Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

Sometimes I haven’t a clue, coming from non-political Chuck Heath, why l remain passionate about wanting to change the world through Alaskan politics. But I know without a doubt that my Dad’s love for this state, his Independence, his strong work ethic and right priorities are my foundation and influence for every decision I make. He’s my most loyal supporter. Me, the media-stamped ‘bard core conservative Republican”! He’s also the number one fan of one of his best buddies and hunting partners, Dr. Curt Menard, the well known democrat. See, he’s much too smart and way too nice to base relationships on politics.

I’m thankful for all my dad taught me and allowed me to do. I’m glad he dragged my butt out of bed early, early autumn mornings to hunt ducks with him before cross-country running practice. He taught me to bag a caribou, fillet a fish, dig buckets of darns, and find the plumpest blueberries. He wouldn’t put up with my wimpy reasons why I couldn’t thaw frozen fish egg bait in my mouth, like he does, when ice fishing. But he did understand when I looked up at him quizzically once upon his request to “please hold those” while he searched for something to put our freshly butchered moose’s eyeballs in so his students could observe them later that day. He graciously understood, and I didn’t have to hold those ungulate’s warm parts that morning in the alders.

My dad gave me two of the greatest gifts in my life: an upbringing in Alaska and an appreciation for all one can gain from athletics. He was Wasilla High School’s track, cross-country and freshman basketball coach. He never let me quit, no matter how bad it hurt or how the odds ware stacked against his athletes. He taught “no pain, no gain.., and you reap what you sow,.. and there ain’t no such thing as a flee lunch.., and dig deep, push hard and fully rely on your ROCK!”

(In our case, that ROCK would be God.) These are lessons I draw on everyday.

Labels: 2008 election, Sarah Palin

"I'm not sure what she brings to the ticket other than she's a woman and a conservative. Well, she's a better speaker than McCain," Faye Palin said with a laugh. "People will say she hasn't been on the national scene long enough. But I believe she's a quick study."

Early this year, an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News ripped into Gov. Sarah Palin's appearance on a morning "shock jock" radio show as "plain and simple one of the most unprofessional, childish and inexcusable performances I've ever seen from a politician."

So what happened? Palin has repeatedly feuded with the state's Senate president, Lyda Green, over a wide range of legislation. Last January, Palin appeared on "The Bob and Mark Show," whose host Bob Lester despises Green. That's when the trouble started...

The legislative leadership of the Alaska Republican Party isn’t enamored with Palin’s selection, either, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

State Senate President Lyda Green said she thought it was a joke when someone called her at 6 a.m. to tell her the news.

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

Green, who has feuded with Palin, brought up the big oil tax increase Palin pushed through last year. She also pointed to the award of a $500 million state subsidy to a Canadian firm to pursue a natural gas pipeline that's far from guaranteed.

House Speaker John Harris, a Republican from Valdez, was also astonished at the news. He didn't want to get into the issue of her qualifications.

"She's old enough," Harris said. "She's a U.S. citizen."

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin

Labels: Dick Cheney, Focus on the Family, George W. Bush, hurricane Gustav, John McCain, New Orleans, Republican convention, the Christian right

MR. GREGORY: She went into labor and got on an airplane to go back to Alaska. That's pretty cool. I think there's a lot of people, men and women, who are going to look at this story and say, "This is a compelling person. I want to take a new look at this ticket."

MR. BROKAW: Mike, as you heard, I asked Governor Pawlenty about creationism vs. evolution. He said they ought to be taught side by side in schools, local school districts should decide. How does that cut with the independents?

MR. MURPHY: It's trouble. Again, if we get into a social issues debate with those particular swing voters, we're in big trouble. I believe that McCain cannot win in this environment without ticket splitters, people who vote for him for president but vote Democrat down the ticket. He may need as many as one out of five of his ultimate voters to be a ticket splitter. So the question is in a bad base year for Republicans, if we get caught on pure base issues--I agree, the evangelical vote loves her, but I, to the point I said earlier, I'd rather have lukewarm evangelicals and a whole lot of voters...

MR. BROKAW: Right.

MR. MURPHY: ...than delighted Goldwater-sized crowds and a completely delighted 45 percent of the vote. So if Sarah Palin the reformer, corruption fighter becomes who she is, she can help. If she gets trapped in the other stuff, I think she's an anchor. And we don't know yet how it's going to play.

MR. BROKAW: "Even before McCain picked [Palin], people outside Alaska were beginning to notice the young governor with the bright smile" - the "runnerup in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest--whose good looks spawned a bumper sticker that read: `Coldest State. Hottest Governor.'"

Is that going to work in the West?

MR. GREGORY: Well, I think a lot of it does. And as you know better than anybody, you talk to people like Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, who--and he will attribute his success as a Democrat in Colorado not to social issues, but to issues like the economy that began to turn more Republican-leaning independents and even some Republicans in the state his way. I think the economy is a huge part of this. A lot of the working-class voters in states like West Virginia or Ohio, where she was debuted, or Pennsylvania were Democrats primarily for economic issues if not social issues. Obama still has an advantage there, even if he hasn't grabbed the issue completely. I think Sarah Palin helps John McCain get it.

MS. MITCHELL: Yes, I agree with that.

MR. GREGORY: That's the attack line from Obama that he's out of touch. She's got some working class roots, the hockey mom thing.

MS. MITCHELL: Yeah.

MR. GREGORY: A union husband, a husband who's in the union. So I think she may help deliver that to independent voters in the West and elsewhere for whom this is going to be a big issue, the economy.

MS. MITCHELL: I...

"It certainly solved his enthusiasm deficit with regard to Mr. Obama. ... I suspect that now, the Republican base is more united and enthusiastic behind McCain then I suspect the Democratic base is behind Mr. Obama..."

"There is more to the qualification to high executive branch office than experience. There is understanding the constitutional principle of limited government and the culture of corruption that inevitably develops in a capitol that abandones limited government; that regulates everything and subsidizes everybody. She understands that."

Labels: 2008 election, David Gregory, John McCain, mainstream media, media bias, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin

Labels: 2008 election, Alaska National Guard, John McCain, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin

Labels: Sarah Palin

(FEMALE) ANNCR:

It was his first major decision as the Republican nominee...

And John McCain chose to play politics ...

instead of picking the most qualified commander in chief.

He thinks women voters don't care about issues ...

Just gender ...

(SHOW PIC OF HILLARY) That's not the respect we deserve ...

Or the judgment ... we need in the next president.

The longer I think about it, the less well this selection sits with me. And I increasingly doubt that it will prove good politics. The Palin choice looks cynical. The wires are showing.

John McCain wanted a woman: good.

He wanted to keep conservatives and pro-lifers happy: naturally.

He wanted someone who looked young and dynamic: smart.

And he discovered that he could not reconcile all these imperatives with the stated goal of finding a running mate qualified to assume the duties of the presidency "on day one."

... Maybe it will work. But maybe (and at least as likely) it will reinforce a theme that I'd be pounding home if I were the Obama campaign: that it's John McCain for all his white hair who represents the risky choice, while it is Barack Obama who offers cautious, steady, predictable governance.

... question: If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?

Should John McCain lose in November, Sarah Palin has just pole-vaulted into front-runner status for 2012. Should Mr. McCain win, her grip on the next Republican nomination will become a lock.

So this is the future of the Republican party you are looking at: a future in which national security has bumped down the list of priorities behind abortion politics, gender politics, and energy politics. Ms. Palin is a bold pick, and probably a shrewd one. It's not nearly so clear that she is a responsible pick, or a wise one.

The first and last question to be asked about a potential vice president is: Is he or she prepared to take over immediately as president? Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden gave that matter the priority it deserves.

The question is even more important for McCain because he's 72 years old and has had serious health problems. The chances are considerably higher than usual that his vice president would have to step into the Oval Office without notice.

Sarah Palin may be a politically brilliant choice. She may also be a fine governor. But it's going to be pretty hard for McCain to disparage Obama's experience on national security and foreign relations while running with someone who has much less.

But worse, this decision mocks McCain's seriousness on the issues that are supposed to be his strength. It tells us that he puts his own political fortunes above the safety of the nation.

McCain had been steadily gaining on Obama (before the inevitable convention bounce) and had the race in a dead heat in a year in which the generic Democrat is running ten points ahead of the generic Republican. He had succeeded in making this a referendum on Obama. The devastating line of attack was, "Is he ready to lead?"

The Palin selection completely undercuts the argument about Obama's inexperience and readiness to lead -- on the theory that because Palin is a maverick and a corruption fighter, she bolsters McCain's claim to be the reformer in this campaign. In her rollout today, Palin spoke a lot about change. McCain is now trying to steal "change" from Obama, a contest McCain will lose in an overwhelmingly Democratic year with an overwhelmingly unpopular incumbent Republican administration. At the same time, he's weakening his strong suit -- readiness vs. unreadiness.

Labels: 2008 election, country first?, John McCain, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin

WASHINGTON — Tucked deep into a recent proposal from the Bush administration is a provision that has received almost no public attention, yet in many ways captures one of President Bush’s defining legacies: an affirmation that the United States is still at war with Al Qaeda.

Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Bush’s advisers assert that many Americans may have forgotten that. So they want Congress to say so and “acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans.”

The language, part of a proposal for hearing legal appeals from detainees at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, goes beyond political symbolism. Echoing a measure that Congress passed just days after the Sept. 11 attacks, it carries significant legal and public policy implications for Mr. Bush, and potentially his successor, to claim the imprimatur of Congress to use the tools of war, including detention, interrogation and surveillance, against the enemy, legal and political analysts say.

Some lawmakers are concerned that the administration’s effort to declare anew a war footing is an 11th-hour maneuver to re-establish its broad interpretation of the president’s wartime powers, even in the face of challenges from the Supreme Court and Congress.

The proposal is also the latest step that the administration, in its waning months, has taken to make permanent important aspects of its “long war” against terrorism. From a new wiretapping law approved by Congress to a rewriting of intelligence procedures and F.B.I. investigative techniques, the administration is moving to institutionalize by law, regulation or order a wide variety of antiterrorism tactics.

“This seems like a final push by the administration before they go out the door,” said Suzanne Spaulding, a former lawyer for the Central Intelligence Agency and an expert on national security law. The cumulative effect of the actions, Ms. Spaulding said, is to “put the onus on the next administration” — particularly a Barack Obama administration — to justify undoing what Mr. Bush has done. ..

Mr. Mukasey laid out the administration’s thinking in a July 21 speech to a conservative Washington policy institute in response to yet another rebuke on presidential powers by the Supreme Court: its ruling that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay , were entitled to habeas corpus rights to contest their detentions in court.

