New Lying

From the NY Times:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure undercuts a remark by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the two people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than to speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of his close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House ...

Mr. McCain’s campaign has been attacking Mr. Obama for ties to former officials of the mortgage giants, both of which have a long history of cultivating Democratic and Republican allies alike to fend off efforts to restrict their activities. Mr. McCain has been running a television advertisement suggesting that Mr. Obama takes advice on housing issues from Franklin D. Raines, former chief executive of Fannie Mae, a contention denied by Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign.

McCain’s Political Style

An insightful post from Daniel Larison:

McCain exploits the concept of honor and frames every disagreement in terms of honor and dishonor, so it is particularly revealing that he is willing to launch dishonest and dishonorable attacks, because this drives home how much his concept of honor is intertwined with his own visceral reactions to opponents and with his self-interest. 

Contrary to the conventional pundit interpretation that McCain has “sold his soul” and abandoned his once-honorable former self, the thing to understand about McCain’s lies in this campaign is that he invests these misrepresentations with his utter contempt for his opponents.  From McCain’s perspective, this infusion of contempt seems to transform shoddy, baseless attacks that disgrace him into indictments of the other politicians (e.g., Romney wants to surrender in Iraq, Obama would rather lose a war than lose an election). 

If McCain thinks he is always honorable, resistance to him and his ideas must ultimately be villainous and vicious, and we have seen him deploy his perverse, solipsistic ends-justify-the-means concept of honor against Romney and now against Obama.  McCain’s admirers have largely missed this either because they happened to agree with McCain on policy or because they have mistaken his language of honor and principle to refer to the meanings that they attach to these terms. 

In any public confrontation that McCain has, he strives to show that he has kept faith with the public and his opponents have betrayed the public trust.  This isn’t because McCain is actually some devoted servant of the public interest, but because he has an irrepressible self-righteous streak that he thinks permits him to impugn the integrity of anyone who gets on his nerves or gets in his way.  Hence it was not enough for him to find fault with action or inaction by the SEC–Chris Cox must have betrayed the public trust.  Because McCain’s views are visceral, not intellectual, and he is not interested in policy detail, everything is a morality play, and it goes without saying that he thinks he is the hero.  

As he said countless times during the primaries, he was not interested in winning “in the worst way,” and there were things that he was not going to compromise in the process.  This was one reason why many misguided people believed that an Obama v. McCain election would be a high-minded, respect-filled affair, and it is why many of his former admirers have begun lamenting the “changed” McCain.  Because both were basing their candidacies on biography and character to such a great degree, I was sure that the campaign would get quite nasty, and so it has.  The important thing about McCain’s lying about Obama and his positions, which he has been doing on and off for months, is not that it marks some great break with a previously honorable campaign style, but that it reveals the completely opportunistic approach to campaigning–and policymaking, for that matter–that McCain has embraced his entire career.     

'Aristocrats for McCain' Founder Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild

Remember the millionaire who married a much older billionaire, is a creme de la creme socialite in London and criticized Obama for being elitest (here and here)? Watch Campbell Brown as she does not let this hypocritical, self-important jerk get off the hook.  Also note how egalitarian de Rothschild talks about "rednecks" at the end.

Here is The Sleuth's Mary Ann Aker's take:

"Barack Obama went and called the people who have guns and cling to their religion bitter," de Rothschild told CNN's Campbell Brown. "The people out - who are the rednecks or whatever - are bitter."

... When, do you suppose, was the last time Lady de Rothschild knocked back a few Pabst Blue Ribbons with a redneck, perhaps over NASCAR or wrestling?

The GOP presidential campaign made much ado this week over the New Jersey-born Baroness for Hillary crossing over to become an Aristocrat for McCain - in the midst, of course, of the nation's worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression, and as both McCain and Obama are desperately trying to woo middle-class voters hit hardest by the ongoing credit crisis. But hey, far be it from the Sleuth to judge when a presidential candidate should roll out the red carpet for a baroness embracing him with open arms and purse.

Lady de Rothschild's decision to back McCain may have had less to do with loyalty to Hillary than it did in joining the rest of the aristocratic clan she married into.

The Rothschilds lent their name and historic property for a fundraiser held for McCain back in March at the storied Spencer House, which is owned by the famous banking family of England. (Mrs. de Rothschild's husband, Sir Evelyn Rothschild, recently sold his stake in the family banking empire, for a reported $600 million.)

Lady de Rothschild - "the flashiest hostess in London," as Portfolio magazine calls her - says she'll be spending much of her time between now and Election Day campaigning for McCain.

But something tells us we probably won't be seeing as much of milady as she thinks we will. Would she really be the most appealing of McCain surrogates to all those "rednecks" clinging to their 401k plans?

AP: "McCain Has 2 Faces"

As the "he is lying" meme is starting to taking hold, an interesting variant is now appearing: McCain is two faced. First, here it is on ThinkProgress (which, as a pinko lefty blog, can generally be ignored):

John McCain Vs. John McCain On Regulation

In the last few days, the U.S. financial system has been thrown into turmoil by the failure of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, the troubles of insurance giant AIG, and the corresponding drop in the stock market.

