If the Obama campaign is making one major mistake, it's underestimating their opponent, John McCain; how desperate he is to win the presidency, and how low he is willing to sink in order to do so. As Josh Marshall pointed out today, to my firm agreement, McCain has already so sullied his reputation as a "maverick," an independent thinker, and an honorable man, he has to win this election, or slink back to the Senate as little more than an angry old man.
If Team Obama is making a second mistake, it's overestimating the sophistication of the average voter, who really is only lightly paying attention to the details, and thus is susceptible to generic negative messages like those being proffered daily by the McCain campaign. In fact, the sheer barrage of negative messages is offering any voter who may have, say, race-based discomfort with Barack to choose from any number of alternative "trap doors" through which to fall and not vote for him, even if they don't like McCain.
If the Obama team is making a third mistake, it is underestimating the determination of the media to make the 2008 election a horse race, and thus, to keep McCain in the running. Dana Milbank should have taught them that the media is almost institutionally biased in favor of the Republican in the race, if for no other reason than to prove to themselves that they are not institutionally biased toward the Democrat in the race. They will continue to bend over backward to advance whatever narrative McCain's team puts forward, no matter how absurd, in order to keep the tight race (and the ratings) going.
Therefore, brushing off McCain's attacks will not be enough. Assuming that "no intelligent person would buy his sophomoric attacks" risks seriously overestimating the number of intelligent people, and thus is a recipe for losing the election. And counting on the press to clear up the lies makes about as much sense as handing the campaign's messaging over to Dana Milbank.
Jonathan Chait makes it plain in his widely circulated LAT column today:
Obama is making the enormous mistake of letting the race be entirely about him, which is the only way he can lose.
And:
McCain may be committing lots of blunders, but the blunders aren't hurting him because the spotlight is on Obama. McCain is getting attention for his attacks on Obama, especially his frequent insinuations that Obama lacks patriotism. The attacks are usually based on lies (such as McCain's discredited claim that Obama canceled a visit with wounded troops when he discovered the media couldn't tag along -- in fact, he canceled the visit, but the media were never scheduled to come).
Obama has barely hit back. His weak-tea replies express "disappointment" with McCain and reject the "same old politics."
Here's the likely rationale: The public, by a wide margin, wants a Democrat to win the presidency. So all Obama has to do is make himself acceptable and he'll win. Hence the focus on building up his own credentials rather than tearing down McCain.
Perhaps that sounds familiar. Let me refresh your memory: it was the John Kerry campaign strategy in 2004.
And needless to say, it didn't work. What Kerry failed to do, and I worked with a 527 that went down with that campaign, so I remember it painfully well, was to mount a successful offense. He never went after George W. Bush on the easy stuff: his failure to complete his military service, for instance, or his failed business dealings and poor stewardship of Texas, not to mention sending up his blue blood background, phony rancher credentials and "son of a president" elitism to counter similar attacks against Kerry. Yet they absorbed attack after attack that, even if disproved, set the narrative table for the media day after day.
It is happening again. This cycle, the media has almost always adopted the daily McCain narrative of the campaign, just as they did with Hillary Clinton during the primary. The bully usually gets his (or her) way, when it comes to the mainstream press. Even when they're debunking some outrageous lie from the McCain camp, the bottom line is that the reporterati and pundit class spend an entire news cycle dissecting whether or not it really is true that Obama hates the troops, is too foreign, is an arrogant lightweight, is Paris Hilton, or is playing the race card. By the time they get to the debunking part, half the audience has come away tainted by the McCain argument. That's how negative campaigning works. And when you add the force multipliers of the late night shows, the Internet, and 24 hour cable, you get a storm that it's very hard to fight your way out of. As one analyst noted on CNN tonight, McCain may not be lifting his poll numbers out of the 40s, but by attacking, he's keeping Obama down in the 40s with him. And when Obama chooses not to hit back, but rather to laugh off the attacks in a town hall, (and use the attacks mostly for fundraising,) I think his team is making a mistake.
Today, for instance, Obama had a great riff during a campaign speech, about McCain taking millions of dollars from the oil companies, and proposing huge tax breaks for them while at the same time championing their cause for offshore drilling. Said Obama to a receptive crowd:
The Illinois senator quickly incorporated news of Exxon Mobil's nearly $12 billion quarterly profit into his remarks at a town hall meeting here.
"No U.S. corporation ever made that much in a quarter," Obama said. "But while Big Oil is making record profits, you are paying record prices at the pump and our economy is leaving working people behind."
McCain's response, Obama said, is to propose a corporate tax plan that would give "$4 billion each year to the oil companies, including $1.2 billion for Exxon Mobil alone" and a gas tax holiday that Obama said would only "pad oil company profits and save you — at best — half a tank of gas" over an entire summer.
Well, that kind of thing belongs in a hard-hitting television or radio ad, not just in a fund raising email, which is where it wound up. Otherwise, the campaign is simply preaching to the converted, and the people on the MyBarackObama list aren't the ones contemplating a vote for John McCain in order to get the drill rigs going off the coast of Florida.