The administration wants Congress to set out a narrow framework for those prisoner appeals. But the administration’s six-point proposal goes further. It includes not only the broad proclamation of a continued “armed conflict with Al Qaeda,” but also the desire for Congress to “reaffirm that for the duration of the conflict the United States may detain as enemy combatants those who have engaged in hostilities or purposefully supported Al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations.”

That broad language hints at why Democrats, and some Republicans, worry about the consequences. It could, they say, provide the legal framework for Mr. Bush and his successor to assert once again the president’s broad interpretation of the commander in chief’s wartime powers, powers that Justice Department lawyers secretly used to justify the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects and the National Security Agency’s wiretapping of Americans without court orders. ...

WASHINGTON — A top adviser to Senator John McCain says Mr. McCain believes that President Bush’s program of wiretapping without warrants was lawful, a position that appears to bring him into closer alignment with the sweeping theories of executive authority pushed by the Bush administration legal team.

In a letter posted online by National Review this week, the adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said Mr. McCain believed that the Constitution gave Mr. Bush the power to authorize the National Security Agency to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail without warrants, despite a 1978 federal statute that required court oversight of surveillance.

Mr. McCain believes that “neither the administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the A.C.L.U. and trial lawyers, understand were constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin wrote.

And if Mr. McCain is elected president, Mr. Holtz-Eakin added, he would do everything he could to prevent terrorist attacks, “including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.”

Although a spokesman for Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, denied that the senator’s views on surveillance and executive power had shifted, legal specialists said the letter contrasted with statements Mr. McCain previously made about the limits of presidential power. ...

Labels: Bush administration, domestic spying, George W. McCain, John McCain scares me, national security, war on terror, warrantless wiretaps

John McCain's decision to select a vice presidential running mate that endorsed Pat Buchanan for President in 2000 is a direct affront to all Jewish Americans. Pat Buchanan is a Nazi sympathizer with a uniquely atrocious record on Israel, even going as far as to denounce bringing former Nazi soldiers to justice and praising Adolf Hilter for his "great courage."

At a time when standing up for Israel's right to self-defense has never been more critical, John McCain has failed his first test of leadership and judgment by selecting a running mate who has aligned herself with a leading anti-Israel voice in American politics. It is frightening that John McCain would select someone one heartbeat away from the presidency who supported a man who embodies vitriolic anti-Israel sentiments.

Labels: 2008 election, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin, veepstakes

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin

ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg reports: It wasn't until Sunday night that John McCain, after meeting with his four top advisers, finally decided he could not tap independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to be his running mate. One adviser, tasked with taking the temperature of the conservative base, had strongly made the case to McCain that it would be a disaster for the party and that the base would revolt. McCain concluded he could not go that route.

The next day, McCain studied the three men at the top of his shortlist: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. All had different strengths and negatives, but McCain was not satisfied. None of them had what McCain believed he needed to do -- and would have done -- with Lieberman.

McCain wanted to shake up the ticket.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's name was in the mix as an unconventional choice for months, but she had not been considered a front-runner. So, over the next few days, with McCain continuing to believe he needed someone who had more of a maverick streak than his other choices, lawyers reviewed her vetting information. They kept their activities from even some in McCain's most senior inner circle.

Apparently, Pawlenty was seen as young enough, but too "safe." And Romney appears not to have been a serious contender in the end. No wonder both men's people are miffed. So after flying Palin in for a single, secret meeting, McCain apprently decided he was comfortable, she was maverick enough, and damnit, he liked her. And there she goes.

Labels: 2008 election, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin, veepstakes

…the oldest girl is rumored to have actually been the one who had the last baby, the one with Down’s Syndrome. She was taken out of school the last 4 or 5 months of her mother’s pregnancy.

On March 5th, 2008 Alaska’s Republican Governor, Sarah Palin, announced to the media that she was 7 months pregnant with her 5th child. She is currently 44.

Palin’s daughter Bristol is 16 and attends an Anchorage high school. Students who have attended class with her report that she has been out of school for months, claiming a prolonged case of mono.

Palin does not appear pregnant in any recent photographs. The announcement came as quite a shock to people who had worked closely with her, and have been quoted as saying that she did not appear pregnant whatsoever during the prior 7 months.

Those kinds of questions about Palin will likely be more interesting to the blogosphere than to voters, especially women voters, who won't cotton to personal attacks on the Alaska governor. But women will be interested in knowing more about Palin's beliefs, which are far to the right of most women Independents, whom McCain needs in November. Two from Tapped:

Chris Hayes has a great find:

Very quickly. Remember when Pat Buchanan ran a number of hard-right, fringe campaigns for president in the late 1980s, 1990s and 2000? Well, guess who was supporting him:

From an AP report in 1999:

"Pat Buchanan brought his conservative message of a smaller government and an America First foreign policy to Fairbanks and Wasilla on Friday as he continued a campaign swing through Alaska. Buchanan's strong message championing states rights resonated with the roughly 85 people gathered for an Interior Republican luncheon in Fairbanks. … Among those sporting Buchanan buttons were Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and state Sen. Jerry Ward, R-Anchorage."

And Palin's story about rejecting the "bridge to nowhere?" Not so much:

It seems to be totally untrue that, as Sarah Palin claimed in her speech in Dayton earlier today, she opposed the "Bridge to Nowhere." Rather, after federal funding was cut off, she decided not to replace it with state funds. There's no indication that she opposed the federal earmark.

In fact, Palin supported the bridge, and pushed for Alaska's congressional delegation to get it done. From the New Republic:

Republicans have been heavily touting Sarah Palin's reformist credentials, with her supposed opposition to Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" as Exhibit A. But how hard did she really fight the project? Not very, it seems. Here's what she told the Anchorage Daily News on October 22, 2006, during the race for the governor's seat (via Nexis):

5. Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?

Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now--while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.

So she was very much for the bridge and insisted that Alaska had to act quickly—the party of Ted Stevens and Don Young might soon lose its majority, after all. By that point, the project was endangered for reasons that had nothing to do with Palin—the bridge had become a national laughingstock, Congress had stripped away the offending earmark, shifting the money back to the state's general fund, and future federal support seemed unlikely.

And as for the quote that headlines this post? Politico explains (hat tip to The Moderate Voice):

In an interview just a month ago, she dissed the job, saying it didn’t seem “productive.”

In fact, she said she didn’t know what the vice president does.

Larry Kudlow of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Co.” asked her about the possibility of becoming McCain's ticket mate. Palin replied: “As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?

In this campaign? She babysits the evangelical right. That's the principal reason for the Palin pick -- she'll pump up the old evangelical Bush base to work for McCain, something they wouldn't otherwise do. And she'll make die-hard PUMAs feel comfortable voting for McCain (despite both of their views.) The question is, do those constituencies add up to 50 percent. Signs point to no, but we'll see.

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin

Labels: 2008 election, Sarah Palin

"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same," said Adrianne Marsh, Obama Campaign Spokeswoman.

"We send our congratulations to Governor Sarah Palin and her family on her designation as the republican nominee for Vice President. It is yet another encouraging sign that old barriers are falling in our politics. While we obviously have differences over how best to lead this country forward Governor Palin is an admirable person and will add a compelling new voice to this campaign."

"After his attacks on Obama's readiness for the job, it'll be amusing to hear a 71-year-old with a history of health problems justify this decision."

"She's a talent, but that's the end of the experience message from John McCain."

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Gov. Sarah Palin, a rising young GOP star mentioned as a possible running mate for John McCain, could see her clean-hands reputation damaged by a growing furor over whether she tried to get her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper.

A legislative panel has launched a $100,000 investigation to determine if Palin dismissed Alaska's public safety commissioner because he would not fire the trooper, Mike Wooten. Wooten went through a messy divorce from Palin's sister.

Palin has denied the commissioner's dismissal had anything to do with her former brother-in-law. And she denied orchestrating the dozens of telephone calls made by her husband and members of her administration to Wooten's bosses.

Palin said she welcomes the investigation: "Hold me accountable."

Still, the allegations she abused her office could prove embarrassing for Palin, who got elected in 2006 on an ethics reform platform.

Palin's problems started a month ago when she fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, saying she wanted the department to go in a new direction.

Monegan has said he does not know why he was fired. But he said pressure to get rid of Wooten had come from those around Palin, including her husband, Todd; her former chief of staff; and other top officials.

In 2005, before Palin ran for office, the Palin family accused Wooten of drinking a beer while in his patrol car, illegal hunting and firing a Taser at his 11-year-old stepson. The Palins also claimed Wooten threatened to kill Sarah Palin's father.

Wooten was suspended over the allegations for five days in 2006 but is still on the job. Monegan refused to comment on Wooten's situation, saying he could not discuss personnel matters.

More recently, Todd Palin said, he took his concerns over the governor's safety directly to Monegan. But he said he never told anyone to fire Wooten.

Wooten has refused to comment.

Attorney General Talis Colberg's conducted an investigation and found that 14 members of the Palin administration — including Colberg himself — made calls to Department of Public Safety officials about Wooten.

In one of those calls, Frank Bailey, director boards and commissions, was tape-recorded as saying: "Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads, why on earth hasn't, why is this guy still representing the department?"

On Wednesday, Palin said none of the two dozen or so calls were made at her direction.

It's not exactly Ted Stevens, but it isn't the way you want to start off your bus tour.

This was a bold move in this historic election, and a play for those Clinton supporters. Palin is a social conservative, and her views on abortion won't play well with most Democratic women. But this election has been a case study in identity politics. We'll see if she peels away some women.

The potential to grab some of those women voters is perhaps the best asset Palin brings to a McCain ticket. She also reinforces McCain's maverick image. She bucked her own party, launching an ethics investigation into the state party chairman with regard to his dealings with oil companies in the state. And being from Alaska, she's the ultimate outsider. She also also reinforces McCain's drilling message -- though she's for drilling in ANWR; McCain is not. She also represents the next generation of Republican leaders -- she's a fresh face.

... Although she's not linked to them, Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young are facing legal/ethical troubles. In fact, Stevens' trial will start in late September, so the Alaska Republican Party is a mess. And Palin's trooper trouble could play into that.

It will be interesting to see which story line catches on: "Palin, the reformer/maverick", or "Palin, under investigation?"

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, Sarah Palin, veepstakes

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Democratic convention

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, Mitt Romney, presidential candidates, veepstakes

"Tonight, Americans witnessed a misleading speech that was so fundamentally at odds with the meager record of Barack Obama. When the temple comes down, the fireworks end, and the words are over, the facts remain: Senator Obama still has no record of bipartisanship, still opposes offshore drilling, still voted to raise taxes on those making just $42,000 per year, and still voted against funds for American troops in harm's way. The fact remains: Barack Obama is still not ready to be president."