This evidently sparked a debate regarding government regulation of the financial markets within the McCain campaign, and McCain just can’t decide which way he wants to have it.

Here is a look at McCain’s back-and-forth on regulation during the last 24 hours:

- Deregulation: McCain issued a statement Monday morning saying that “we cannot tolerate a system that handicaps our markets and our banks.”

- Regulation: McCain’s campaign then put out an ad calling for “tougher rules on Wall Street.”

- Deregulation: This morning, on NBC’s Today Show, McCain said, “Of course, I don’t like excessive and unnecessary government regulation.”

- Regulation: Then, on CBS’s The Early Show, McCain said, “Do I believe in excess government regulation? Yes.”

- Both: On CNBC’s Squawk Box, McCain said, “We don’t want to burden average citizens with over-regulation and government bureaucracy…And I’m proud to be a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, who said, ‘unfettered capitalism leads to corruption,’ and we’ve got to fix this.”

The video of McCain’s morning show flip-flop is available ... here.

But, here it is an an AP story that'll be reprinted all across America:

McCain has 2 faces: Washington in- and outsider

John McCain embraces and expels Washington like an accordion player belting out a song. Squeeze in and he touts his vast knowledge of the capital city. Draw out and he casts himself a reformer bent on changing its ways.

It's a remarkable dichotomy echoed throughout the Republican establishment, as a party that's held the White House for the past eight years tries to retain its grip in what has shaped up as a change election ...

This time around, though, McCain is projecting a dual image: the outside insider. A 25-year veteran of the House and Senate, a white man like all the rest of the country's presidents to date, McCain is trying to fend off a 44-year-old, first-term senator angling to become the first black to reach the Oval Office.

It's prompted almost melodic speechmaking and statements.

Squeeze in, and he's the new capital tour guide for his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. "I can't wait to introduce her to Washington, D.C. I can't wait," he said to cheers Monday in Jacksonville.

Draw out, and he's never set foot in the city himself. "The word's going out, my friends: The old-boy network, the pork-barrelers, the earmarkers, my friends, the word is, `Change is coming,'" McCain said. "There's two mavericks coming to Washington, and we're going to shake it up."

Squeeze in, and he's got the Washington skill set needed to right the country's Wall Street woes. "I was the chairman on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation for six years," he told reporters aboard his "Straight Talk Express" campaign bus amid Monday's market meltdown. "That's the committee that oversights our economy — transportation, science, telecommunications, airlines — all of the factors that drive our economy."

Draw out, and he distances himself from the administration of the Republican president who has endorsed him. "Too many firms on Wall Street have been able to count on casual oversight by regulatory agencies in Washington. And there are so many of those regulators that the responsibility for oversight is scattered, unfocused and ineffective," he told a rally crowd Tuesday in Tampa, Fla.

There are even times when McCain does both — squeeze in and draw out — in the same thought.

It sounds the note he hopes voters will hear on Election Day, that of the experienced newcomer.

"I know how to fix it. I know how to fix the corruption," he said of the nation's economic problems during an appearance Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show. "I've been fighting it the whole time I've been in Congress."

CNN Fact Checks McCain: Verdict He's Not Telling Truth

Another example of McCain's "base" turning on him ... a pretty brutal, and comprehensive, assessment of McCain & Palin's serial lying:

McCain Is Even Lying In Spanish!

From the NY Times Editorial Board:

Senator John McCain’s truth-deficient campaign hit another low last Friday with a fraudulent new ad, this time about immigration.

The ad, in Spanish, accuses Senator Barack Obama and his Congressional allies of killing immigration reform.

It’s a gross distortion.

Here is an English translation:

Announcer: Obama and his Congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they?

The press reports that their efforts were “poison pills” that made immigration reform fail.

The result:

No guest worker program.

No path to citizenship.

No secure borders.

No reform.

Is that being on our side?

Obama and his Congressional allies ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to lead.

John McCain: I’m John McCain and I approve this message.

Block immigration reform? The Democrats?

Mr. Obama opposing a path to citizenship?

Welcome to the night-is-day, down-is-up, world of the McCain campaign.

The Times then goes on to give a detailed history of the Senate immigration bill.

New MoveOn Ad

"My Friends"

McCain's Fantasy War On Earmarks

Since "reforming earmarks" seems to be the main "reform" McCain claims he'll bring to Washington, I thought reviving this Wash Post Fact Checker column from May was a good idea. What does it say that on the policy prescription McCain talks the most about on the campaign trail, that on the principal example he offers as to how he's going to reform Washington, McCain earned a rare, 4 Pinocchios' from the Post?

Portland, OR, May 12, 2008.

"I can eliminate $100 billion of wasteful and earmark spending immediately--35 billion in big spending bills in the last two years, and another 65 billion that has already been made a permanent part of the budget."
--John McCain, NPR All Things Considered, April 23, 2008.

John McCain boasts that he can save $100 billion a year "immediately" by eliminating the so-called earmarks that legislators attach to spending bills to finance pet projects, usually in their home state. But he has refused to say exactly which projects he would cut, and his estimates of the amount of money that is being spent on earmarks have been challenged by independent experts.

