Leave A Message At The Beep

On TIME's Swampland blog today, Joe Klein wrote a post about the attacks that John McCain was firing off this weekend and how he is guilty, to some extent, of violating each one himself. I've copied the most interesting paradox below:

Finally, McCain had this exchange about his campaign's skeevy robo-calls this weekend on Fox:

WALLACE: ... and you said the following [after the South Carolina primary campaign in 2000], "I promise you, I have never and will never have anything to do with that kind of political tactic."

Now you've hired the same guy who did the robo calls against you to — reportedly, to do the robo calls against Obama and the Republican Senator Susan Collins, the co-chair of your campaign in Maine, has asked you to stop the robo calls. Will you do that?

MCCAIN: Of course not. These are legitimate and truthful, and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family and about certain aspects that — things that this is — this is dramatically different, and either you haven't — didn't see those things

Legitimate and truthful? I supposed that's why Susan Collins, one of McCain's closest friends in the Senate, criticized him for this trashball tactic. Oh, and the "same guy" Wallace was referring to is none other than Warren Tompkins, whose name was a synonym for satan among the McCain inner circle in 2000. I can imagine John breaking the news to Cindy, "Hey, honey, great news! Remember that guy who was involved in spreading the rumors about your addiction to pain killers and Bridget being an illegitimate interracial child? Well, we've got him doing that same sort of high-minded stuff for us!"

Full post and comments here...

Swing And A Miss!

I'm a little behind on my political analyses because I promised Lydia I wouldn't post anything political for a while after she put up her post about her sisters' visit. Obviously the ban has been lifted and now I have some catching up to do. I won't be able to post all the things I wanted to concerning the Biden v. Palin debate (and I really had some zingers too) but I think anyone who saw it is quite aware of the fact that Biden won hands down. Yes, Palin exceeded expectations, but for her it was like the SATs: spell your name correctly and you get 200 points.

The other big news from recent weeks is the $700 billion bailout (sorry, emergency rescue plan) that finally passed the House. I think the drama that unfolded with McCain and the final plan is simply fascinating and I'm surprised that it's not getting more circulation as one of the more ridiculous political spectacles in recent history. The man literally drips with delusions of grandeur. Let's see if I can lay out the basic idea:

Step 1: Call the economy "fundamentally sound" while the rest of the country frets over the possibility (or perceived reality) of a recession.
Step 2: Clarify that by "economy" you meant American workers and by "sound", you meant "the best workers in the world". Essentially the only word you used and meant was "fundamentally"...
Step 3: Proclaim that America is an economic crisis (caused by your opponent) and suspend your campaign so you can fly back to Washington to coordinate the solution while vowing not to return until a plan is passed (Presidential debates be damned).
Step 4: Don't fly back to Washington. Instead, head on over to CBS to do an interview with Katie Couric (oh, and piss off David Letterman - he probably won't make too big of a deal of it). Also, don't actually stop your campaign from campaigning, just pull the ads and no one will be the wiser.
Step 5: In the absence of a passed bailout package, fly back to Washington for the Presidential debate proclaiming the crucial role you played in getting both parties to work in a bipartisan manner.
Step 6: Watch the plan crash and burn in a terrifying ball of hellfire.

As I said, the rescue bailout package finally passed through Congress and was signed into law by Dubya. Good news right? Apparently not for McCain. Here's the skinny.

John McCain is the champion of earmark reform, and rightfully so. He has admittedly done a lot to draw attention to and oppose the pork-barrel spending that too often gets slipped into important legislation. And he was no less committed to protecting the bailout package from the same wasteful, unnecessary spending...



And here are just a few of the earmarks that slipped past the watchful of Sen. McCain:

• Sec.317: Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility
• Sec.308: Increase in limit on cover over of rum excise tax to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands
  
• Sec.503: Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children (my personal favorite)

In total, there were an additional $150 billion worth of earmarks added to the $700 billion bailout plan. Hmm... It would appear the good senator from Arizona has gotten himself in a bit of a bind. When asked about what would appear to be a pretty severe discrepancy...


In case you didn't catch it, this was McCain's recommendation for the fate of bills laden with pork:

SCARBOROUGH: Why did these items have to be in this critical bill?

MCCAIN: Well that’s just the way the system is working in Washington and the reason why it’s got to be fixed, and it’s got to be changed. And no matter what the stakes are, you’ve got to stop this by starting to veto bills that come across the president’s desk. … It’s insanity and it’s obscenity, because it’s a waste of taxpayers’ dollars and it goes on, and until we stop it, until we get frankly a president who will say, I’m gonna veto these bills, I’m gonna make the people famous that put them on there, uh, famous.

I'm sorry - I just don't get how that jives, man. Full post and comments here...

They Must Windex Their Walls

I think the old saying goes, "People who live in glass houses should not throw stones."