You know, this country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit, that American promise, that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night and a promise that you make to yours, a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west, a promise that led workers to picket lines and women to reach for the ballot.

(APPLAUSE) And it is that promise that, 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

(APPLAUSE)

The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustrations of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead -- people of every creed and color, from every walk of life -- is that, in America, our destiny is inextricably linked, that together our dreams can be one.

"We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried. "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."

America, we cannot turn back...

(APPLAUSE)

... not with so much work to be done; not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for; not with an economy to fix, and cities to rebuild, and farms to save; not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend.

America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone.

At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise, that American promise, and in the words of scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

Indeed.

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Democratic convention, presidential candidates

A McCain ad aired on Fox News channel with the words "HANG" in the background along with a photograph of Barack Obama has sparked outrage after being noticed by a reporter at a local Fox television affiliate.

The words "HIGHER TAXES" are transposed on an image of Obama standing in front of a crowd. The background is blurred at the edges so that the words from Obama's signature theme -- change -- has been cut down to the word "HANG." The shot appears for about a second. ...

... Asked about the image, the McCain camp said, "We're not even validating such an outrageous and preposterous claim with a comment."

Strikingly, the image of Obama with the word hang in the background is blurred far more heavily on the side where the C would have been, suggesting the decision was intentional. The company that produced the ad refused to comment when the local Fox affiliate inquired.

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, negative campaigning, presidential candidates

Labels: 2008 election, Democratic convention, John McCain, presidential candidates

John “9 Homes” McCain is having trouble filling a tiny 10,000 seat arena at Wright State University’s Nutter Center in Fairborn, OH (a Dayton suburb.)

The Old Coot and Cindy Lou will appear at the event, dubbed the “Road to the Convention Rally.” Doors open at 9 a.m. and the event begins at 11AM. Tickets are being given away at county GOP offices in southwest Ohio and in Indiana and Kentucky.

And the Dayton Daily News says tickets are still available. As one of Tae Goddard's commenters helpfully suggests, maybe he should change his name to Barack Obama...

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, the enthusiasm gap

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, negative campaigning, presidential candidates

An exclusive TIME/CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll reveals that Barack Obama leads John McCain by several percentage points in three crucial battleground states—Nevada, New Mexico and Pennsylvania—while McCain tops Obama by 1% in Colorado.

Obama's widest margin is in New Mexico, where 53% of registered voters said they prefer the Democrat to 40% who favor McCain. Obama also holds a five-point advantage in Nevada (49% to 44%). Both states went narrowly to George W. Bush in the 2004 election.

In Pennsylvania, Obama leads 48% to 43, while McCain topped Obama in Colorado 47% to 46%. In all state polls, the margin of error is plus-or-minus 4%.

Labels: 2008 election, polls, swing states

... when TIME's James Carney and Michael Scherer were invited to the front of McCain's plane recently for an interview, they were ushered forward, past the curtain that now separates reporters from the candidate, past the sofa that was designed for his gabfests with the press and taken straight to the candidate's seat. McCain at first seemed happy enough to do the interview. But his mood quickly soured. The McCain on display in the 24-minute interview was prickly, at times abrasive, and determined not to stray off message. An excerpt:

What do you want voters to know coming out of the Republican Convention — about you, about your candidacy?
I'm prepared to be President of the United States, and I'll put my country first.

There's a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us?
Read it in my books.

I've read your books.
No, I'm not going to define it.

But honor in politics?
I defined it in five books. Read my books.

During another exchange, McCain uses the Keating Five scandal to once again, play the POW card:

Jumping around a bit: in your books, you've talked about what it was like to go through the Keating Five experience, and you've been quoted as saying it was one of the worst experiences of your life. Someone else quoted you as saying it was even worse than being a POW ...
That's another one of those statements made 17 or 18 years ago which was out of the context of the conversation I was having. Of course the worst, the toughest experience of my life was being imprisoned, so people can pluck phrases from 17 or 18 years ago ...

I wasn't suggesting it as a negative thing. I was just saying that ...
I'm just suggesting it was taken out of context. I understand how comments are taken out of context from time to time. But obviously, the toughest time of my life, physically and [in] every other way, would be the time that I almost died in prison camp. And I think most Americans understand that.

The reporters seem genuinely shocked at the clipped, surly attitude McCain is copping with them. I guess falling out of love is no fun at all...

Read the rest here.

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, media, presidential candidates

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, veepstakes

Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois, is scheduled to address as many as 80,000 people in Denver's Invesco Field at Mile High football stadium and millions of television viewers starting at about 8 p.m. Mountain time (10 p.m. EST).

In the speech, which caps the four-day Democratic National Convention and opens Obama's campaign for the White House as his party's nominee, Obama will offer "a fundamentally new direction to get America back on track, both here and around the world," said David Plouffe, his campaign manager. Appearing on morning television talk shows, Plouffe said Obama would explain his plans for dealing with the economy, health care and education, as well as international challenges such as threats to the United States and strained relations with other countries.

Politico on the significance for African-Americans (by the way, my pal Sonja ran into Al Sharpton at the Pepsi Center yesterday. Needless to say, he has no role this year...)

In 1961, Robert F. Kennedy predicted that the country could elect a black president in the next 40 years. That’s how fast race relations were changing in America, said the attorney general at the time.

Now, 47 years later, Barack Obama stands at the precipice of fulfilling Kennedy’s forecast. On Thursday, he’ll become the first minority to win the presidential nomination, achieving what many thought was impossible given our national obsession with race.

To call this a historic moment feels like understatement. Obama’s nomination represents a sea change, a psychological shift in a country that still struggles with the painful and complicated legacy of slavery.

Fifty-five years ago, whites and blacks learned in separate schools, ate at separate lunch counters and sat in different parts of the bus. Forty-one years ago, Massachusetts elected the first black man to the Senate. Just 18 years ago, Virginia welcomed the first black governor.

And on Thursday, a black man will step up to the podium and accept the nomination of a party that only 44 years ago debated whether to seat black delegates from Mississippi at the 1964 convention.

... and the reactions of black officials:

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.)

“A few days ago, I was speaking to a group, and one young lady asked me, ‘What do you think Dr. King would say about Barack Obama’s nomination?’ I said, ‘Young lady, I don’t know, but I have a feeling he would look down and say, ‘Hallelujah.’”

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.)

“I think my most emotional moment came the night of South Dakota and Montana. ... I was thinking about all those times I was telling people, ‘Be what you want to be when you grow up’ and, hell, I didn’t believe it. ... It’s a big moment and, with these sorts of things, you usually don’t expect to see the day.”

Meanwhile, damn the TV pundits, Biden's getting great reviews for his speech yesterday (including from me.) His everyman thing is real, and people are talking.

Labels: 2008 election, American history, Barack Obama, Democratic convention, Denver convention, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Democratic convention

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, Karl Rove, veepstakes

Labels: 2008 election, Bill Clinton, Democratic convention, Democrats, The Clintons

Labels: 2008 election, Democratic convention, Hillary Clinton

Labels: 2008 election, Democratic convention, Hillary Clinton

Labels: 2008 election, Bill Clinton, Democratic convention, Hillary Clinton, The Clintons

Newsweek reported that while Petraeus recognized that al-Qaeda in Iraq has been significantly diminished, he refused to say the terror group had been “defeated.” Moreover, Petraeus acknowledged that the recent successes in Iraq may have been possible without the surge:

Petraeus is careful not to credit all the progress to the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. The sea change came last year from a series of movements now known as the Awakening. […] So would the Sunni Awakening have succeeded without the surge? Possibly, he concedes.

Labels: General David Petraeus, Iraq, the surge

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Democratic convention, Hillary Clinton

Labels: 2008 election, American Issues Project, Barack Obama, John McCain, negative campaigning, presidential candidates, right wing smear machine, swiftbating

Labels: 2008 election, Democratic convention

Labels: 2008 election, Democratic convention, Michelle Obama

After pulling over two men for allegedly driving erratically early Sunday morning, Aurora Police said they discovered two rifles, a bulletproof vest and the drug methamphetamine in the car. When authorities questioned the men about the findings, they pointed to another member of their alleged drug ring whom they say made a threat against Obama.

A witness interviewed in the case said one of suspects allegedly said the guns were to be used to kill the Illinois senator, but authorities do not believe the alleged threat put Obama in immediate danger.

When police when to a hotel to question the third individual, officers said he jumped from a window on one of the upper floors of the building in an attempt to evade police. Medical personnel have treated him for a broken ankle.

Authorities told ABC News the men had tattoos of white supremacist images.

One of the men has been identified as Tharin Robert Gartrell, but police have not named the other two men.

CBS4 has now learned at least four people are under arrest in connection with a possible plot to kill Barack Obama at his Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver. All are being held on either drug or weapons charges.

CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass reported one of the suspects told authorities they were "going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a ... rifle … sighted at 750 yards."

Law enforcement sources tell Maass that one of the suspects "was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama. He responded in the affirmative."

The story began emerging Sunday morning when Aurora police arrested 28-year-old Tharin Gartrell. He was driving a rented pickup truck in an erratic manner according to sources.

Sources told CBS4 police found two high-powered, scoped rifles in the car along with camouflage clothing, walkie-talkies, a bulletproof vest, a spotting scope, licenses in the names of other people and methamphetamine. One of the rifles is listed as stolen from Kansas.

Subsequently authorities went to the Cherry Creek Hotel to contact an associate of Gartrell's. But that man, who was wanted on numerous warrants, jumped out of a sixth floor hotel window. Law enforcement sources say the man broke an ankle in the fall and was captured moments later. Sources say he was wearing a ring with a swastika, and is thought to have ties to white supremacist organizations.

A third man -- an associate of Gartrell and the hotel jumper was also arrested. He told authorities that the two men "planned to kill Barack Obama at his acceptance speech."

That man, along with a woman, are also under arrest.

Labels: Democratic convention, Denver convention

Labels: Democratic convention, Ted Kennedy

Local Democratic delegate: I'm voting for McCain
BY BRIDGET THORESON
Journal Times
Sunday, June 15, 2008 10:52 PM CDT

A local Democratic delegate is standing by her announcement that she will vote for Sen. John McCain in November.

Deb Bartoshevich of Waterford, Racine County’s lone Clinton delegate to the national convention, said she was surprised by the huge reaction given to her comment, which was reported on a newspaper Web site Friday.

“I just didn’t expect it to be like this,” Bartoshevich said. “It’s been nonstop.”

A dramatic response came from the Wisconsin Democratic Party on Friday night, when state party members voted at their convention to challenge her status as a delegate to the Denver convention in late August, when Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is expected to get the party’s presidential nomination.