The Facts: The Arizona senator is promising to balance the budget by the end of his first term, while simultaneously extending the George W. Bush tax cuts, introducing billions of dollars of new tax cuts of his own, and remaining in Iraq as long as is necessary to stabilize that country. Asked how this miracle will be accomplished, McCain told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News This Week on April 20 that he could come up with $100 billion "tomorrow" by vetoing pork-barrel spending bills.

Here's $100 billion right here for you, George. Two years in a row, the last two years, the president of the United States has signed into law two big spending, pork barrel-laden bills with $35 billion (in earmarks). In the years before that, $65 billion. You do away with those, there's $100 billion right before you look at any agency.

Pouff! $100 billion in taxpayer money! Saved! Just like that! With a flick of the presidential veto pen!

There are a number of problems with this magical budgetary balancing act. First of all, the suspiciously round $100 billion figure is largely a figment of the McCain campaign's imagination. I have not been able to find a single independent budget expert to vouch for it. McCain's economics adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, will not say how the campaign arrived at the figure, other than that it is an extrapolation from various studies ...

The Politics Of Resentment

All Of A Sudden, McCain Is For Regulation

Ignoring (or lying about) his decades in Congress, McCain is now all for government regulation. From the NY Times:

Speaking in Florida, [McCain] said that the economy’s underlying fundamentals remained strong but were being threatened “because of the greed by some based in Wall Street and we have got to fix it.”

But his record on the issue, and the views of those he has always cited as his most influential advisers, suggest that he has never departed in any major way from his party’s embrace of deregulation and relying more on market forces than on the government to exert discipline.

While Mr. McCain has cited the need for additional oversight when it comes to specific situations, like the mortgage problems behind the current shocks on Wall Street, he has consistently characterized himself as fundamentally a deregulator and he has no history prior to the presidential campaign of advocating steps to tighten standards on investment firms.

He has often taken his lead on financial issues from two outspoken advocates of free market approaches, former Senator Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman. Individuals associated with Merrill Lynch, which sold itself to Bank of America in the market upheaval of the past weekend, have given his presidential campaign nearly $300,000, making them Mr. McCain’s largest contributor, collectively ...

Mr. McCain’s reaction suggests how the pendulum has swung to cast government regulation in a more favorable political light as the economy has suffered additional blows and how he is scrambling to adjust. While he has few footprints on economic issues in more than a quarter century in Congress, Mr. McCain has always been in his party’s mainstream on the issue.

In early 1995, after Republicans had taken control of Congress, Mr. McCain promoted a moratorium on federal regulations of all kinds. He was quoted as saying that excessive regulations were “destroying the American family, the American dream” and voters “want these regulations stopped.” The moratorium measure was unsuccessful.

“I’m always for less regulation,” he told The Wall Street Journal last March, “but I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight” in situations like the subprime lending crisis, the problem that has cascaded through Wall Street this year. He concluded, “but I am fundamentally a deregulator.”

Later that month, he gave a speech on the housing crisis in which he called for less regulation, saying, “Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.”

A New Meme Has Taken Hold: McCain Lies

Six days ago I asked if A New Meme Is Taking Hold? as a result of of McCain's serial lying.  Today, Marc Ambinder has officially pronounced it:

The Press Has Turned -- The press has decided that McCain's distortions are more consequential than Obama's distortions, and they are calling McCain out for them. A "narrative" has been created. This turn has been accompanied by cheers from the pundit class that Obama has gotten meaner.  Conservative activists may retrench.

With all due respect to Marc, this interview between Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and the McCain campaign spokesman is proof that something fundamental has changed in the press.  It is amazing to watch as she subjects Tucker Bounds to persistent, fairly tough questioning about Obama's tax record:

Now we just have to let a little time pass for all this to percolate with the American public. Then we can see if McCain Made A Strategic, Maybe Fatal, Mistake: Taking His Eye Off The Electoral Prize (independents who don't like this mud slinging).

PS: In the same post, Marc makes two other points worth repeating:

Sarah Palin Needs Practice -- America's gut reaction to Sarah Palin has been positive, and so her stumbles during the Charlie Gibson interview might not really settle in.  Forget the Bush doctrine: did Palin's preppers really not give her a crisp answer about how a McCain administration would differ from a Bush administration?  Her knowledge of policy seemed to be an inch deep, making even Republicans even inside the McCain campaign nervous.

She did not come off as a credible vice president. The McCain campaign knows it, despite their spin, and the murder boards will continue ...

Obama Doesn't Like Playing Mean -- When Obama is commanded to roll in the mud, he seems uncomfortable, annoyed and unsure of itself. And it doesn't usually work, because people pick up on his mixed internal dialogue. Now -- does that mean his campaign hasn't attacked McCain? Course not. They went after his age last week. It just means that Obama isn't comfortable being the heavy.  Today, Joe Biden debuts a new speech in Michigan. It'll be heavy.

Even Rove Says McCain Is Lying

What does it say about a campaign that even Karl Rove thinks is going too far?