The insularity and frankly, the passivity of the Bill Burton communications operation is really starting to worry me, especially after six months of relentless attacks by the Clinton team. Unfortunately, I think the lesson the Obama folks took from the primary was that the Clinton attacks didn't work. Except that they did. Obama spent the entire primary fighting off charges -- including from the media -- that he is an elitist, a black extremist, or a Muslim, and hello! All three charges have carried right over to the general election campaign. They have became a part of his narrative, just like the word "maverick" is permanently tattooed on John McCain's butt cheeks courtesy of the lips of every reporter and pundit in Washington and New York.
It's time for the Obama campaign to hit back. They don't have to be as nasty or anti-factual as the McCain folks. Hell, how could they be? These are the Karl Rove trainees, who would saw off their mother's head to win an election (and then have Rush, Hannity and RedState.com blame HER for it.) But they have to be tough, and direct, and loud enough to drive the media narrative in the direction they want it to go: toward a debate over whether John McCain is too close to Big Oil, too much of a flip-flopper to be trusted, and most importantly, a human embodiment of George W. Bush's "third term."
As Chait puts it:
Why is Obama-as-alternative failing? First, it ignores Bush. The reason people want a Democrat is that they deem Bush a failure. By letting the race become a referendum on Obama, Bush recedes in voters' minds. McCain's ad blaming Obama for high gas prices was preposterous, but you can see why he ran it. The media are covering Obama as if he's already president. So what's that Obama guy done about high gas prices, anyway? Let's vote the bum out and give McCain a shot! ...
...McCain has de-emphasized or reversed nearly every position that set him apart from Bush, most notably the tax cuts for the rich that are the heart of Bush's economic program. To prove his partisan bona fides during the primary, he boasted that "I did everything I could to get [Bush] elected and reelected." And when an interviewer suggested that McCain was different from Bush, the senator replied, "No. No. I -- the fact is that I'm different, but the fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush." Why haven't we seen these words in television ads?
I can't answer that question, and frankly, that bothers me. The other day, Keith Olbermann rattled off a string of votes John McCain cast against veterans' issues, in a manner tailor made for a TV or radio ad. But has the Obama campaign gone up with such an ad? Nope. Better not to touch St. John's military record. Or what about an ad hitting McCain's 95% record of voting with President Bush, or one pointing out that he has surrounded himself with the same advisors who got us into the Iraq war, or using his quotes saying he's with the president 90 percent of the time, or that we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq? Where are the ads slamming McCain's 30 year tenure in Washington during which he has "changed" nothing, and his newfound ties to Big Oil?
Instead, we get these rather soft spots proclaiming the McCain attacks to be "the same old politics," but only obliquely attacking McCain's Bush-like policies. Sorry, but YAWN. Maybe the spots are designed to be soothing, but most Americans aren't political junkies who sit around decrying the politics of the past. They want STUFF: cheaper gas prices, better paying jobs and a dignified end to the Iraq war. And most of all, they want to be rid of the Bushies, the neocons, and the corporate raiders who have been stripping this country naked for nearly eight years. Tie McCain to all three of them, and do it EVERY DAY, and Obama will win this election. Let him off the hook and he will shiv you like Pookie in the prison yard.
The reluctance of the Obama campaign to go up with comparative ads -- hell, with negative ones -- rather than the gauzy, biographical ads about how much Barack loves his country (which I guess are designed to reassure little old ladies in West Palm Beach that he isn't an Islamofascist terrorist) has left a lot of us out here in "old politics land" scratching our heads. Sure, it may seem that the current strategy is working, but that's only if you discount what I think is an 8-10 percentage point gap between what many white voters tell pollsters they're going to do, and what they're actually going to do on Election Day. The McCain team isn't going to play by the Marquis de Queensbury rules. They're going to attack every single day until every American voter has at least one negative meme about Barack rattling around in the back of their minds at voting time. It's time to take off the gloves.
From what I've seen, what I've heard from Harvard friends who knew him or of him in law school, and having met the man (once) and chatted with him for a few minutes, Barack Obama seems to be a genuinely good guy (unlike McCain, who by all accounts and appearances is a completeass.) No matter what happens in November, he will leave this campaign with his honor intact, having made history, and because I really can't see him running anything other than a principled campaign. However, if in the end, McCain and his Karl Rove goon squad win the White House, once again by a 50-plus-one margin (which is the only way they know how to win,) leaving half the country embittered, enraged and hating the man in the White House for for more years, what will have been the point?
Okay, the Britney and Paris Hilton thing was stupid, but this is just pathetic:
WASHINGTON (AFP) — John McCain's campaign Thursday accused Barack Obama of playing the "race card" after the Democratic White House candidate complained Republicans were trying to scare voters away from him.
"Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong," said McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis in a statement.
Davis was referring to comments by Obama in Missouri on Wednesday, in which he said McCain's campaign was mounting personal attacks against him to divert attention from what he said was a dearth of solutions to America's problems. "Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said in Missouri.
"You know, 'he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name. You know he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know, he's risky,'" Obama said mocking supposed attacks against him.
What's worse, is that Bill Burton and company reacted to the charge as if it's actually serious:
In a later statement, Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said Obama had not intended to suggest McCain was introducing race into the campaign.
"This is a race about big challenges -- a slumping economy, a broken foreign policy, and an energy crisis for everyone but the oil companies.
"Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue, but he does believe they're using the same old low-road politics to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign."