The resolution said Bartoshevich violated a Democratic National Committee rule requiring delegates to support the party’s nominee and not any other candidate, and asked the national party’s credentials committee to refuse to seat her at the convention.

If the move is approved, Democratic aides said she would be replaced by an alternate who already had been elected.

“It’s extremely important that we send a message that Democrats in the state of Wisconsin will never support somebody who supports John McCain for president,” state party chairman Joe Wineke said to cheers among the hundreds of party activists.

Bartoshevich, who was unable to attend the state convention, read that party members had voted to strip her of her status. She has been contacted by attorneys specializing in political law looking into whether that could happen, she said.

“Understandably, there are people that are upset with me,” Bartoshevich said. “I had thought that Hillary was the better candidate, but everybody’s entitled to their own opinion.”

Bartoshevich said she continues to support Clinton, who she will vote for at the convention.

RACINE, Wis. (AP) — Republican John McCain had coffee Thursday with a former Wisconsin Democratic Party delegate who wanted to vote for him at her party's national convention instead of Barack Obama.

McCain met Debra Bartoshevich, her 16-year-old daughter and Bartoshevich's father at a Racine coffee shop before heading to the city's civic center where about 1,000 people attended a town hall meeting. Bartoshevich and her family rode to the meeting on McCain's bus and were introduced by the candidate.

McCain thanked Bartoshevich for her support, calling her a "dye-in-the-wool Democrat."

"And perhaps your reward will be in heaven, but not here on earth but I'd like to thank you," he joked.

Bartoshevich, an emergency room nurse, had pledged to support Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. But after Clinton lost the Democratic Party primary to Obama, Bartoshevich said she intended to vote for McCain instead.

The state Democratic Party dumped her as a delegate last week.

Now, she's come full circle, with her very own TV spot. And on Sunday, Debra kicked her status up another notch, hob-nobbing with people on McCain's veep short-list:

DENVER, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- RNC Victory Chairman Carly
Fiorina, Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Penny (MN-01), Wisconsin Hillary
Clinton delegate Debra Bartoshevich, and Women for Fair Politics organizer
Cynthia Ruccia will host a "Citizens for McCain" press conference tomorrow
during the Democratic National Convention to discuss why many Independent
and Democratic voters are supporting John McCain's positive vision for America.

...Not that she's a social climber or anything...

Labels: 2008 election, angry white women, Debra Bartoshevich, Democratic convention, Hillary's bitter enders

“This ad does not reflect the sentiment of the thousands of former Clinton supporters from my Congressional District who have embraced Barack Obama’s message of uniting Americans and getting the country back on track.

“Cheap political stunts like this ad show that John McCain is offering more of the same: four more years of failed Bush policies and a record of supporting George Bush 95% of the time and losing track of how many houses he owns.

“Hillary Clinton supporters are embracing Barack Obama and Joe Biden because they know they will bring a tax code that gives real relief to working families, a serious plan to tackle the energy crisis and help you cope with rising prices, and an end to the kind of political game too often on display at McCain headquarters.

“The Democrats I talk to are supporting Barack Obama and Joe Biden because they’ll end the political games of Washington and provide real tax relief for working families, address the energy crisis and restore America’s respect abroad.”

Labels: 2008 election, Hillary Clinton, Hillary's bitter enders, John McCain

Labels: Democratic convention, Fox News

Labels: 2008 election, Democratic convention

JAMES CRYSTAL RADIO Talk WFTL-A/FORT LAUDERDALE-WEST PALM BEACH afternoon host JIM DEFEDE has disappeared from the station's website and appears to have exited the station.

DEFEDE, a former columnist for the MIAMI HERALD who continues as a commentator for CBS O&O WFOR-TV (CBS 4)/MIAMI, joined WFTL for 4-7p weekdays in 2007 after being let go at CLEAR CHANNEL Talk WINZ-A/MIAMI; his bio has been erased from the WFTL website and the station's programming lineup dhows 4-7p as "To Be Announced."

In an e-mail to blog RANDOM PIXELS, DEFEDE said that "Unfortunately I never meshed with the rest of the station so rather than continue working there, I asked them to buy me out of the remaining 14 months of my contract. We were able to reach a deal this week and my time at WFTL is now over. Leaving WFTL will free me up to do even more with CBS4 News. I wish the folks at WFTL all the best."

RADIO ONE received the same notice. The LANHAM, MD-based media company has also not maintained a minimum market value of publicly held shares as required for continued inclusion by NASDAQ. RADIO ONE has not traded above $1 per share recently, and closed on THURSDAY (8/14) 7 cents below a dollar, at 93 cents a share.

Labels: entertainment industry, Jim DeFede, Radio One, talk radio

Labels: 2008 campaign, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, presiddential candidates, veepstakes

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, campaign ads, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, presidential candidates

Labels: 2008 election, electoral map, the math

(Politico) Retired Gen. Colin Powell is among the potential running mates who have been considered by John McCain, campaign advisers told Politico.

Powell was among the possible vice presidential choices the Arizona Republican senator was thinking of when he said he would not rule out a supporter of abortion rights, a key adviser said.

Campaign officials say McCain has told them not to discuss the process.

Powell, who was President Bush's first secretary of state, would add celebrity to the ticket, as well as reinforce McCain's strength as a potential commander in chief, which his campaign considers to be one of his chief assets.

Labels: 2008 election, Collin Powell, John McCain, mainstream media, presidential candidates, veepstakes

The latest piece from Ron Fournier, the AP's Washington bureau chief and the man responsible for directing the wire service's coverage of the presidential campaign, on Joe Biden joining the Democratic ticket, is drawing a fair amount of attention this morning. More importantly, McCain campaign staffers are pushing it fairly aggressively to other reporters, in large part because it mirrors the Republican line with minimal variation.

By choosing Biden, Fournier argues, Barack Obama is showing a "lack of confidence," and is siding with "the status quo."

There are two ways to consider Fournier's piece: substantively and in the broader context.

First, on the substance, Fournier's analysis seems a little lazy. By his logic, any potential running mate shows a "lack of confidence" -- picking Hillary would mean Obama lacked confidence in his ability to win over women voters; picking Bayh would mean Obama lacked confidence in his ability to win over independents and conservative Dems; picking Webb would mean Obama lacked confidence in his ability to win over voters concerned about national security; picking Kaine would mean Obama lacked confidence in his ability to win over voters in the South; etc. For that matter, "the status quo" in Washington has been conservative Republican rule. Biden may be an old pro and a DC insider, but he's anything but "the status quo."

Second, in context, Fournier's objectivity covering the presidential race continues to look shaky. We are, after all, talking about a journalist who, as recently as last year, considered working for the McCain campaign.

Fournier is also a buddy of Karl Rove, and exchanged emails with him recently, telling him to "keep up the fight..." he's also the guy who handed Mac a box of donuts during a media briefing earlier this year (with sprinkles.) Media Matters' Eric Boehlert has documented the AP's "Fournier problem," but so far, nothing has been done about it. Quite the contrary, Fournier has filled the Washington bureau with fellow travelers.

The Clintons made a lot of hay during the campaign about challenging the objectivity of news outlets, mostly to negative effect, for them. But in this case, Democrats have a real case to make that the most ubiquitous institution in news, the AP, has developed a strong right-wing/Republican bias in the bureau that matters most: Washington. How else do you explain a Fournier dispatch like this:

A dispatch Fournier filed in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina began: “The Iraqi insurgency is in its last throes. The economy is booming. Anybody who leaks a CIA agent's identity will be fired. Add another piece of White House rhetoric that doesn't match the public's view of reality: Help is on the way, Gulf Coast.”

Somebody call Howard Dean. Or the Obama campaign. There's something rotten at the AP and it's time someone in a position to do so stepped up and said something about it.

Can you email AP reporter Ron Fournier and CC his boss, Managing Editor Mike Oreskes? Tell them that the public's faith in the 160-year-old AP will be gone if Ron Fournier is allowed to continue his slanted articles against Democrats and for McCain.

Here are their emails:

Michael Oreskes, AP Managing Editor, mOreskes@ap.org
Ron Fournier, AP reporter and Washington D.C. Bureau Chief, rfournier@ap.org

After you email them, please help us track our progress by reporting your email here:
http://pol.moveon.org/call?cp_id=797&tg=508.532

Labels: 2008 election, AP, Associated Press, Barack Obama, John McCain, mainstream media, media bias, right wingers, Ron Fournier

He's not speaking at the Democratic convention and he hasn't (yet) endorsed, but Chuck Hagel continues to provide great fodder for Dems.

His paper statement on the Biden pick:

"Joe Biden is the right partner for Barack Obama. His many years of distinguished service to America, his seasoned judgment and his vast experience in foreign policy and national security will match up well with the unique challenges of the 21st Century. An Obama-Biden ticket is a very impressive and strong team. Biden’s selection is good news for Obama and America."

"I congratulate Senator Barack Obama on his selection of my friend, Senator Joe Biden, to be his vice-presidential running mate. I have enjoyed for many years the opportunity to work with Joe Biden to bring strong bipartisan support to United States foreign policy."

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Obama-, presidential candidates

The full quote is from The Daily Show, August 2, 2005:

-------------------------------

John Stewart: “You may end up going against a Senate
collegue, Perhaps McCain, perhaps Frist…”

Joe Biden: “Well, John McCain is a personal friend, a
great friend, and I would be honored to run with or
against John McCain, because I think the country would
be better off, it would be well off no matter who.”

John Stewart: “Did I hear you say ‘with’?”

Joe Biden: “You know, um, John McCain and I think
that…”

John Stewart: “Don’t become cottage cheese my friend,
say it!”

Joe Biden: “Yes, I hope John… I wanted John to run
with John Kerry the last time out, and I asked him to
do it.”


Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, campaign ads, Joe Biden, John McCain, Obama-Biden, presidential candidates

The ticket: so fresh and so clean

In 1966, while in law school, Biden married Neilia Hunter. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III, Robert Hunter, and Naomi.

His wife and infant daughter died in a car accident shortly after he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. His two young sons, Beau and Hunter, were seriously injured in the accident, but both eventually made full recoveries. Biden was sworn into office from their bedside. Persuaded not to resign in order to care for them, Biden began the practice of commuting an hour and a half each day on the train from his home in the Wilmington suburbs to Washington, DC, which he continues to do.

In 1977, Biden married Jill Tracy Jacobs. They have one daughter, Ashley, and are members of the Roman Catholic Church. In February 1988, Biden was hospitalized for two brain aneurysms which kept him from the Senate for seven months.

Biden's elder son, Beau, was a partner in the Wilmington law firm of Bifferato, Gentilotti, Biden & Balick, LLC and was elected Attorney General of Delaware in 2006. He is a captain in the Delaware Army National Guard, where he serves in the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) Corps. He is set to be deployed to Iraq in October. Biden's younger son, Hunter, works as a lawyer in Washington, DC, serves on the board of directors of Amtrak, and previously worked in the Commerce Department.