Drip, Drip, Drip ... The Lies Are Starting To Catch Up With Them

It now appears Palin never actually visited Iraq on that "trip of a lifetime".  That, plus some other now unraveling lies, as reported by the Wash Post:

Aides to Gov. Sarah Palin spent Saturday scrambling to explain details of her only trip outside North America in the wake of a report that that trip did not include travel into Iraq, as the McCain-Palin campaign had initially claimed.

Palin made an official visit to see Alaskan troops in Kuwait in July of 2007. There, she made a stop at a border crossing with Iraq on July 25, according to the Boston Globe, but did not go further into the country. "Sarah Palin's visit to Iraq in 2007 consisted of a brief stop at a border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait, the vice presidential candidate's campaign said yesterday, in the second official revision of her only trip outside North America," the Globe's Bryan Bender wrote, adding, later in his story: "[C]ampaign aides and National Guard officials in Alaska said by telephone yesterday that she did not venture beyond the Kuwait-Iraq border."

Lieutenant Colonel Dave Osborn, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 207th Infantry of the Alaska National Guard told the Globe she did not venture into Iraq. "You have to have permission to go into a lot of areas, and [the crossing] is where her permissions were," he said.

Late Saturday, a Palin spokeswoman provided yet a third revision to the story, stating that the Alaska governor briefly traveled a quarter of a mile across the border into Iraqi territory at the crossing point.

"Last summer, Governor Palin traveled to Kuwait where she visited Alaskan National Guard troops deployed to the war in Iraq at Camp Arifjen. While she was there she traveled to the K Crossing on the Kuwait-Iraq border, and a quarter mile into Iraq," spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said. "According to the General who traveled with her, while she was there she presided over a re-enlistment ceremony of an Alaskan National Guard soldier ...

Earlier, the campaign also said she had been to Ireland, but that turned out to have been a refueling stop on the same July trip. McCain aides have expressed indignation at questions about her slim foreign travel.

In her ABC interview, Palin said she had also been to Canada and to Mexico, where her advisers said she went on vacation.

Obama aides described the revisions to Palin's account as part of a growing pattern of deception. "The McCain campaign said Governor Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, but now we know she supported it. They said she didn't seek earmarks, but now we know she hired a lobbyist to get millions in pork for her town and her state. They said she visited Iraq, but today we learned that she only stopped at the border. Americans are starting to wonder, is there anything the McCain campaign isn't lying about?" Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor asked in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

A short time later, the Obama campaign circulated a Bloomberg story that questions whether the McCain campaign has been sending out false crowd estimates.

On two occasions since Palin joined the ticket, McCain aides have cited law enforcement sources in claiming enormous crowds -- but law enforcement officials interviewed by Bloomberg denied having given such estimates.

New Obama Ad On McCain’s Lobbying Ties: "It's Over"

Talk about hitting back hard! Yet notice how the attack is not personal.

They Are Lying Because They Think It Will Work. Again.

We all have to do our best to prove them wrong! From the Politico:

It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely perch for John McCain to be shamed for his increasingly hard-edged and truth-stretching campaign than the middle seat on “The View.” [watch it: Another Best Political Team On TV?]

Yet on Friday morning, there sat the Republican nominee — a politician who has built an all but saintly reputation for “straight talk” over the years — caught in a vise between Joy Behar and Barbara Walters and getting a lecture from each on honesty.

“They’re lies,” Behar said of two recent lines of attack from the McCain campaign. “By the way, you yourself said the same thing about putting lipstick on a pig,” Walters interjected as a defensive McCain struggled to respond.  The two daytime talk show hosts are hardly alone.

McCain’s tactics are drawing the scorn of many in the media and organizations tasked with fact-checking the truthfulness of campaigns. In recent weeks, Team McCain has been described as dishonorable, disingenuous and downright cynical.

A series of ads — including accusations that Barack Obama backed teaching sex education to Illinois kindergartners and charges that Obama called Sarah Palin a lipstick-wearing pig — have provoked a cascade of criticism of McCain’s tactics.

The furor presents a breathtaking contrast to McCain’s image as a kind of anti-politician who plays fair, disdains politics as usual and has never forgotten how his 2000 presidential campaign was incinerated by a series of loathsome dirty tricks in the South Carolina primary.

The defense from the candidate himself — heard only on “The View” because he hasn’t held a news conference in more than a month — is to essentially assert that he’s savaging Obama because the Illinois senator wouldn’t agree to the series of town hall meetings McCain proposed at the end of the Democratic primary season.

“If we had done what I asked Sen. Obama to do, because I’ve been in a lot of other campaigns where I have appeared with the opposition with the people and listened to their hopes and dreams and aspirations, I don't think you’d see the tenor of this campaign,” he said.

That’s the candidate’s public answer — and one that a former adviser suggested that McCain may have convinced himself to believe is true.

Current campaign aides and other Republicans who’ve closely watched the race, however, have a very different response to the media elites and good-government scolds: We don’t care what you think.

McCain seems to have made a choice that many politicians succumb to but that he had always promised to avoid — he appears ready to do whatever it takes to win, even it if soils his reputation.