Burton, love you man, but don't dignify this silly stuff. The proper response to a charge this desperate would have been "give me a break." Actually, Barack had the tone just right earlier today when he said, "is this the best my opponent can come up with?"
Next, the McCain people will be accusing Obama of ... um ... cheating at Scrabble! Wearing tight pants! He's got a crooked index finger! He's got too many pets! He eats dessert before dinner...! Grow up, McCainiacs. Attack a policy, why don't you.
I'm almost sad for the right. They were turned into a neocon cult, worshipping the person of George W. Bush after 9/11, and then when that went sour, they've been forced to kiss the very old bottom of John McCain. Pitiful.
I agree with Joshua Marshall when he says that the Obama campaign can't afford to get dragged into an argument about race. As bumbling as it is, the McCain campaign has managed to set the narrative for the race day after day, just as Hillary Clinton did during the primary. Of course, in Hillary's case, it ultimately didn't help her win, which leads me to Marshall's second point, to which I also subscribe:
It was always clear that it was going to be hard for John McCain to emerge from this campaign with his reputation and the presidency, simply because of the rough terrain any Republican faces this year. At this point, it's clear that by the end of this, the reputation is going to be shot. There's just been too much demonstrable lying on the candidate's part, too much sleazy campaigning, too much outsourcing his campaign to Karl Rove. More and more editorialists and even some of the prestige pundits are starting to see it.
So that means, he has to win. Because if he doesn't, he's got nothing left. All he is a four term senator from a medium-sized state with no legislative record. It's an eminently worthwhile task to chronicle his descent.
To stop him, the Obama team has to develop an offensive message (offense as in football, not as in O'Reilly.) They need to go up with ads proclaiming McCain to be the last desperate gasp of neoconservatism and the Bush administration, and they need to hit him hard -- but fair. They should do so sooner rather than later, because everyone knows that a desperate man is a dangerous man, and John McCain at present, is a very, very desperate man.
A federal judge puts the ixnay on otnay owingshay upyay in ongresscay... if you know what I mean...
WASHINGTON - President Bush’s top advisers are not immune from congressional subpoenas, a federal judge ruled Thursday in an unprecedented dispute between the two political branches.
House Democrats called the ruling a ringing endorsement of the principle that nobody is above the law.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge John Bates said there’s no legal basis for Bush’s argument and that his former legal counsel, Harriet Miers, must appear before Congress. If she wants to refuse to testify, he said, she must do so in person. The committee also has sought to force testimony from White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten.
“Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena,” Bates wrote. He said that both Bolten and Miers must give Congress all non-privileged documents related to the firings.
The ruling is a blow to the Bush administration’s efforts to bolster the power of the executive branch at the expense of the legislative branch. The Bush administration argued it was immune from such subpoenas, arguing that Congress can't force them to testify or turn over documents.
The report goes on to quote Nancy Pelosi as saying Dems plan to "act quickly and call Miers and Bolton to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, where they can claim executive privilege in person.
“We look forward to the White House complying with this ruling and to scheduling future hearings with Ms. Miers and other witnesses who have relied on such claims,” Conyers said in a statement. “We hope that the defendants will accept this decision and expect that we will receive relevant documents and call Ms. Miers to testify in September.”
Bates, who was appointed to the bench by Bush, issued a 93-page opinion that strongly rejected the administration’s legal arguments. He noted that the executive branch could not point to a single case in which courts held that White House aides were immune from congressional subpoenas.
“That simple yet critical fact bears repeating: the asserted absolute immunity claim here is entirely unsupported by existing case law,” Bates wrote.
Unless of course it gets to the Supreme Court, where Tony Scalia will find a way, and if Justice Kennedy is having a bad day? Zappo!
So of course now the question everyone is asking is, what does this mean for our good friend Karl Rove? Some thoughts on that here.
Luda bigs up Obama in his mix tape release, and (surprise!) gets smacked down by the communications department...
Of course, Obama was forced to put a whole lotta distance between himself and Cris over his lyrics, which included calling Hillary a "bitch" and saying that McCain belongs in a wheelchair (and that Bush is retarded...) Pat Buchanan should especially enjoy the part about "painting the White House black... So...
"Ludacris is a talented individual but he should be ashamed of these lyrics," said Mr Obama's spokesman Bill Burton.
Of course, that hasn't stopped right wing radio and Fox News from going all apoplectic over the video, and this should do wonders for the Bill-O/Ludacris feud.
The right particularly enjoys reminding us that Obama has Ludacris' music in his iPod, and met with the rapper to discuss youth issues not long before he announced for president. Oh, here we go...
Honestly, I find the video for the Ludacris song much more offensive than any of the lyrics, which are pretty tame by rap standards. I'd question the artistic merit of booty-shaking hos in a video that's supposed to be about voting, and juxtaposing big asses with presidential candidates just strikes me as, well, kind of high school. Other than that, I thought we would have learned by now that if one wants to support a man who is running for president despite an undercurrent of racial rejectionism in a part of America that is certainly larger than polls suggest, it's probably not a good idea to spout off about "painting the White House black."
Exxon Mobile strikes a blow for America's victory in the global war on terror, posting record-shattering profits, and Wall Street actually yawns:
HOUSTON - Exxon Mobil reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion Thursday, the biggest quarterly profit ever by any U.S. corporation, but the results fell well short of Wall Street expectations and shares fell in premarket trading.