Since 1991, Biden has also served as an adjunct professor at the Widener University School of Law, where he teaches a seminar on constitutional law.

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Obama-Biden, presidential candidates, the ticket, veepstakes

"Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3 pm ET on www.BarackObama.com. Spread the word!"

Labels: 2008 election, 3 a.m., Barack Obama, campaigns, Joe Biden, presidential candidates

That's the ticket: Obama reportedly taps Joe Biden as veep

There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama's lack of experience than Joe Biden. Biden has denounced Barack Obama's poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing -- that Barack Obama is not ready to be President."
-- McCain spokesman Ben Porritt

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, presidential candidates, veepstakes

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, John McCain, Mitt Romney, politics, presidential candidates, rich people, veepstakes

In 1986, when then-Rep. McCain was running for the Senate seat vacated by Barry Goldwater, he quietly began remodeling a $500,000 house in central Phoenix owned by his wealthy father-in-law James Hensley. The $225,000 project -- which included the construction of a 4,000-square-foot addition, swimming pool, jacuzzi, cabana and barbecue -- held political peril for McCain, who was already fighting charges that he was as an opportunistic carpertbagger.

The new house was located in Phoenix's fourth congressional district -- outside of the first district in Tempe which he represented at the time.

AP caught wind of the work at 7110 North Central Ave. shortly before the general election and dispatched a reporter to examine blueprints at the planning department. They found the permit applicants were listed as Hensley and a mysterious "Mr. Smith."

The reporter tracked down McCain's plumber, who told him he'd been told Mr. Smith's first name was "Eldon."

Eldon Smith, it turned out, was John McCain.

When confronted with the blueprints, McCain's spokeswoman didn't deny that the renovation was being done for McCain and his wife Cindy -- and suggested that Smith was Cindy's mother's maiden name. She didn't explain why Marguerite Hensley might have been listed as "Mr. Smith."

Later, McCain released a statement attributing the choice of Smith's name to his architect. Use of the alias didn't violate the law, he claimed, because it appeared only on blueprints and not on official permits.

... Alas, local planning experts didn't quite agree.

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, rich people

Labels: Cindy McCain, John McCain, lies, Mother Theresa, politics, The McCians

It's time for the Senator to stop cheapening the war experiences of thousands of vets and his fellow POWs, and his own as well, by stretching the boundaries of logic to make his POW status a wild-card rebuttal to all accusations or an answer to all difficult questions.

We are veterans who like John McCain, who served honorably, but and we continue to serve our country honorably by not using our military experiences as unjustifiable necessary shields or stepping stones. John McCain has faced and will continue to face many difficult questions that he does not have an answer for, and problems to which that he will provide no solutions to, in the 70 days between now and the election. When he uses his status as a veteran to deflect legitimate questions and concerns, it devalues not just his service to our country but ours as well.

So today, we ask not as Veterans for Obama, but as Veterans of America that Sen. McCain respect the service of his fellow POWs and combat veterans, and stop cheapening their service by hiding behind his own.

Awaiting the hysterical fricken overreaction from another frickin McCain press aide...

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, politics, the POW card

Iraqi and U.S. officials said several difficult issues remain, including whether U.S. troops will be subject to Iraqi law if accused of committing crimes. But the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss the agreement publicly, said key elements of a timetable for troop withdrawal once resisted by President Bush had been reached.

"We have a text," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said after a day-long visit Thursday by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Rice and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spent nearly three hours here discussing key undecided issues. The accord must be completed and approved by both governments before a United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.

The question of immunity for U.S. troops and Defense Department personnel from Iraqi legal jurisdiction -- demanded by Washington and rejected by Baghdad -- remained unresolved. Troop immunity, one U.S. official said, "is the red line for us." Officials said they were still discussing language that would make the distinction between on- and off-duty activities, with provisions allowing for some measure of Iraqi legal jurisdiction over soldiers accused of committing crimes while off-duty.

But negotiators made progress on a specific timetable outlining the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq, something Maliki is under considerable domestic political pressure to secure. In the past, Rice and other U.S. officials have spoken of an "aspirational time horizon" that would make withdrawals contingent on the continuation of improved security conditions and the capabilities of Iraqi security forces.

Officials on both sides have said they hope to split the difference, setting next year as the goal for Iraqi forces to take the lead in security operations in all 18 provinces, including Baghdad.

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have now also agreed to a conditions-based withdrawal of U.S. combat troops by the end of 2011, a date further in the future than the Iraqis initially wanted. The deal would leave tens of thousands of U.S. troops inside Iraq in supporting roles, such as military trainers, for an unspecified time. According to the U.S. military, there are 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, most of whom are playing a combat role.

Labels: Bush administration, Iraq war, timetable for withdrawal, U.S. foreign policy

Among his credentials, Edwards is chairman of the House Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee. His district previously included Fort Hood, and the Waco Democrat is frequently pressed into service as a surrogate for the party on military issues.

Potential liabilities include Edwards vote in favor of the war in Iraq, which may not sit well with the party's liberal base. He is a low-profile member of Congress, whose selection may not give Obama's ever-tightening race against Republican John McCain the immediate boost the party is looking for.

Edwards is a native of Corpus Christi and graduate of Texas A&M University and Harvard Business School. His Central Texas congressional district includes President Bush's Crawford ranch.

Edwards has some seeming advantages: he endorsed Obama way back in February, he's a southern while male, which apparently is important to getting a Democrat into the White House, and he's a centrist (although the NRO folks point out he'd be a heartbeat away from reversing most of Obama's policies, and he voted for the war in Iraq ... then again, so did Biden...) He's also a good looking guy who would match up well with Obama, if he's not really short. I mean, he actually looks like a Chet, based on his Congressional pic. And from his official bio, more fuel for why Chet may be on fire, as it were...

As the Chairman of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, Congressman Edwards is known as a national champion for America’s veterans, troops, and their families. In 2007, he authored the largest increase in veterans funding in the 77-year history of the Veterans Administration, an $11.8 billion increase. American Legion National Commander Marty Conatser called Edwards’ record VA Appropriations bill, “a monumental achievement.” This year, both the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars recognized Congressman Edwards’ leadership with their national awards given to only one member of Congress. In 2007, he was awarded the Disabled American Veterans' “Going to Bat for Veterans” award for authoring the historic VA funding increases. Working with Speaker Pelosi in 2005, Congressman Edwards introduced the GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century, which dramatically improved veterans’ health care and benefits, and covered the full cost of a college education. Edwards then received the Military Order of the Purple Heart’s "Inspirational Leadership" award in 2005. In 2008, Chairman Edwards played a key role in enacting the new GI Bill of Rights into law.

Nancy, you scamp... BTW Edwards is a Baptist, which doesn't help with the Catholic gap... And I'm not sure the Democrats would want to chance losing his seat (he has a challenger) when every vote counts to keep a strong majority in the House. I'd be surprised if he's the pick, and as I said before, I remain bullish on Biden, but hey, anything can happen...

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Chet Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, presidential candidates, veepstakes

Labels: local television, media, media buzz, talk radio

Labels: blogs, John McCain

• If the homes are Cindy's then how did John get access to them? By dumping his first wife after her terrible car accident and marrying heiress Cindy McCain before the ink had dried on the divorce papers...

• If John McCain left his first wife for Cindy, when did they start dating? While he was still good and married to wife #1. (Somebody call Rick Warren... and the National Enquirer!)
  

• If John McCain doesn't own the homes, why is that? Because Cindy is a $100 million heiress who was damned sure not gonna marry a social climbing pol without an ironclad prenup.

• If John McCain is a social climbing pol with a super rich wife, a pre-nup, and access to so many homes he can't remember them, what else is he forgetting? That Cindy also brought to the marriage a fortuitous introduction to a Mr. Keating.

When considering John McCain’s history of unethical behavior, the list usually starts (and ends) with the Keating Five scandal in the 1980s, for which McCain was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for having shown, at a minimum, poor judgment. In the aftermath, McCain helped improve his public image, and bury the scandal, by becoming an advocate of campaign-finance reform.

But the notion that McCain cleaned up his act may not be entirely true. Take, for example, Donald Diamond, a wealthy Arizona real estate developer and generous McCain contributor, who wanted some coastal land in California freed up by an Army base closing.

When Mr. Diamond wanted to buy land at the base, Fort Ord, Mr. McCain assigned an aide who set up a meeting at the Pentagon and later stepped in again to help speed up the sale, according to people involved and a deposition Mr. Diamond gave for a related lawsuit. When he appealed to a nearby city for the right to develop other property at the former base, Mr. Diamond submitted Mr. McCain’s endorsement as “a close personal friend.”

Writing to officials in the city, Seaside, Calif., the senator said, “You will find him as honorable and committed as I have.”

Courting local officials and potential partners, Mr. Diamond’s team promised that he could “help get through some of the red tape in dealing with the Department of the Army” because Mr. Diamond “has been very active with Senator McCain,” a partner said in a deposition.

For Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican who has staked two presidential campaigns on pledges to avoid even the appearance of dispensing an official favor for a donor, Mr. Diamond is the kind of friend who can pose a test.

Ya think? The closer one looks at this, the worse it appears.

In California, the McCain aide’s assistance with the Army helped Mr. Diamond complete a purchase in 1999 that he soon turned over for a $20 million profit. And Mr. McCain’s letter of recommendation reinforced Mr. Diamond’s selling point about his McCain connections as he pursued — and won in 2005 — a potentially much more lucrative deal to develop a resort hotel and luxury housing.

In Arizona, Mr. McCain has helped Mr. Diamond with matters as small as forwarding a complaint in a regulatory skirmish over the endangered pygmy owl, and as large as introducing legislation remapping public lands. In 1991 and 1994, Mr. McCain sponsored two laws sought by Mr. Diamond that resulted in providing him millions of dollars and thousands of acres in exchange for adding some of his properties to national parks. The Arizona senator co-sponsored a third similar bill now before the Senate. […]

For the California projects, the campaign said the McCain aide arranged the introduction to an Army official for Mr. Diamond’s team as “a constituent matter.”

• John McCain's use of former mistress/current wife Cindy's corporate jets for his campaign...

• John McCain's $500 Ferragamo fettish...

• John McCain's rejection of an MLK holiday (you want to play Rev. Wright clips? Take two doses of that next week during the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington. Hey, John, maybe you can consult your personal wise man John Lewis for advice on a response...
  