The Way To Refute The Lies

A reader sent this in:

I've been following your blog for some time now, great job and keep up the great work! I stumbled across this video today, featuring Ari Melber (MSNBC) taking Brad Blakeman to task over the blatant lies from this week's McCain ads. Particularly, they argue over the Kindergarten education ad. Blakeman is clearly grasping for ground as Melber outright asks if he is saying, on National television, that the bill Obama supported is meant to teach children about sex. It gets especially heated around 3:15.. "It's a lie, and shame on you, Brad, for repeating this lie."

I hope more of these types of interviews start making their way out. One can only hope that the rest of the media gets enough cahones to do the same. People have to know about this absurdity that is the McCain campaign.

Thanks again, Amanda

I wholeheartedly agree. While I dont think this is the way Obama himself should do it, it is the way everyone else should: forcefully without fear of calling a lie a lie:

Are McCain's Tactics Starting To Backfire?

Two days ago I argued McCain had made a Strategic, Maybe Fatal, Mistake: Taking His Eye Off The Electoral Prize, then I asked if  The Press Is Turning On McCain? now there's this NY Times article using the term "backfire".  Is there a new meme building?

Harsh advertisements and negative attacks are a staple of presidential campaigns, but Senator John McCain has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week from Democrats, independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama’s record and positions ...

The campaign has also been selective in its portrayal of Mr. McCain’s running mate, Ms. Palin. The campaign’s efforts to portray her as the bane of federal earmark spending was complicated by evidence that she had sought a great deal of federal money both as governor of Alaska and as mayor of Wasilla ...

Mr. Sipple, the Republican strategist, voiced concern that Mr. McCain’s approach could backfire. “Any campaign that is taking liberty with the truth and does it in a serial manner will end up paying for it in the end,” he said. “But it’s very unbecoming to a political figure like John McCain whose flag was planted long ago in ground that was about ‘straight talk’ and integrity.”

Apparently, She's Opposed To "Earmarks" But Is In Favor Of "Infrastructure"

GIBSON: You have said continually, since he chose you as his vice-presidential nominee, that I said to Congress, thanks but not thanks. If we're going to build that bridge, we'll build it ourselves.

PALIN: Right.

GIBSON: But it's now pretty clearly documented. You supported that bridge before you opposed it. You were wearing a t-shirt in the 2006 campaign, showed your support for the bridge to nowhere.

PALIN: I was wearing a t-shirt with the zip code of the community that was asking for that bridge. Not all the people in that community even were asking for a $400 million or $300 million bridge.

GIBSON: But you turned against it after Congress had basically pulled the plug on it; after it became apparent that the state was going to have to pay for it, not the Congress; and after it became a national embarrassment to the state of Alaska. So do you want to revise and extend your remarks.

PALIN: It has always been an embarrassment that abuse of the ear form -- earmark process has been accepted in Congress. And that's what John McCain has fought. And that's what I joined him in fighting. It's been an embarrassment, not just Alaska's projects. But McCain gives example after example after example. I mean, every state has their embarrassment.

GIBSON: But you were for it before you were against it. You were solidly for it for quite some period of time...

PALIN: I was...

GIBSON: ... until Congress pulled the plug.

PALIN: I was for infrastructure being built in the state. And it's not inappropriate for a mayor or for a governor to request and to work with their Congress and their congressmen, their congresswomen, to plug into the federal budget along with every other state a share of the federal budget for infrastructure.

GIBSON: Right.

Palin's Track Record: Earmark & Bridge To Nowhere Falsehoods

Two stories from the MSM that came out yesterday fact checking Palin's earmark fighting, bridge refusing reformer claims.This one from NBC News refutes her Bridge to Nowhere claims:

And this segment from Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN shows how she has secured millions of federal tax dollars for her State contrary to the claims she's now making.  She even wrote in a memo that "we did well" in regards to their ability to land pork. (Related posts:Alaska Requests More Earmarks Than Any Other State and Alaska Is An "Adjunct Member Of OPEC".):

"The Press Wont Do Its Job"

Paul Begala takes the press on for "not doing its job" and refuting Palin's lies.  Instead, they present a "false debate" rather than the clear "facts."

{9:30 UPDATE} Begala has a post at the Huff Post on this exchange:

I was on CNN Tuesday morning. Rather than let McCain and Palin get away with their lie, anchor John Roberts played a videotape of Sarah Palin in a 2006 gubernatorial debate in which she endorsed the bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island saying, "I'm not going to stand in the way of progress that our congressional delegation and the position of strength that they have right now."  ... the Anchorage Daily News forecloses that option, reporting, "In September, 2006, Palin showed up in Ketchikan on her gubernatorial campaign and said the bridge was essential for the town's prosperity."

After the videotape ran, I said the media was at fault for letting Palin and McCain get away with "flat out lies." GOP strategist Alex Castellanos manfully tried to shine a cow patty, saying, "The amazing thing about Sarah Palin is when she became governor she actually stood up and said no."

Increasingly frustrated, I pointed out that just was not true, and the "debate" continued.