The world's largest publicly traded oil company said net income for the April-June period came to $2.22 a share, up from $10.26 billion, or $1.83 a share, a year ago.
Revenue rose 40 percent to $138.1 billion from $98.4 billion in the year-earlier quarter.
... But investors expected even bigger profits Thursday, especially after Europe's Royal Dutch Shell reported a 33 percent jump in second-quarter earnings of $11.6 billion, which fell just shy of Exxon's own record earnings from 2007.
Shares fell 2 percent, or $1.68, to $82.70 in premarket trading.
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Royal Dutch Shell PLC reported a 33 percent jump in second-quarter profits Thursday, its biggest quarter ever at $11.6 billion thanks to high oil prices and the weak dollar.
The company earned $8.67 billion in the same quarter last year.
Shell said its selling price per barrel of oil was around $112, up from $64 a year earlier. That pushed earnings at its main exploration and production arm up 90 percent to $5.88 billion, despite a 1.1 percent fall in production to 3.05 million barrels of oil and equivalents per day.
Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer dismissed calls in Britain for a windfall tax on oil companies.
Britain's BP PLC reported this week that its profits jumped 28 percent to $9.47 billion in the quarter.
"If we do less investment there will be less supply for consumers" which would drive prices higher, Van der Veer said.
"The world needs energy."
Way to go, boys. You are true heroes of the West. And once again you've proved that George W. Bush's strategy of preemption pays great dividends. ... really great dividends...
We're into day two, and still no correction from either Dana Milbank or the WaPo on his "refinement" of Barack Obama's statement to Democrats on Capitol Hill. Dana has moved on, talking in today's "sketch" (which I think can now officially be renamed "Washingotn sketchy -- and yes, I stole that from a commenter on the thread) about Alaska's "Uncle Ted" Stevens.
It's been nearly a full day, and we're still waiting for a correction from Dana Milbank, whose prissy, spurned media diva, spite-filled column calling the other guy (Barack Obama) imperial, has been debunked all over the web, from TIME Magazine to the Atlantic, by people who actually heard Barack Obama's remarks to House Democrats. Tick ... tick ... tick ... so far, Millbank's column remains posted to the WaPo homepage, unchanged. (Curiously, Keith Olbermann gave Milbank a complete pass tonight. I was certain he'd at least make "Worst Persons," instead he didn't even get a mention...)
Milbank has been taking it on the chin pretty much all day today, from all quarters, and his portrayal of Obama as an uppity presidential wanna-be has taken off in winger world, despite its inherent falsehood, but so far Milbank hasn't breathed a word, or more importantly, updated his column online.
What's it gonna take, Dana? Just post the correction already!
Clearly, Milbank is guilty of, at minimum, seriously sloppy reporting for failing to confirm the quote with either the campaign, or a first hand witness. The less charitable take is that he went with a here-say quote, or worse, a deliberate distortion of a quote, in order to advance his theme and sex up his column. He's only making matters worse by disappearing from view and letting the column stand. Compounding his errors are the Post's editors, who are not only not correcting the record, they're continuing to promote the piece on the homepage.
If you're of a mind to complain, here's where you can write the Washington Post:
Ombudsman Deborah Howell: ombudsman@washpost.com or call 202-334-7582
Who's running the McCain campaign, anyway? The latest ad is a dud, mixing footage of Obama receiving global adulation (duh, it makes him look GOOD, folks) with a thin attack accusing him of wanting "higher taxes and more foreign oil." The ad actually has pics of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears! Seriously.
Over at the Atlantic, Marc Ambinder has an interesting reaction from former McCain strategist John Weaver to the Arizona Republican's new ad attacking Barack Obama's celebrity status (complete with references to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears). Calling it "childish," Weaver also claims that harping on Obama "reduces McCain on the stage."
And by the way, did anyone mention to the geniuses in the McCain camp that Britney is actually a Republican, who, like John McCain, is a big fan of President Bush?
Meanwhile, Keith Olberman the other night did what really should be the latest anti-McCain ad:
Now that's negative campaigning we can believe in.
House Dems grow a pair: vote to hold Rove in contempt
In an almost unprecedented exercise of actual constitutional authority by Democrats, the normally timid House Judiciary Committee voted 20-14 this afternoon to hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress. From Bloomberg:
A House panel voted to hold former White House political director Karl Rove in contempt for defying a subpoena to testify about whether politics motivated the prosecution of the former governor of Alabama.
The House Judiciary Committee's 20-14 vote along party lines escalated the dispute between the Bush administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress over lawmakers' demand for testimony by presidential aides.
President George W. Bush has invoked executive privilege to bar his aides from testifying under oath in Congress about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. The president also barred Rove's testimony on the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.
The panel has asked a federal judge to order Bush's chief of staff, Joshua Bolten to turn over documents about the firings and to direct former White House counsel Harriet Miers to testify about the dismissals.
A contempt citation against Rove would require approval by the full House. Rove failed to appear at a July 10 hearing.