• Home, sweet homes
• McNasty
• You know you're rich when ...
• The wayback machine: Cindy McCain, pilfered pills and the Keating Five scandal

Labels: 2008 election, Cindy McCain, dirty politics, Hardball, John McCain, presidential candidates

American negotiators have not yet succeeded in getting Iraqi officials to agree to keep US troops well into the next president's first term, the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, confirmed yesterday.

On a surprise visit to Baghdad, Rice denied earlier reports this week that the two sides had ironed out the last disputes in a heavily contested draft agreement that is due to replace the UN mandate covering the US-led occupation.

President George Bush wants the pact to authorise a troop presence at least until 2011 so that he can trumpet it as proof of his policy's success. But the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has adopted the rise in nationalist feeling in the Iraqi parliament and among the public and is insisting on a clear timetable for withdrawal, the lifting of judicial immunity for US troops who commit abuses, and a veto on US military operations, including the arrest of Iraqis.

The pact has been downgraded into a "memorandum of understanding" to avoid the need for the US Senate to approve it. In Iraq, it has to clear several hurdles. "Once a breakthrough has really been achieved, the draft will be presented to the council of ministers", Raid Fahmi Jahid, the science and technology minister told the Guardian yesterday.

If the government approves the draft, the parliament will have the last word.

The Iraqi side has been pressing for a withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraqi cities by the end of June, and for all troops to leave a year or so later. But after her talks yesterday, Rice said only "aspirational timetables" were worth having in the agreement.

The Bush administration was angered last month when Maliki gave broad support to Senator Barack Obama's pledge to pull all combat troops out of Iraq by June 2010. This undermined his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, who insisted along with the Bush administration, that withdrawals be linked to achieving various political and security goals, the so-called "conditions-based approach" as opposed to "artificial timetables".

Labels: Bush administration, Iraq, timetable for withdrawal

"We're delighted to have a real estate debate with Barack Obama," said spokesman Brian Rogers, adding that the press should focus on Obama's house. "It's a frickin' mansion. He doesn't tell people that. You have a mansion you bought in a shady deal with a convicted felon."

... "That's fair game now," he said. "You are going to see more of that now that this issue has been joined. You'll see more of the Rezko matter from us."

The McCain campaign was in full damage-control mode as the housing story took off today. Rogers tried to play down the story, saying that reports of the many McCain houses were overstated.

"The reality is they have some investment properties and stuff. It's not as if he lives in ten houses. That's just not the case," Rogers said. "The reality is they have four that actually could be considered houses they could use."

Those four include an apartment in Arlington, a ranch in Sedona, and two condos, in California and Phoenix, he said. The others include "some investment properties and things like that."

He also added: "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," referring to the prisoner of war camp that McCain was in during the Vietnam War.

Rogers called the house story "by far the most personal attack" of the campaign, and said "it comes from a candidate who said he was against this kind of thing."

He predicted that the story would not "stick" with the American people.

"In terms of who's an elitist, I think people have made a judgment that John McCain is not an arugula-eating, pointy headed professor-type based on his life story."

Yeah but ... how many houses has he got?

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, rich people

Sen. John McCain's campaign is fighting back against questions about his house holdings by opening a website focusing on past questions about Sen. Barack Obama's dealings with controversial Chicago businesssman Tony Rezko.

The campaign was getting the site ready Thursday afternoon. McCain surrogates on television were being armed with facts about Rezko's relationship to Obama's purchase of his Chicago home in 2005.

Previewing the message the campaign will seek to drive, a McCain spokesman said: "In an attempt to make something stick, Barack Obama has re-aired his dirty laundry with convicted felon Tony Rezko that led to a highly questionable land deal. Rezko’s dirty dealings are well-documented and his relationship with Barack Obama goes back 20 years."

A new conservative group has produced a television ad attacking Barack Obama for his relationship with former Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers.

"How much do your really know about Barack Obama? What does he really believe?" asks the ad, which then cites the failed attack on the Capitol on 9/11, and links it to the Weather Underground attack on the Capitol decades earlier.

The group says it will spend $2.8 million airing the ad in Ohio and Michigan -- which would be the largest single third-party expenditure this cycle.

"Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it?" asks the narrator. "Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

The group, the American Issues Project, is a 501(c)4 -- which means it isn't required to disclose its donors. According to a press release set to go out shortly, it's the product of a coalition of conservative groups (Failor said his Iowans for Tax Relief is not among them). Its president is Ed Martin, a Missouri conservative. Another official, Ed Failor, Jr., is a former McCain aide in Iowa who left after the campaign's shakeup last summer.

The substance of the ad matches a recent upswing in the McCain campaign's references to Ayers. The use of 9/11 imagery links Ayers, and Obama, to the American conflict Islamic terror, which is the subject of many viral emails attacking Obama.

Labels: 2008 election, 527s, Barack Obama, dirty politics, John McCain, presidential candidates

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, rich people

Getting a little whiplash here, but could the Reuters/Zogby shock poll showing John McCain pulling ahead of Barack Obama by five points nationally, and pulling out to a 9-point advantage on the economy be an outlier? Maybe. MSNBC and other mainstream outlets completely ignored the poll today, perhaps because they've got their very own branded polls ... but you'd think this one would be news.

The latest MSNBC/WaPo poll shows Obama still in the lead, up 45%-42%, but half the lead he held last month. But the poll shows the opposite of the Zogby finding on the economy, despite also showing warning signs for Barack:

“Whatever momentum that Obama took into the summer, he really appears to have lost it,” says Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducted the survey with Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart. “It is not a dead heat, but it is close.”

The survey also shows that both presidential candidates face their share of challenges. For Obama, he receives the support of just one in two voters who backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and he trails his Republican rival on handling terrorism, the war in Iraq and international crises like the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia.

As for McCain, nearly eight in 10 voters believe that the Arizona senator would closely follow President Bush’s policies if elected, and respondents view him as the weaker candidate on the issues of the economy and health care — which rank among the public’s top concerns in the poll.

Back to the Zogby poll: David Moore at pollster.com gives it a good working over:

All pollsters, it seems, eventually find themselves with what Andy Kohut once referred to as "loopy" results. His comment was about the Gallup polls in the 2000 election, though in September 2004, Pew experienced such results itself, and of course several polls this campaign season have produced inexplicable or "wrong" numbers, as indicated by the subsequent primary election vote counts.

This time, it's Zogby's turn to confuse the masses. His latest Reuters/Zogby poll, based on a sample of 1,089 "likely voters" drawn from listed telephone numbers, conducted Aug. 14-16, 2008, shows McCain over Obama by 46% to 41%.

Two days earlier, Zogby reported substantially different results. His online poll (of self-selected people who want to be part of his Internet polling sample) of 3,339 "likely voters," conducted Aug. 12-14, showed Obama with a three-point lead, 43% to 40%.

By Zogby's own calculation of the margins of error of each poll, the difference between the two polls in McCain's support (46% in the later telephone poll vs. 40% in the earlier online poll) is statistically significant. The difference in Obama's support (41% vs. 43% respectively) would not be statistically significant. Still, the 8-point difference in the margin of McCain's lead would be significant - a McCain 5-point lead vs. an Obama 3-point lead in the earlier poll.

If we believe both polls, the period of Aug. 13-14 must have been a real bummer for Obama and an electoral high for McCain. Whatever it was that caused millions of voters to "change" their minds and gravitate toward the Republican candidate in the two-day period, however, escaped my notice. Perhaps others have been more observant.

Moore also slams Zogby's "refusal" to use "sound methods of designing his samples," including using only listed phone numbers and self-selected online samples. Two problems that could make both the Zogby results less credible. Maybe that's why Chuckie T pretended the poll didn't exist today.

Good for my blood pressure, though I don't think it erases Obama's creeping message problem, something he is trying to address with limited attack ads and tougher rhetoric. But I agree with Josh Marshall on one big point: Obama simply must stop asking, begging, whatever, John McCain to stop attacking his patriotism. Instead, he needs to come up with three salient, succinct attacks on John McCain, and repeat them 100 times a day, every day between now and November 4th.

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, John McCain, polls, presidential candidates

Labels: deaths, politicians, stephanie tubbs jones

Labels: beer money, Cindy McCain, family problems

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, John McCain, polls, presidential candidates

Labels: Cindy McCain

McCain started with grand ideas about breaking the mold of modern politics. He and Obama would tour the country together doing joint town meetings. He would pick a postpartisan running mate, like Joe Lieberman. He would make a dramatic promise, like vowing to serve for only one totally nonpolitical term. So far it hasn’t worked. Obama vetoed the town meeting idea. The issue is not closed, but G.O.P. leaders are resisting a cross-party pick like Lieberman.

McCain and his advisers have been compelled to adjust to the hostile environment around them. They have been compelled, at least in their telling, to abandon the campaign they had hoped to run. Now they are running a much more conventional race, the kind McCain himself used to ridicule.

The man who lampooned the Message of the Week is now relentlessly on message (as observers of his fine performance at Saddleback Church can attest). The man who hopes to inspire a new generation of Americans now attacks Obama daily. It is the only way he can get the networks to pay attention.

Some old McCain hands are dismayed. John Weaver, the former staff member who helped run the old McCain operation, argues that this campaign does not do justice to the man. The current advisers say they have no choice. They didn’t choose the circumstances of this race. Their job is to cope with them.

And the inescapable fact is: It is working. Everyone said McCain would be down by double digits at this point. He’s nearly even. Everyone said he’d be vastly outspent. That hasn’t happened. A long-shot candidacy now seems entirely plausible.

As the McCain’s campaign has become more conventional, his political prospects have soared. Both he and Obama had visions of upending the system. Maybe in office, one of them will still be able to do that. But at least on the campaign trail, the system is winning.

Wholesale prices jumped in July at the fastest rate in more than a quarter century, furthering concern about a continued increase in inflation at a time when economic activity has ebbed.

New federal government data showed that the cost of materials used by businesses increased 1.2 percent in July and have risen 9.8 percent during the past 12 months. It was the largest yearly increase since 1981, as businesses absorbed sharp increases in energy and other commodity costs.

Today's report follows recent news that consumer prices are also rising faster than expected -- and faster than the Federal Reserve's generally accepted target rate of around 2 percent. Although wholesale inflation does not necessarily translate into higher consumer prices, it can be evidence of things to come.

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents mounted their most serious attacks in six years of fighting in Afghanistan over the last two days, including a coordinated assault by at least 10 suicide bombers against one of the largest American military bases in the country, and another by about 100 insurgents who killed 10 elite French paratroopers.

The attack on the French, in a district near Kabul, added to the sense of siege around the capital and was the deadliest single loss for foreign troops in a ground battle since the United States-led invasion chased the Taliban from power in 2001.

Taken together, the attacks were part of a sharp escalation in fighting as insurgents have seized a window of opportunity to press their campaign this summer — taking advantage of a wavering NATO commitment, an outgoing American administration, a flailing Afghan government and a Pakistani government in deep disarray that has given the militants freer rein across the border.