Most of political debate is subjective: who's more qualified, who's more compassionate, whose experience is more relevant, who has better ideas on health care or energy or global warming or the economy? There is no Objective Truth on those matters, and debate -- even when voices are sometimes raised -- can help voters decide who they agree with. On those matters of subjective judgment it's perfectly appropriate for the media to hold the coats of the candidates and let them fight it out.

But facts ought not be debatable. The media have an obligation to point out when a politician is lying about a matter of fact, but the right-wing attack machine has so cowed some of them you can almost hear them moo. Steve Schmidt, McCain's top dog, is a brilliant and audacious strategist. His candidate has had the most favorable press coverage of any politician of the last century -- fawning, adoring, sycophantic press coverage. And yet he is brutalizing the press, waterboarding them into pretending that whether Gov. Palin supported the "Bridge to Nowhere," or hired an Abramoff-connected lobbyist to secure massive earmarks are somehow debatable.

The real debate is over whether the media will be vigilant watchdogs, sounding the alarm when McCain and Palin lie, or fall back to the role they've played for most of McCain's career: lapdog.

Palin Earns 3 Pinocchio's For Bridge To Nowhere Claim

Shades of Big Brother, from the Wash Post's FactChecker:

The McCain-Palin campaign seems to think that a statement becomes true simply by dint of repetition. A TV advertisement repeats the dubious claim that vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin "stopped" the nation's most infamous symbol of pork-barrel spending. It's been pretty clearly established by now that the "bridge to nowhere" was going nowhere at all before the Alaska governor formally signed the death warrant in September 2007.

The Facts: When Sarah Palin announced the abandonment of the "bridge to nowhere" on September 21, 2007, she issued a statement acknowledging the obvious: Congress was no longer prepared to foot the bill. "Much of the public's attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here," she told Alaskans. "But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened."

It was a plea for realism. Pork-barrel spending had become a red-button political issue, and Alaska was routinely cited by watchdog groups as the biggest recipient of Congressional largesse, thanks to the efforts of its long-time Republican senator Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young. Alaska has consistently topped the pork per capita ratings drawn up by Citizens Against Government Waste since 2000. According to the latest 2008 ranking, every Alaskan received $555 in pork over the last year, compared to $25 for every inhabitant of Illinois and $15 for every Arizonan.

Palin had a different view of the bridge project linking the town of Ketchikan (population 7,500) with an airport on sparsely populated Gravina island when she was running for governor of Alaska in 2006. In answers to a written questionnaire from the Anchorage Daily News, she said that the time to build the bridge was "now--while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."

As governor, Palin opted to use the $200 million that Congress had originally set aside for the bridge for other transportation projects. It is therefore inaccurate for her to claim, as she did at the Republican Convention earlier this month and repeatedly since, including on the campaign trail today, that she said "thanks, but no thanks," to Congress on the "bridge to nowhere" project.

During her State of the State address in January, Palin told Alaskans that "we cannot and must not rely so heavily on federal government earmarks." While she has cut back on earmark requests, records cited by the Associated Press show that she has requested $750 million in federal subsidies during her two years as governor, the largest per-capita request in the nation.

The Pinocchio Test: While it is true that Palin declared an end to the project, that's beside the point. It would be more accurate to say that she finally bowed to fiscal reality and congressional politics after a year as governor, and killed off a project that had become a national joke.

(About our rating scale.)

Palin Is No Reformer. A New Meme Taking Hold? {Updated}

From Josh Marshall:

We've now had a week of blaring headlines and one-liners about Sarah Palin as the mavericky, pork-busting reformer from Alaska. But we seem to be witnessing the first stirrings of a backlash and a dawning realization that the 'Sarah Palin' we've heard so much about over the last few days is a fraud of truly comical dimensions.

The McCain camp has made her signature issue shutting down the Bridge to Nowhere. But as The New Republic put it today that's just "a naked lie." And pretty much the same thing has been written today in Newsweek, the Washington Post, the AP, the Wall Street Journal. Yesterday even Fox's Chris Wallace called out Rick Davis on it. (Do send more examples when you find them.)

On earmarks she's an even bigger crock. On the trail with McCain they're telling everyone that she's some kind of earmark slayer when actually, when she was mayor and governor, in both offices, she requested and got more earmarks than virtually any city or state in the country.

Think about that. On the stump, not a single word that comes out of her mouth -- or not a single word that the McCain folks put in her mouth -- is anything but a lie. I know that sounds like hyperbole. But just go down the list. None of them bear out.

Watch, and pass along, this devastating video TPM put together
{4:15 UPDATE: there is now an annotated guide to each statement and answer cited in the video -- including transcripts, at length selections of video and more}

Palin's Track Record: Alaska Requests More Earmarks Than Any Other State

In an interesting WSJ story titled 'Record Contradicts Palin's 'Bridge' Claims' there is this interesting tidbit about Alaska, during her term, requesting more pork than any other state in the nation:

[Obama] accused the vice presidential nominee of lobbying for the bridge and then hiding her initial position when she ran for governor and the project became unpopular.

"You can't just make stuff up. You can't just recreate yourself. The American people aren't stupid," he said. It's like "being for it before you were against it," Sen. Obama said, a reference to a damaging statement John Kerry made in 2004 ...