The McCain campaign has made the peculiar decision to avoid dealing with the pressing issue of our slowing economy and its causes and effects both at home and abroad; instead, they'd like to make undecided voters afraid of Barack Obama. Ooooooh. Their present angle in this effort is to send good ol' Sarah Palin out on the stump with a speech chock full of hum-dingers aimed at tying Obama to William Ayers, the former domestic terrorist.

I think most reasonably unbiased news organizations have spent time investigating the link between Obama and Ayers and it's become pretty apparent that there is no evidence to support Palin's claims of the two of them "palling around" or even being close at all. Furthermore, Obama has gone out of his way time and time again waaaay back during the primaries (when all of this was actually relevant to the national discussion) to strongly denounce Ayers actions. Now, I do think it is completely reasonable to ask Obama and his campaign surrogates whether it was wise to continue serving on a charitable board with Ayers, knowing his past, as Mark Halperin did of one of Obama's senior advisors. But to belabor the point, as the McCain camp is doing, instead of dealing with the most important issue for the vast majority of voters is excessive and hopefully fruitless.

But here's what's really annoying. Some of the folks the McCain camp has sent out on the warpath to call Obama's judgment (and at times his patriotism) into question don't make a lick of sense. Number 2 on the list is former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose own track record of picking upstanding public servants of integrity was called into question in a pretty high profile way: (as Robert Gibbs pointed out on Fox the other day).

And of course, sitting at the top of the list is my favorite person in the race: Sarah Palin. "What?!" you exclaim, "What in the world could Sarah Palin be hiding/downplaying that could possibly be more damning than the tenuous-at-best relationship between Obama and Ayers???"



It's one thing to sit on a board with someone and it's a very different thing to be married to someone, supported by their cohorts, and delighted with their anti-US party. And I quote:

I am delighted to welcome you to the 2008 Alaskan Independence Party Convention... We have a great promise to be a self-sufficient state... Keep up the good work and God bless you. [emphasis added]

So if it's a bad idea to throw stones, how much worse is it to hurl flaming boulders of ire and hypocrisy?

UPDATE: Less damning but just as indicative of the senselessness of this whole political approach is this article on McCain's link to a certain guy we've heard a lot about lately... Full post and comments here...

Hypocrisy?

I wanted to wait a few days before this post to make sure all (five) of you had an opportunity to read through the four post-debate posts I put up on Saturday. Ironically, that one was just a teaser for the grudge match coming up this Thursday. I will be watching that one with bated breath (as will the SNL writers, if last week's Palin bit was any indication).

This week, it appears the McCain camp is looking to share the title of "hypocrite" around a bit. Here's one of their newest ads...



So, of course, my Spidey sense told me something was amiss with that clip. Like, maybe they were TAKING OBAMA'S WORDS OUT OF CONTEXT???? A little Google investigation and I found this site that provides context around the McCain edit. Here's what Obama actually said:

I have said it before and I’ll say it again: we need to pass, after this immediate crisis is over, an economic stimulus plan. Right now. For working families – a plan that will help folks cope with rising food and gas prices, that can save one million jobs by rebuilding our schools and our roads, and help states and cities avoid budget cuts and tax increases. A plan that would extend expiring unemployment benefits. For those Americans who have lost their jobs and have been working hard to find a new one, but haven’t found one yet. That’s part of the change we need. And then after this immediate problem, we’ve got the long-term fundamentals that will really make sure this economy grows. Change means a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses that deserve it. As president I am going to eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-ups. That’s how we’ll grow our economy and create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

It's not even a nice try, McCain. I understand that campaigns will take statements by the candidates and their surrogates out of context for the point of trying to undermine the opponent's position (the linked site mentions an Obama ad that pulls a similar stunt), but to go so far as to call Obama a hypocrite when McCain completely switched positions on the state of the economy 4 times in as many days is just despicable.

Speaking of hypocritical statements, here's another clip of Palin with Katie Couric...



Is it just me, or did she just succinctly present an argument to vote for Obama ("fresh face", new ideas) over McCain (20+ years of experience)!?!? You know, I'm starting to suspect that there may be something wrong with her - like, medically wrong. She seems to be missing some neurological filter or delay mechanism that allows her brain to review what she's saying before she says it. How else would it be possible for her to make an obvious joke about how old Biden is without turning the top of her ticket into collateral damage?! Geez...

UPDATE: TIME's Amy Sullivan had this to say about Palin's comments:

Okay. Shelving for the moment the question of whether age should be fair game in politics and setting aside the fact that if you read Palin's statement above she could easily be talking about either Biden or McCain... Does it make sense to frame the election as a choice between experience and change when your running mate is the old Washington hand taking on the young new upstart? (And McCain, by the way, is 25 years older than Obama, while Biden has 21 years on Palin.)

If she's using this line on the stump, this isn't Palin going off the reservation. But I'll be darned if I can see the point of it. Maybe there are voters out there willing to support the GOP ticket because they value newness over experience when it comes to Palin but not with Obama. I'm not sure all three of them will swing the election, though.

Full post and comments here...