As a result, this year is on pace to be the deadliest in the Afghan war so far, as the insurgent attacks show rising zeal and sophistication. The insurgents are employing not only a growing number of suicide and roadside bombs, but are also waging increasingly well-organized and complex operations using multiple attackers with different types of weapons, NATO officials say. ...

Russia has dismissed a warning by Nato that normal relations are impossible while its troops remain inside Georgia.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Nato of bias and of trying to save the "criminal regime" in Tbilisi.
He insisted Moscow was not occupying Georgia and had no plans to annex the separatist region of South Ossetia.

Earlier, Nato demanded that Russia pull out its troops from Georgia as agreed in an EU-brokered ceasefire plan signed by both parties at the weekend.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev told his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy in a phone call that the pull-out would be complete by 21-22 August, with the exception of some 500 troops, who will be installed in peacekeeping posts on either side of South Ossetia's border.

France later tabled a US-backed draft resolution at the UN Security Council, demanding full compliance with the ceasefire and calling on Moscow to withdraw its forces to the positions held before the conflict.

Russia's UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, rejected the text. He objected to language on Georgia's territorial integrity, saying South Ossetia and Abkhazia did not want to be part of Georgia.

Some Russian troops have been seen leaving Gori, the largest Georgian town close to the South Ossetia border.
But BBC correspondents on the ground say there are still Russian artillery positions in place. In addition, there are Russian checkpoints close to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.

In an apparent goodwill gesture Russia exchanged 15 Georgian prisoners for five of its own troops at a Russian checkpoint in Igoeti, about 30km (18 miles) from Georgia's capital.

Georgian officials told the BBC's Helen Fawkes, who was at the scene, that two of the Russian prisoners were airmen who had been shot down by Georgian forces about two weeks ago.

Labels: current affairs, Georgia, John McCain, news headlines, politics and elections, Russia, the economy

“Behind all of these claims and positions by Senator Obama lies the ambition to be president,’’ Mr. McCain said. “What’s less apparent is the judgment to be commander in chief. And in matters of national security, good judgment will be at a premium in the term of the next president — as we were all reminded ten days ago by events in the nation of Georgia.’’

"I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I'd had the ambition for a long time."

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, negative campaigning, presidential candidates

In a story about Obama’s plans for a vice presidential pick, AP noted that McCain was considering Sen. Joe Lieberman, “the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent.” (Emphasis added.)

It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current president. When asked what his Christian faith means to him, his answer was a one-liner. "It means I'm saved and forgiven." Great scholars have wrestled with the meaning of faith for centuries. McCain then retold a story we've all heard a hundred times about a guard in Vietnam drawing a cross in the sand.

Asked about his greatest moral failure, he cited his first marriage, which ended in divorce. While saying it was his greatest moral failing, he offered nothing in the way of explanation. Why not?

Throughout the evening, McCain chose to recite portions of his stump speech as answers to the questions he was being asked. Why? He has lived 71 years. Surely he has some thoughts on what it all means that go beyond canned answers culled from the same speech he delivers every day.

... He was asked to define rich. After trying to dodge the question -- his wife is worth a reported $100 million -- he finally said he thought an income of $5 million was rich.

One after another, McCain's answers were shallow, simplistic, and trite. He showed the same intellectual curiosity that George Bush has -- virtually none.

This is not the first time McCain has invoked Lewis' name on the campaign trail. Earlier this year, in Selma, Alabama, he told the story of civil rights marchers trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a 1965 march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery. Waiting at the crest of the bridge were a brigade of police and state troopers who meted out an attacks so violent that the day is known today as Bloody Sunday.

Central in McCain's telling was John Lewis, a man of just 25 who was at the front of the march and absorbed the first blow. Millions of Americans, McCain noted, "watched brave John Lewis fall."

But even though McCain has now repeatedly cited Lewis as a role model and potential adviser, McCain has not established a relationship with the Georgia Democrat in the 22 years they have served in Congress together. At the time of McCain's Selma speech, a Lewis associate told my colleague David Corn that McCain has never been close to Lewis. Lewis was not told about McCain's speech in Selma in advance, nor was he invited to attend.

In response to McCain's latest invocation of his name, Rep. Lewis said in a statement requested by Mother Jones, "I cannot stop one human being, even a presidential candidate, from admiring the courage and sacrifice of peaceful protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge or making comments about it." But, he added, "Sen. McCain and I are colleagues in the US Congress, not confidantes. He does not consult me. And I do not consult him."

It took McCain years to fully embrace the goals that Lewis was fighting for on Bloody Sunday. In 1983, McCain voted against making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday, in opposition to most members of Congress, including many of his Republican colleagues. In 1987, the governor of Arizona repealed the state's recognition of King; McCain supported the move. It was only in 1990, 25 years after Lewis marched in Alabama, when Arizona reversed its decision that McCain changed his own stance on the issue. ...

Labels: 2008 election, Congressman John Lewis, Jack Cafferty, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, politics, presidential candidates

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Hillary, Joe Biden, presidential candidates, veepstakes

John McCain served his time as a POW with great courage, loyalty and tenacity. More that 600 of us did the same. After our repatriation a census showed that 95% of us had been tortured at least once. The Vietnamese were quite democratic about it. There were many heroes in North Vietnam. I saw heroism every day there. And we motivated each other to endure and succeed far beyond what any of us thought we had in ourselves. Succeeding as a POW is a group sport, not an individual one. We all supported and encouraged each other to survive and succeed. John knows that. He was not an individual POW hero. He was a POW who surmounted the odds with the help of many comrades, as all of us did.

I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60's and 70's. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John's age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, Vietnam

The Obama campaign today announced that Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) will visit South Florida this Thursday, August 21, to campaign on behalf of Barack Obama and talk with voters about why he is the only choice for Floridians who want a President who will change the way Washington has worked for eight years under President George W. Bush.

In Palm Beach County, Senator Clinton will host a rally focused on why Barack Obama is the only choice for voters who care about issues important to women in this election. The event will be open to the public, but space is limited. Tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Later Thursday, Senator Clinton will attend an event in Broward County. Details for that event will be announced soon.

Tickets for the Palm Beach rally will be available at 5:00 PM on Wednesday, August 20 at the grand openings of two Campaign for Change offices in Palm Beach County: 279 E Main St, Pahokee and 2790 N Military Trail, Ste 6, West Palm Beach. Tickets will also be available online at FL.barackobama.com and starting at 12 noon tomorrow at the following locations: Wexler for Congress, 2500 N Military Trail, Ste 251, Boca Raton; Democratic Party Headquarters, 6634 W Atlantic Ave, Delray Beach; and the FAU Student Union, 777 Glades Rd, Boca Raton.

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Florida, Hillary Clinton, presidential candidates

Much virtual ink has been spilled Internet-wide on the problem of Senator McCain's running mate selection. Policy views, succession, age, experience, home states, and every other conceivable preference are touted by one person or another as essential to the pick.

I say they're all right, and they're all wrong. You should be John McCain's running mate in 2008. It's perfect! You are in a swing state, you shore up the Bush states, and you make Obama work in his 'safe' states. You are a political novice, and you are experienced. You're young. You're mature. You are a mainstream Republican, a reformer, and a maverick. You even look like America.

You were even Time's People of the Year. You can't go wrong. ...

RedStaters discover God: and He is John McCain

JReid August 19th, 2008 at 11:02 a.m. (link)

What's with the sudden hero worship of McCain by RedStaters? Here I'm assuming it's tongue and cheek, but other threads? Not so much. Frankly, it's getting creepy, like the "Pray for George W. Bush" threads that used to dominate the Free Republic.

John McCain is a politician, and frankly, not a very good one. Certainly not an inspiring one. His entire campaign boils down to: "vote for me. The other guy's a traitor." Which means that no matter who wins in November, his campaign has ensured that half the country will hate the next president's guts ... again.

Besides, wasn't this the guy RS readers found unacceptable during the primaries? Now he's Godlike? Kind of hard to accuse Democrats of beatifying Obama when this site does the same to John McCain...

[Waiting to be banned for apostasy.]

well, if you insist.
Moe Lane August 19th, 2008 at 11:06 a.m. (link)
Although if I wasn't on my way to Pearl right now I'd keep you around long enough to ask whether you guys really think that anybody actually believes you when you try to pass yourselves off as Republicans.

Labels: blogs, John McCain, RedState, right wingers

Labels: 2008 campaign, John McCain, presidential candidates, veterans

KING: From Lake Forest, California, we welcome -- it's always great to see him, a frequent visitor to this show. Not frequent enough, by the way. Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church, best-selling author of "The Purpose Driven Life." and on Saturday, he conducted those interviews with Senators Obama and McCain at the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency.

Let's take care of one thing right away. You introduced Obama and said that Senator McCain and said he was in a cone of silence.

WARREN: Yes.

KING: Now, obviously, Rick Warren would never tell a mistruth.

Did you not know that he was in an automobile?

WARREN: I didn't know they had put -- hadn't put him into the Green Room yet. No, I didn't. When we walked in, I knew he hadn't been in about 10 minutes earlier. And I figured within the 10 minutes we got there, they had put him in.

The whole thing is really kind of bogus, Larry. The Supreme -- I mean, the Secret Service were with him the whole time. Then our facility's staff -- our security staff were with him. And he was put in a building completely separate from everybody else. And there's no way he could hear. I've been talking about this all day. There was a rumor going around that he watched the program on a monitor in the Green Room that we had him in.

Well, there's only one problem with it. My staff, Chuck Taylor, disconnected that thing two days before it happened. So if he -- if they had happened to turn it on, it would have been all just static.

And both Barack and John agreed to the terms that said we will not listen to the other's, we will not get the questions in advance.

Actually, what happened is I did give Obama one in advance that I didn't get to Senator McCain because he wasn't there. Right before we started, I wanted to tell them there's going to be one question that I'm going to ask you for a commitment on. And I didn't think that was fair to ask for a commitment publicly without setting them up. And it had to do with orphans.

And so I did get to tell Senator Obama about that question. But because Senator McCain wasn't there, he hadn't -- he didn't have that question yet.

KING: All right.

Well, could he have heard it in the car, though, if he was still arriving at the event?

WARREN: You know what, if -- not a chance. The Secret Service would have reported it. When he showed up, there were -- and he says he didn't. You know, I...

KING: All right.

WARREN: ...I just have to accept his integrity on that.

KING: Sure.

Was it a stacked deck against Obama in the fact that this was Orange County and an Evangelical audience?

WARREN: Yes. Well, there's no doubt about it. I mean it was Orange County. And you're going to have more of a conservative audience.