The McCain campaign jumped back with spokesman Brian Rogers calling the attacks "hysterical."

"The only people 'lying' about spending are the Obama campaign. The only explanation for their hysterical attacks is that they're afraid that when John McCain and Sarah Palin are in the White House, Barack Obama's nearly $1 billion in earmark spending will stop dead in its tracks," Mr. Rogers said.

At a rally today, Sen. McCain again asserted that Sen. Obama has requested nearly a billion in earmarks. In fact, the Illinois senator requested $311 million last year, according to the Associated Press, and none this year. In comparison, Gov. Palin has requested $750 million in her two years as governor -- which the AP says is the largest per-capita request in the nation.

More From The Best Political Team On TV

I know many will claim that mocking Republicans isn't all that hard -- their ability to earnestly claim white on Monday and, with a straight face, black on Tuesday is without parallel in the real world (though Oceania's ability in Orwell's 1984 to successfully claim overnight that they have always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia beats them in the literary world) -- but the evidence that it is hard is before us: there just arent that many truly clever parodies out there. 

The Daily Show, however, especially during the GOP convention has been a major exception. The videos I posted in The Best Political Team On Television are very powerful and The Pinnacle Of GOP Hypocrisy was truly brilliant.  In fact, this one has been seen  more than 3 million times in only 5 days.  Their videos are so good that many of them could become the core of some very effective Obama campaign ads.. 

So here are 3 more from the last day of the convention.  The first parodies McCain's acceptance speech, and at about 4:15, has a great comparison on how what McCain said is nearly word for word the same as what Bush said in his acceptance speech 8 years before:

This one illustrates all of McCain's many flip-flops: from 'Maverick Reformer' to 'Reformed Maverick' as they say:

And finally, this one is about the Republican hypocrisy of Washington power brokers exalting "small town values"

What Would The GOP Response Be, And How Obsessed Would The Media Be With The "Story", If ..

A week ago Jake Tapper asked this interesting question:

What would the response be if Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and his wife Michelle had a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter?

So this got me wondering about some of the other glaring differences between how the two candidates backgrounds and families would likely be treated.  So play along with me and imagine .... what the response by the right-wing would be, and how obsessed the media would be with the "story", if:

* the Obama's child and illegitimate grandchild were only nine months apart in age?

* Michelle Obama went back to work 3 days after her Down's Syndrome baby was born (Sarah Palin Needs To Rethink Her Priorities)?

* Barack Obama was "delighted to welcome" a secessionist political party's convention (Palin A Member Of A Secessionist Party?)?

* Obama was involved in even the smallest way with firing an Illinois state trooper (Troopergate Starts To Bite)?

* Barack Obama sat through an anti-Semitic tirade in his church (Sarah Palin Sat In Church During Anti-Semitic Tirade)?

* Barack Obama grew up and regularly attended a church where people speak gibberish, fall on the floor and rant (Here's Why The Religious Right Loves Her)?

* Barack Obama complained about the media focusing on his family during a photo op of his family (Who Keeps Putting Palin's Daughter In the Media Glare? The McCain Campaign)?

* Barack Obama took cheap shots at the low paid, community work Sarah Palin did for Wasilla's churches (Yeah, Community Organizing Is Ridiculous)?

* Barack Obama lied about selling anything on eBay (Fact Checking Palin's Speech)?

* Barack Obama had claimed at his convention and in his ads that he supports wind power yet his energy plan doesn't specify any new federal spending for renewable energy and he's voted against extending such tax credits in the past (Wind Power Puffery)?

* Barack Obama were more popular online than Britney Spears, Paris Hilton & Michael Phelps combined (Guess Who's A Celebrity Now?)?

* Obama graduated 5th from the bottom of his college class and Biden attended 6 colleges in 6 years (The Dumb & Dumber Ticket?)?

Yeah, I'm sure the GOP's response and media feeding frenzy would be exactly the same as what is happening now.  Don't you?

Chris Wallace To Rick Davis: "Aren't you vastly exaggerating Palin's record as a reformer?"

Chris Wallace also throws this at McCain's campaign manager, "As governor, during her one and a half, two year tenure, Alaska continued to get more Federal money for pork barrel projects, per capita, than any state in the country."

The Eastern Media Elite

How wise is it to go after, in such a full-throated way, the folks you need to convey and interpret your message? Somehow I think that below the surface humor of this piece, there is a lot of anger, anger that will find its way to the surface over the next few weeks.  One way, perhaps: digging a little harder in the Alaska tundra for that journalistic, Woodward & Bernstein gold ... a scandal that brings down a politician.

The media fighting back? Just another example that this election might really be different than the 2000 & 2004 ones Karl Rove's disciple Steve Schmidt was involved with.

Pithiest Summaries Of McCain's New, Nonsensical Message

Jon Stewart, talking to Mike Huckabee:

You feel that your party is the only one that can fix the damage that your party has done.

Tom Shales

It's like staging a revolution against yourself -- saying that the Republicans have got to go so the Republicans can move in and clean up the mess.

If you know more of these kind of zippy one liners, please let me know.