Glenn Greenwald's adjunct to Brave New Films, the subtly named "Send Karl Rove to Jail," explains the implications of the vote:
WHAT THIS MEANS: The decision by the HJC to hold Karl Rove in contempt is a recommendation to the full House, who can now vote to adopt the recommendation with a contempt resolution by a simple majority vote. Should they pass a contempt resolution, the Sergeant-at-Arms for the chamber would be ordered to arrest Karl Rove and bring him to the floor of the House to answer to the charges and to be issued punishment. The case would then be referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who would in turn refer it to a grand jury. If convicted, Rove could face between one month and one year in jail.
The group has been gathering petitions to demand that the HJD do its job, and finally, the Dems have stiffened their spines enough to demand that a duly issued subpoena of the people's House of Representatives be complied with. Imagine that.
McCain's got a bad case of grumpy old man syndrome
The MSM actually take note of John McCain's increasingly nasty, negative campaign. First, the NYT editorial board (arguably more liberal than its McCain-loving reporters) lets Mac have it:
Well, that certainly didn’t take long. On July 3, news reports said Senator John McCain, worried that he might lose the election before it truly started, opened his doors to disciples of Karl Rove from the 2004 campaign and the Bush White House. Less than a month later, the results are on full display. The candidate who started out talking about high-minded, civil debate has wholeheartedly adopted Mr. Rove’s low-minded and uncivil playbook.
In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has been waving the flag of fear (Senator Barack Obama wants to “lose” in Iraq), and issuing attacks that are sophomoric (suggesting that Mr. Obama is a socialist) and false (the presumptive Democratic nominee turned his back on wounded soldiers).
Mr. McCain used to pride himself on being above this ugly brand of politics, which killed his own 2000 presidential bid. But he clearly tossed his inhibitions aside earlier this month when he put day-to-day management of his campaign in the hands of one acolyte of Mr. Rove and gave top positions to two others. The résumés of the new team’s members included stints in Mr. Bush’s White House and in his 2004 re-election campaign, one of the most negative and divisive in memory.
Almost immediately, the McCain campaign was using Mr. Rove’s well-honed tactics, starting with an attempt to widen this nation’s damaging ideological divide by painting Mr. Obama as a far-left kook. On July 18, Mr. McCain even suggested that Mr. Obama is a socialist to the left of the Senate’s only avowed socialist: Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
... Mr. McCain repeatedly said Mr. Obama “would rather lose a war to win a political campaign” and that he “does not understand” what is at stake in Iraq. He also accused Mr. Obama of canceling a visit to wounded American troops in a German military hospital because news cameras were not allowed. That’s a false account of what occurred — and Mr. McCain ignored Mr. Obama’s unheralded visit to a combat hospital in Baghdad.
Like Mr. Bush, Mr. McCain confuses opposition to an unnecessary war with a lack of spine and an unwillingness to use force when the nation is truly in danger. Obviously, Mr. Obama is untested as a commander in chief and his trip was intended to reassure voters. But Mr. McCain is as untested in this area as Mr. Obama, and it is hard to imagine a worse role model than the one Mr. McCain seems to be adopting: President Bush.
Many voters are wondering whether a McCain presidency would be an extension of Mr. Bush’s two disastrous terms. If the way Mr. McCain is running his campaign these days is an indication, Americans don’t have to wait until next January for the answer to that one.
Next, the WaPo states the obvious: McCain's "Obama doesn't love the troops" attack is full of crap, and the Times reports that even some in the GOP are starting to worry about the tone of the McCain campaign:
The old happy warrior side of Mr. McCain has been eclipsed a bit lately by a much more aggressive, and more negative, Mr. McCain who hammers Mr. Obama repeatedly on policy differences, experience and trustworthiness.
By doing so, Mr. McCain is clearly trying to sow doubts about his younger opponent, and bring him down a peg or two. But some Republicans worry that by going negative so early, and initiating so many of the attacks himself rather than leaving them to others, Mr. McCain risks coming across as angry or partisan in a way that could turn off some independents who have been attracted by his calls for respectful campaigning.
The drumbeat of attacks could also undermine his argument that he will champion a new brand of politics.
“The McCain campaign, I think, is being pulled in two directions,” said Todd Harris, a Republican strategist who worked for Mr. McCain in 2000. “On the one hand, this race is largely a referendum on Obama, and whether or not he’s going to pass the leadership threshold in the eyes of voters. So being aggressive against Obama on questions of leadership and trust and risk are important, but at the same time I think they need to be very careful because McCain is not at his best when he is being overly partisan and negative.”
So what's next for the unhappy warrior? A new ad portraying Barack Obama as a celebrity, not a leader. Yeah, that will work. Tell everybody how famous your opponent is. I can just see the tagline now: "hey America, why would you want some famous, cool celebrity as your leader instead of a grumpy old asshole like me!?"
I'm not a huge fan of Joe Klein -- I think he tends to give the right much more credit than it deserves, including one John McCain. However, he is right about the neoconservative movement, and apparently, he doesn't care who knows it:
I have now been called antisemitic and intellectually unstable and a whole bunch of other silly things by the folks over at the Commentary blog. They want Time Magazine to fire or silence me. This is happening because I said something that is palpably true, but unspoken in polite society: There is a small group of Jewish neoconservatives who unsuccessfully tried to get Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, and then successfully helped provide the intellectual rationale for George Bush to do it in 2003. Their motivations involve a confused conflation of what they think are Israel's best interests with those of the United States. They are now leading the charge for war with Iran.
Happily, these people represent a very small sliver of the Jewish population in this country. Unhappily, their views have had an impact in the highest reaches of the Bush Administration--and seem to have an influence on John McCain's campaign as well. Happily, the Bush Administration seems more interested in talking to the Iranians than in launching on them--and, according to my Israeli friends, the Israelis are not going to do anything foolish, either. I remain proud of my Jewish heritage, a strong supporter of Israel and a realist about the slim chance of finding some common ground with the Iranians. But I am not willing to grant these ideologues the anonymity they seek.
To echo one of the commenters on the TIME thread: who are you, and what have you done with Joe Klein?
President Bush signs the housing rescue bill in the dead of night, in a locked room with no lights on (okay not really, but he sure was quiet about it...)
Shortly after 7 am today President Bush signed a massive housing bill that will provide relief for more than 400,000 homeowners and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 will allow a limited number of homeowners who can’t afford their mortgage payments to refinance with government-backed loans. As many as 400-thousand families become eligible for help refinancing expensive mortgages. This will not help homeowners who have already been hit with foreclosure. The measure will also give the Bush administration new authority to control Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
"We look forward to put in place new authorities to improve confidence and stability in markets, and to provide better oversight for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. "The Federal Housing Administration will begin to implement new policies intended to keep more deserving American families in their homes."
President Bush signed the bill with no invited Congressional guests despite the fact that Congress has not gone on their summer recess yet and is still in town. The sweeping housing reforms passed with strong Republican and Democratic support.
At his Oval Office desk, President Bush was surrounded by a half dozen administration officials who will now have the authority to better supervise the big mortgage lenders, and help a limited number of families refinance their expensive mortgages.
Bush signed off on the death penalty for Ronald A. Gray, who grew up in the Liberty City area of Miami and was stationed at Fort Bragg at the time of the crimes. Eventually, he was convicted in connection with eight rapes and four murders that took place in in the area. Gray, who was 22 and held the rank of specialist at the time of his court martial, has been on death row at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., since 1988.
Bush's action was the first time in more than half a century that a president has approved the execution of a member of the Armed Services.
"While approving a sentence of death for a member of our Armed Services is a serious and difficult decision for a commander-in-chief, the president believes the facts of this case leave no doubt that the sentence is just and warranted," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. She called the crimes "brutal."
Gray will not be put to death for at least 60 days, and it may be much longer because further legal action on his case is possible, said Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, an Army spokeswoman. Edgecombe noted that while the last military execution took place in 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower had approved it in 1957.
The WaPo's Dana Milbank has unleashed one of the crabbiest columns this side of Mayhill Fowler, deriding Barack Obama as an arrogant bubble-boy who (harumph) isn't considerate enough to the press, including Dana Milbank! From today's Washington Sketch column, cleverly entitled "President Obama Continues Hectic Victory Tour":
Fresh from his presidential-style world tour, during which foreign leaders and American generals lined up to show him affection, Obama settled down to some presidential-style business in Washington yesterday. He ordered up a teleconference with the (current president's) Treasury secretary, granted an audience to the Pakistani prime minister and had his staff arrange for the chairman of the Federal Reserve to give him a briefing. Then, he went up to Capitol Hill to be adored by House Democrats in a presidential-style pep rally.
Along the way, he traveled in a bubble more insulating than the actual president's. Traffic was shut down for him as he zoomed about town in a long, presidential-style motorcade, while the public and most of the press were kept in the dark about his activities, which included a fundraiser at the Mayflower where donors paid $10,000 or more to have photos taken with him. His schedule for the day, announced Monday night, would have made Dick Cheney envious:
11:00 a.m.: En route TBA.
12:05 p.m.: En route TBA.
1:45 p.m.: En route TBA.
2:55 p.m.: En route TBA.
5:20 p.m.: En route TBA.
Who knew he was such a Diva? ... and I'm talking about Dana. Next, our intrepid "reporter" delivers the money quote, clipped from that 5:20 p.m. TBA, which Milbank describes as an "adoration session" with Democratic lawmakers in a Capitol Hill chamber that the Secret Service swept beforehand "just like they do for the actual president." Wowee. The quote:
Inside, according to a witness, he told the House members, "This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for," adding: "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."
So first, Milbank derides the security sweep that Obama happens to require because of threats to his life that began almost the moment he announced his candidacy (he's black, you know...) Then, throwing all reporter etiquette aside, the snarky Milbank throws out a clipped quote that not only did he not hear first-hand, but which it turns out, is way, way out of context.
MSNBC is on the story right now, and they're talking to an actual witness, Congresswoman Linda Sanchez of California, who was in the Canon Caucus Room when Obama made the remarks. More on that as it hits the air.
Milbank's world of snide
Milbank has something of a history of peevishness toward those he perceived as being on the left, including the very standard Democrats.com. And he has gone Medieval on Obama before, having been one of the principle harbingers of Reverend Wright doom during the primary. Hillary Clinton didn't escape his rapier wit, either, and in general, his Washington Sketch columns appear designed more to turn him into the male, WaPo version of Maureen Dowd than to bring forth actual news.
Meanwhile, later in his column, Milbank gets to what I think is the real point of his and his colleagues' disgruntlement:
The Project for Excellence in Journalism reported yesterday that Obama dominated the news media's attention for a seventh straight week. But there are signs that the Obama campaign's arrogance has begun to anger reporters.
In the latest issue of the New Republic, Gabriel Sherman found reporters complaining that Obama's campaign was "acting like the Prom Queen" and being more secretive than Bush. The magazine quoted the New York Times' Adam Nagourney's reaction to the Obama campaign's memo attacking one of his stories: "I've never had an experience like this, with this campaign or others." Then came Obama's overseas trip and the campaign's selection of which news organizations could come aboard. Among those excluded: the New Yorker magazine, which had just published a satirical cover about Obama that offended the campaign.
The Washington press corps fell in love with John McCain in 2000 because he gave them unprecedented access aboard his "Straight Talk Express."
... They later fell in love with George W. Bush because he gave them cute nicknames like "Stretch" (David Gregory) and made them giggle like schoolgirls during his infrequent press conferences. Bill and Hillary they never liked, and during the impeachment fiasco, they showed their displeasure. Now they've got a new pol to hate -- Barack Obama, who clearly doesn't know how important they are. Obama paid for that dispelasure during the Rev. Wright imbroglio, and a new media study shows that the press has been much, much tougher on him than it has on McCain.
Team Obama now has two choices: try to ingratiate themselves with a press corps that is as pampered, arrogant and self-centered as it has been in my lifetime, or continue to stiff arm the Fourth Estate and ride the negative coverage all the way to Election Day.
Awaiting the full transcript or video from the Obama Congressional chat.
"It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol [of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."]
The "is not about me at all, it's about America" part is pretty important to the quote, I'd think. And Ambinder points out other elements of Milbank's sloppy journalism, reiterating one of my points above and catching something I missed:
The Capitol Police and the Secret Service, not the Obama campaign, closed the halls for Obama to pass yesterday. If you're inclined to think Obama presumptuous for this, then John McCain is also on your list; last week in Columbus, the police department there gave him full intersection control during rush hour. Oh, and that was David Cameron to whom Obama "gave some management advice," not to Gordon Brown, although Brown could probably have used it!
So will Milbank post a correction? Enquiring minds...
“His entire point of that riff was that the campaign IS NOT about him. The Post left out the important first half of the sentence, which was something along the lines of: ‘It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America. I have just become a symbol … .”
As of 1:33 p.m., still waiting for the Milbank retraction... |
What's in a presidential name combo? Sure it's important that a candidate pick a veep who could govern with him (or her) and who could step into the POTUS job if called on. But let's face it, during the campaign, there's more to it than that. The team has got to look good together (think Clinton-Gore) and tell a story (think McCain-Romney; old guy, younger, more economically literate guy) and shore up each other's deficiency (repeat McCain-Romney.) But as far as I'm concerned, the names have also got to fit together in a way that doesn't sound funny. Especially for the Democrats. With the GOP holding their convention in the land of the Wide Stance, with bathroom stall jokes just waiting to be unleashed for an entire week, why take chances with a funny sounding apellido mix?
Take, for instance, Evan Bayh, whom Howard Fineman claims is among the top three survivors of the Obama list (the others are Kaine and Joe Biden). Together, he and Barack would be "Obahmabye" ... which sounds really screwy. Obama and Joe Biden would be "Obahma-biden" ... which actually works well, because it naturally lends itself to a pause in the middle. Obama-Kaine would come out sounding way too much like "Obamakin" for my liking, but it could remind disgruntled Republicans why they're considering switching sides...
Obama could also make a surprise pick, like retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration, who traveled to Europe with the Senator, and who is from the solid Illinois Obama pack. Gration has great bona fides that would add a lot to the ticket:
A command pilot with more than 5,000 flight hours, Gration has had extensive combat experience in the Middle East and served as the Commander of Task Force West during Operation Iraqi Freedom. His aerial combat experience included 274 combat missions over Iraq.
And he's got other biographical pluses that would make him an interesting pick:
Raised in Africa, Gration joined the U.S. Air Force ROTC program at Rutgers University and went on to serve as a White House fellow, operations group commander, and as the Director of Regional Affairs in the Office of the Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force for International Affairs.
"I met Obama when he toured Africa last year," Gration recalled, "and we visited Robins Island, the prison that was home to Nelson Mandela for 27 years. I couldn't help noticing that both men had the same leadership qualities and the same ability to motivate and inspire others."
"I also realized that both men had a strong understanding of history," he relayed. "You gotta know where you've come from if you want to lead the country towards any sort of future."
And yet, together, Obama and the general would make "Obahmagration" -- kind of like "conflagration," but with Obama in front. My favorite is still "Obama-Hagel," though I think he's getting to be less likely a pick. |
23/6 cuts through all the media brouhaha over 50-year-old Virginia Guvnah (and Obama pal) Tim Kaine, a would-be Democratic veep -- and gets to the important stuff: the ratings:
A-hole factor (1-10): 3
Vibe: Tractor salesman in a suit
Quick Bio:
Born in Minnesota
Grew up in Kansas City
Went to Honduras as Jesuit missionary
Harvard Law School
Richmond lawyer specializing in housing discrimination
Elected as member of Richmond city council
Elected as mayor of Richmond
Elected as lieutenant governor
Elected as governor of Virginia
Nope, he's not Mark Warner
Nope, not John Warner either
Gave Democratic response to Bush's 2006 State of the Union address
Early Obama supporter
Odd looking
His people say he's "in serious talks" to be Obama's VP
RGI (Regular Guyness Index): 7
From Minnesota: -2
Flattop haircut: +4
Penis owner: +2
Catholic: +1
Dad owned iron-working shop: +4
Harvard Law School graduate: -5
Three kids attend public school: +3
Their names are Nat, Woody and Annella: -2
Wife's father was former Republican governor of Virginia : -1
Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, of the famous "bridge to nowhere," has been indicted according to Politico and the AP:
Stevens' Washington office is shut down right now and no one is answering phone calls, and a spokesman in Alaska declined to answer questions. The Associated Press is reporting that the criminal charges are related to false reporting of hundreds of thousands in renovations to his Alaska resort home.
The indictment would be a stunning development in an extraordinary Senate career that has spanned four decades. Stevens is undoubtedly the most powerful politician in Alaska's 50 year history of statehood, but his relationships with contractors and lobbyists have come under intense scrutiny over the past year.
Another member of the party of personal responsibility down for the count... from the AP, via the WaPo:
Stevens, 84, has been dogged by a federal investigation into whether he pushed for fishing legislation that also benefited his son, an Alaska lobbyist.
From May 1999 to August 2007, prosecutors said Stevens concealed "his continuing receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of things of value from a private corporation." The indictment released Tuesday said the items included: home improvements to his vacation home in Alaska, including a new first floor, garage, wraparound deck, plumbing, electrical wiring; as well as car exchanges, a Viking gas grill, furniture and tools.
Justice Department officials were holding a news conference later Tuesday to discuss the charges.
Matthew Friedrich, acting assistant U.S. attorney general, said Tuesday that the government is charging the legislator with seven felony counts of making false statements between 1999 and 2006. Stevens was chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee from 1997 to 2005, except for the 18 months when Democrats controlled the chamber.
The Justice Department is alleging that Stevens, who is 84, accepted gifts from oil-services company Veco in the form of material and labor to renovate his private residence in Alaska.
"These items were not disclosed" on Stevens' Senate financial-disclosure forms, according to Friedrich. ...
...The indictment alleged that Stevens received substantial home improvements to property he owns in Girdwood, Alaska; automobile exchanges in which the senator got new vehicles worth far more than the used vehicles he provided in return; and household goods. ...
... The indictment of Stevens is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation in Alaska. There have been seven criminal convictions to date from the investigation. Former Veco Chief Executive Bill Allen and Richard Smith, the company's former vice president of community affairs and government relations, pleaded guilty in May 2007 to providing more than $400,000 in corrupt payments to Alaska public officials.
As for Friedrich, I just heard on Randi Rhodes' show and confirmed for myself that he is "acting" because he replaced Alice Fisher, the U.S. attorney who cut the plea deal with Jack Abramoff in 2006, and who mysteriously left the Justice Department this May. More on Friedrich's background from a May 22 post on the Legal Times blog:
A veteran prosecutor and top aide on criminal matters to Attorney General Michael Mukasey has been tapped to lead the Criminal Division at Main Justice. ...
... [Matthew] Friedrich is Fisher's former chief of staff and also was a principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division.
Friedrich has served on the department's Enron task force and previously worked as one of the lead prosecutors in the Arthur Andersen case when he served in the Eastern District of Virginia. A former assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Texas, Friedrich joined the department as a Tax Division attorney in 1995.
Meanwhile, Fisher's May 1 departure came at an awkward time for the DOJ, as she was probing a number of big cases:
Her departure leaves the Justice Department even more short-staffed. Fisher is one of only four remaining division chiefs who have navigated the Senate confirmation process.
Among the ongoing investigations Fisher has been overseeing are cases involving members of Congress and executives at mortgage companies caught up in the credit debacle.
Her prosecution of the Abramoff cases had raised some eyebrows, according to Sourcewatch:
"I was more than a little tweaked to turn on CSPAN and see Alice Fisher giving the press conference on behalf of" the Justice Department in the Abramoff case, Jane Hamsher wrote January 4, 2006, in The Huffington Post.
"Alice Fisher should have recused herself from this matter long ago," Hamsher said. "Fisher is a Republican who in her former job was registered as a lobbyist for HCA, the healthcare company founded by Bill Frist's father.
Her appointment was also controversial due to the fact that like her boss AbuGonzales, Fisher has no trial experience and with [James] Comey gone there would be no senior member of the Justice Department who was an experienced criminal prosecutor. But Senatorial oversight was dispensed with and BushCo. continued on its Brownie-esque rampage to replace experience with cronyism."
- The role of the torture lawyers in crafting the system is far more intimate than they have acknowledged. John Yoo, Michael Chertoff and Alice Fisher reviewed specific techniques which clearly amounted to torture and blessed them as fine to use, and then lied publicly and to Congress about their involvement. Yoo is said to have given his legal blessing to torture techniques and their application by DOD operatives on the squash court as he played rounds with Jim Haynes.
So we're likely well rid of her, and perhaps the wiser about why she suddenly vacated the premises. If she did indeed lie to Congress about her involvement in torture, all the Jack Abramoff prosecutions in the world might not have saved her from testifying, even at the Dems' sham hearings, and even though no one will likely ever be prosecuted for the various crimes committed by the current administration...