But if you listen to applause, it's pretty equal in a lot of the places. And we gave an equal number of tickets to both campaigns. So they both had their -- their partisans in there at the same time and they had the exact same number of people.

KING: We have an e-mail question from Jeff in Wheaton, Illinois: "Pastor Warren, you said Saturday that there had been a coin flip to determine who went first."

WARREN: Yes.

KING: "When did this coin flip occur? Where were the senators when it took place?"

WARREN: Well, they were certainly weren't around. I just did it with my staff about a month before we even started the program. I started collecting questions myself a month in advance. And right off the bat, I said well, somebody is going to have to go first.

When I created this idea, why don't we figure out a civil way to do this, where the guys can express their views and their opinions in a civil -- a civilized, non-rude, non-got you type of format?

And I just decided why don't we just do one hour at time...

KING: Well, you did it.

WARREN: ...and we'll do them back to back. And I'll ask the identical questions so there's no bias in it.

KING: Excellent way to do it.

This crowd was swarming toward McCain to begin with, and Rick Warren has quite conservative views on plenty of hot button issues. But Warren is still a man best known for his homey advice about putting God first (not a very controversial notion for a Christian), so many viewers probably thought he would play "fair and balanced." Well, Jay, he did not. He was clearly well-schooled on how to set up questions with well-tested right-wing talking points, so that Obama would have had to spend a great deal of time just correcting the questioner. (You and I understand that technique well, both as talk show guests and hosts of our own shows.)

Let me give you a few examples on core constitutional and human rights questions. Here was Warren's set up to his stem cell questions: "We've had this scientific breakthrough of creating these pluri-potent stem cells in adult cells..." as if everybody knows we don't need all those embryonic stem cells which create all the problems for "pro-lifers." That crowd would rather grow all these "frozen" embryos into "snowflake babies" (which will never happen) and refuse to admit that these embryos will eventually be discarded as medical waste. But Warren's setup is the problem: there was no great breakthrough that means that all research can be done with adult cells. That is the line of the Religious Right; it is not the scientific consensus. To the lay listener, however, it sounded like God's own truth, not Pastor Warren's spin. Senator Obama more or less fell into the presumption, too.

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, debates, John McCain, presidential candidates, Rick Warren

Labels: 2008 election, John McCain, presidential candidates, Rick Warren

1. Mitt Romney - safe choice, solid on economics, can raise lots of dough, help in Michigan, and bring in the Mormon cash -- and votes -- in key states like Colorado. And the large contingent of wingers who preferred the Mittster, including the talk radio hacks, would be satisfied with the pick. Downside: he's a Mormon, which will turn off some Christian righties, and he's a flip-flopper, which will make for some interesting attack ads.
   
   
2. Meg Whitman - 52-year-old former Romney national finance chair, she gets you a link to the Romney fund raising stream without having to talk to Mitt Romney every day. And as a woman and a CEO, she helps with both women and people worried about McCain's lack of economic grasp. Upside: she's a billionaire, which is always helpful in politics, as John "millionaire-marryer" McCain knows well. Downside: she's untested politically, though she plans to run for office someday, and nobody knows how she'd do in a debate. Also, if she's pro-choice, fuhgeddabout it. Also, picking a rich blonde may bring up unfortunate associations in the minds of some voters ... and opponents... Still, McCain's mention of her as one of his "wisest" at Saturday's Rick Warren forum might have been a trial balloon.
   
   
3. Tim Pawlenty - the safest of safe choices for McCain -- dull, but he gets you relative youth and "everyman-ness," a good look in a swing state, and he doesn't offend the wackadoo right.
   

1. Joe Biden - In some ways, Barack can't miss with Biden. He's smart, experienced, and has great foreign policy chops. As I said above, he knows how to attack (who can forget the "noun, verb and 9/11" line about Rudy Giuliani from the primaries?) On the downside, he can be a gaffe machine, and he talks an awful lot. But that might be less important than having an effective attacker on the trail. Another downside: if Obama picks Biden, the GOP will surely attack the ticket as being "upside-down" when it comes to experience, a la Bush-Cheney. The Obama team will have to have an answer for that.
   
   
2. Tim Kaine - I mention him only because his name is constantly being floated. And while he did a great job on MTP this weekend, Kaine is a relatively inexperienced governor whom it would be hard to imagine stepping into the presidency. (You could say the same for Meg Whitman...) His lack of foreign policy experience makes it hard for me to see him being the guy, and I'm not sure why the Democrats wouldn't rather have him in Virginia, getting out the vote.
   
   
3. Evan Bayh - Bayh-Bayh-Bayh! I just can't help thinking about that boy band song every time I hear his name... Bayh has some advantages -- he's midwestern, has a great looking young family like Baracks, and the two families together look like a great Ralph Laren ad. He's experienced on foreign policy, and was a Clinton ally. But Bayh is also certified boring, a hawk on Iraq and Iran, and an anathema to much of the Democratic base. Could he be the one? Maybe, since he strengthens Obama in the Indiana-Illinois corridor, but something tells me it won't be him.
   

Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, John McCain, veepstakes

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, facing impeachment by parliament, has announced that he is resigning.

In a national televised address he said he was confident the charges against him would not stand, but this was not the time for more confrontation.

The charges against the president include violation of the constitution and gross misconduct.

WASHINGTON, Aug 17: The United States made it known on Sunday that it was not considering any proposal to grant political asylum to President Pervez Musharraf.

The announcement came from a person no less than the secretary of state who has the final say in such matters.

“That’s not an issue on the table,” said Condoleezza Rice when asked if the Bush administration was considering any proposal to grant political asylum to the embattled Pakistani leader.

“And I just want to keep our focus on what we must do with the democratic government of Pakistan,” she told Fox News on Sunday.

Asked if it would be in the best interest of Pakistan to have Gen (retd) Musharraf resign, Ms Rice said: “This is a matter for the Pakistanis to resolve.”

Her statement makes it obvious that the United States is no longer interested in a person who only recently was called an “indispensable ally” in the war on terror. The question of seeking a ‘safe haven’ for Mr Musharraf was raised by the US media after they concluded, almost unanimously, that his days were numbered and that his departure was only a matter of days, not weeks.

While discussing Mr Musharraf’s future, a leading American scholar of South Asian affairs noted that the Pakistani leader had “one redeeming feature.”

Unlike previous US-backed strongmen, such as Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines or the Shah of Iran, he was not a rich man, said Michael Krepon, a founding president of Washington’s Stimson Institute.

“Musharraf doesn’t have an estate in Hawaii or a mansion in Los Angeles. This complicates any potential exile,” he added. But even this “redeeming feature” does not endear Mr Musharraf to Washington where he is no longer seen as an “indispensable ally”, as Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte called him on Nov 7.

He is now seen as a “serious liability,” as a Western think-tank --- International Crisis Group --- pointed out recently.

Labels: impeachment, Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, President Bush, U.S. foreign policy

The McCain campaign, which flew here Sunday from California, said Mr. McCain was in his motorcade on the way to the church as Mr. Obama was being interviewed by the Rev. Rick Warren.

The matter is of interest because Mr. McCain, who followed Mr. Obama’s hourlong appearance in the forum, was asked virtually the same questions as Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain’s performance was well received, raising speculation among some viewers, especially supporters of Mr. Obama, that he was not as isolated during the Obama interview as Mr. Warren implied.

Mr. Warren, pastor of Saddleback, had assured the audience while he was interviewing Mr. Obama that “we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence” and that he could not hear the questions.

After Mr. Obama’s interview, he was joined briefly by Mr. McCain and the candidates shook hands and embraced.

Mr. Warren started by asking him, “Now, my first question: Was the cone of silence comfortable that you were in just now?”

Mr. McCain deadpanned, “I was trying to hear through the wall.”

Labels: 2008 election, cone of silence, John McCain, presidential candidates, Rick Warren, Vietnam

MR. GREGORY: Let's talk about how we got here and what precipitated this crisis. This is how The New York Times reported it this week about a visit to Georgia back in July by you. "During a private dinner [in Tbilisi]" "Ms. Rice's aides say she warned President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia not to get into a military conflict with" Georgia--with "Russia," rather--"that Georgia could not win. `She told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had to put a non-use of force pledge on the table,' according to a senior administration official who accompanied Ms. Rice to the Georgia capital. ...

"In the days since the simmering conflict between Russia and Georgia erupted into war, Bush administration officials have been adamant in asserting that they warned the government in Tbilisi not to let Moscow provoke it into a fight - and that they were surprised when their advice went unheeded."

MR. GREGORY: Did Georgia provoke this crisis?

SEC'Y RICE: This crisis has been going on for, as I said, more than a decade. It has been a hot zone and a volatile zone where there have been skirmishes over a significant period of time. It is absolutely the case that we have cautioned all parties against the use of force. In fact, I also talked to the Russians repeatedly in this period about the railway troops that they were bringing in, about reinforcing their peacekeepers, about overflying Georgian territory. So this had been a zone of conflict. We were trying to resolve it peacefully.

... SEC'Y RICE: David, as I've said, this--you can't just start with, "we told the Georgian's this." We also told the Russians not to engage in certain activities that they were engaging in. This was a zone of conflict, we were trying to do it peacefully. But whatever happened before this, once this broke out in South Ossetia, it could have been confined to South Ossetia. Rather than confine it to that and deal with the facts on the ground there, the Russians decided to go deeper into Georgia, to bomb Georgian ports, to bomb Georgian military installations, to go into the city of Gori. And so it was that escalation that got us to the point that where we're at now. And that...

MR. GREGORY: And give--but given...

SEC'Y RICE: ...fully has been...

MR. GREGORY: ...that escalation, Secretary Rice, do you understand why there are some within the Georgian leadership who feel betrayed by the U.S.? Do they have an unreasonable expectation that the U.S. would come in guns blazing, as it were, to protect them?

SEC'Y RICE: I don't think anybody...

... had an expectation that the United States was going to use military force in this conflict. But we need to keep the focus on the culprit here, and the culprit here is that Russia over-reached, used disproportionate force against a small neighbor and is now paying the price for that, because Russia's reputation as a potential partner in international institutions, diplomatic, political, security, economic, is frankly in tatters.

Labels: Bush administration, Condi Rice, David Gregory, Georgia, Meet the Press, Russia, U.S. foreign policy disasters

Labels: 2008 election, Bobby Jindall, David Gregory, Democrats, media bias, Meet the Press, Republicans, Tim Kaine

Obama spent more time trying to impress Warren (or to put another away) not offend Warren while McCain seemingly ignored Warren and decided he was talking to folks watching on TV. The McCain way of handling this forum is usually the winning way. Obama may have had more authentic moments but McCain was impressively on message.