The Best Political Team On Television

Two more gems from the Daily Show. When you view these two, plus yesterday's very powerful, must see clip (The Pinnacle Of GOP Hypocrisy), it is clear to me that the best political team on TV isn't on CNN, MSNBC or any of the other "news" channels, but on Comedy Central. In fact, when you add in the Colbert Report, Comedy Central might be the best news channel out there.

In this clip, they start by skewering Wednesday night's speakers, get into Palin (at about 3:30), the GOP's pretending they have not been in charge (at about 6:00), and most devastatingly, the attack on community organizers (at 7:25):

Then in this one, Samantha Bee goes after the Republican hypocrisy of extolling the Pallin's family's choice to keep the daughter's baby while advocating policies that would deny that choice to all other families.

"The Republicans Believe That Real People Are Idiots"

Judith Warner lays out a powerful case showing how the Republicans "believe that real people are idiots" and how our dysfunctional political culture will not likely be giving us "a worthy female president anytime soon."

It turns out there was something more nauseating than the nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate this past week. It was the tone of the acclaim that followed her acceptance speech ... (For a full roundup of these comments go here.) ...

Palin sounded, at times, like she was speaking a foreign language as she gave voice to the beautifully crafted words that had been prepared for her on Wednesday night.

But that wasn’t held against her. Thanks to the level of general esteem that greeted her ascent to the podium, it seems we’ve all got to celebrate the fact that America’s Hottest Governor (Princess of the Fur Rendezvous 1983, Miss Wasilla 1984) could speak at all.

Could there be a more thoroughgoing humiliation for America’s women?

You are not, I think, supposed now to say this. Just as, I am sure, you are certainly not supposed to feel that having Sarah Palin put forth as the Republicans’ first female vice presidential candidate is just about as respectful a gesture toward women as was John McCain’s suggestion, last month, that his wife participate in a topless beauty contest.

Such thoughts, we are told, are sexist. And elitist. After all, via Palin, we now hear without cease, the People are speaking. The “real” “authentic,” small-town “Everyday People,” of Hockey Moms and Blue Collar Dads whom even Rudolph Giuliani now invokes as an antidote to the cosmopolite Obamas and their backers in the liberal media ...

Why does this woman – who to some of us seems as fake as they can come, with her delicate infant son hauled out night after night under the klieg lights and her pregnant teenage daughter shamelessly instrumentalized for political purposes — deserve, to a unique extent among political women, to rank as so “real”?

Because the Republicans, very clearly, believe that real people are idiots. This disdain for their smarts shows up in the whole way they’ve cast this race now, turning a contest over economic and foreign policy into a culture war of the Real vs. the Elites. It’s a smoke and mirrors game aimed at diverting attention from the fact that the party’s tax policies have helped create an elite that’s more distant from “the people” than ever before. And from the fact that the party’s dogged allegiance to up-by-your-bootstraps individualism — an individualism exemplified by Palin, the frontierswoman who somehow has managed to “balance” five children and her political career with no need for support — is leading to a culture-wide crack-up.

Though Judith Warner has nothing to do with the Daily Show, this clip from last night nicely parodies the desire to have a "real" person as President

Real people, the kind of people who will like and identify with Palin, they clearly believe, are smart, but not too smart, and don’t talk too well, dropping their “g”s, for example ... And, I think, they find her acceptably “real,” because Palin’s not intimidating, and makes it clear that she’s subordinate to a great man.

That’s the worst thing a woman can be in this world, isn’t it? Intimidating, which appears to be synonymous with competent. It’s the kiss of death, personally and politically.

But shouldn’t a woman who is prepared to be commander in chief be intimidating? Because of the intelligence, experience, talent and drive that got her there? If she isn’t, at least on some level, off-putting, if her presence inspires national commentary on breast-pumping and babysitting rather than health care reform and social security, then something is seriously wrong. If she doesn’t elicit at least some degree of awe, then something is missing.

One of the worst poisons of the American political climate right now, the thing that time and again in recent years has led us to disaster, is the need people feel for leaders they can “relate” to. This need isn’t limited to women; it brought us after all, two terms of George W. Bush. And it isn’t new; Americans have always needed to feel that their leaders were, on some level, people like them ...

The Cartoonists Are Having A Field Day With The Hypocrisy

 

Hypocrisy Alert: Elitism

Vogue is reporting that Cindy McCain's Tuesday night outfit cost $300,000 (Laura Bush's was a mere $4,000).  Who exactly are the elites in this race?

Hypocrisy Alert: Family Privacy

From ABC News:

McCain Camp: Stop Intruding on Bristol Palin's Private Life

The McCain campaign tells the media to stop intruding on the private life of the unmarried pregnant 17-year-old daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, while staging a photo op with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and the 17-year-old's fiance, Levi Johnston.

The Pinnacle Of GOP Hypocrisy

I've been writing about the Republican's hypocrisy and disregard for voters intelligence (and ability to remember things they've previously said) for a long time (e.g., here, here and here).  But their convention and defense of Palin has taken hypocrisy to new heights (or lows).  The absolute best thing I've seen on the subject is from yesterday's Daily Show ... the clips they selected and their juxtaposition truly nails it: