Shame on You, John McCain, or," You of All People Should Remember 1968"

I can't make up my mind whether John McCain's gaffe on Reagan and the Prague Spring is laughable or depressing. I'd comment more, but former Alterdestinian Duss gives the "Reagan speaks and Communism falls" meme the proper treatment:

It’s the one where conservatives deploy a potted history of the Cold War — in which Reagan spoke and the walls came tumbling down — to cast international politics as a zero-sum contest between good and evil, and to cow progressives into a more aggressive rhetorical posture toward America’s adversary of the moment. It is usually hidden under the guise of “solidarity with captive peoples” and absent any genuine consideration of the practical effects on the peoples concerned.

Earmarks

Sorry for the lack of blogging the last few days. I am profoundly overwhelmed right now. The big problem is this article due on March 15 that I feel still needs a lot of work. Anyway, I'll try to keep up but I might be a bit quieter than usual.

Anyway, I did want to mention real quick what a quixotic campaign McCain has against earmarks. His anti-earmarks amendment just failed in the Senate by a fairly sizable margin. The problem with this campaign is that earmarks are not bad things. There might be better ways to fund projects, but in principle most of the projects seem pretty OK to me. McCain is also twittering (i.e., some staffer) the most ridiculous of the projects each day. Here are some for today:

*$819, 000 for catfish genetics research in Alabama
*$190,000 for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo.
*$400,000 for copper wire theft prevention efforts
*$47,500 to remodel and expand a playground in Ottawa, Ill.
*$209,000 for blueberry production in Georgia…
*$285,000 for the Discovery Center of Idaho in Boise

How is any of this bad? Scientific studies need to be funded. I'm glad to see a historical and a scientific museum get some money. Playgrounds are good. I like blueberries. I don't know much about copper wire prevention except to say that if thieves are stripping copper wire from telephone lines that this is not a good thing.

So what's not to like here? Plus all of these things create jobs. Yet John McCain is more worried about stopping some money going to an Idaho museum than fixing the economy. No wonder he got blown out last fall.

McCain at Defense?

Let me throw a terrible idea out here.

And yes, it is a terrible idea.

But let's at least explore it.

What if Obama offered John McCain Secretary of Defense?

Don't yell at me yet.

Could it be a win/win situation?

If he takes it, which I don't think he would it would open a Senate seat that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano would fill. It would put us one seat closer to the filibuster proof supermajority. It would make Obama look great because he would be "reaching across the aisle" and other such things that pundits like so much. The Republicans would be even more dispirited, seeing their candidate agree to work for the enemy. Plus, you could isolate him in that position much like Colin Powell was in the Bush Administration in 2004.

If he doesn't take it, then it is McCain and the Republicans who look bad for rejecting Obama's attempts at bipartisanship. But Obama still looks great. His numbers goes up and he starts his administration with even more support then he already has.

I know there are lots of reasons to reject this. I don't want any Republicans in the cabinet, and certainly not in a top position. But if there is a politically brilliant reason, I might reconsider my opposition. And maybe this scenario could play out.

OK, now you can yell at me about why this is so stupid.

If You Haven't Already Voted, What Are You Doing Reading This Blog???!!?!?!?

To echo Sarah, go vote today!!! Be it for Barack Obama, John McCain, Charles "Chuck" Baldwin, Cynthia McKinney, Brian Moore, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr (and his moustache), or somebody else - just please go vote. I know it's cliche, but as somebody who's spent a fair amount of his time reading about dictatorships, voting is something Americans really do take for granted, so get out there and exercise the right our government still hasn't denied us.

And in the anecdotal portion, I spent only a half-hour in line this morning waiting to vote (though it was 7AM), and it went quickly and smoothly (apparently, in New York, we don't vote on ballot initiatives or tax issues or sherriff or anything with the general election - maybe that will come next year with the mayoral and city council elections). There were no problems, everybody seemed to be in a good mood, and some election monitors even showed up to see how things were going. And I realized that this was the first time I ever voted on Election Day (previously having voted absentee in 2000 and early voting in 2004), making today even more exciting.

Anyhow - VOTE!

Channeling Hunter S. Thompson

The McCain campaign, in its last throes, has proven itself to be nothing more than the last stinking gasp of the Right for power.

McCain has no message. He simply has people onstage ranting about "the gay" and dropping Muslim names in the vain hope that one will stick enough to carry him into the White House on a tide of fear, blood, and KKK robes. He has cobbled together a campaign from the worst bits of the Bush folks and the lobbyists who he claims to shun, picked a running mate out of a hat because she had a vagina, a special needs baby, and looked good chanting "Drill, baby, drill" in front of a crowd.

He's latched onto Joe the Plumber, a guy so grasping that he's already got a PR agent and is standing McCain up at rallies, to buy him some desperately needed working class cred after forgetting how many homes he had and after his party spent twice as much as most people make in a year on his running mate's wardrobe. Yet Joe the Plumber is just as phony as McCain.

McCain's doing worse than Bush for three reasons. One is obvious. The economy is crashing around us, and there's been a Republican in the White House for the past 8 years. Hell, McCain was running ahead of his brand for a while, until the real crisis hit.

Two is that during the debates, when Obama's numbers really started to rise, McCain looked petulant and sounded condescending and even rude. Americans might want a president they can relate to, but they damn sure don't want one who talks to 'em like they're stupid.

Three is, of course, that McCain has no message. He sold his soul, the one that used to win grudging respect from even the hardest lefties, in the past four years, caving on torture, on troops, on taxes. He has gone from being a soft-line pro-lifer to holding up Justice Alito as a paragon of virtue, gone from a man who lost a primary himself because of race-baiting and fear to a man who uses it and defends it.

I can't even begin to imagine what a McCain administration would actually look like, other than a full-on charge of all the worst elements in the Republican party--because even more so than Bush, that'll be who got him elected. The man that many Americans used to respect for standing up to his party will owe more to the racists, the homophobes, the Islamophobes, the pro-birth crowd, than any administration before him.

Nixon claimed that he governed because of a "silent majority." Reagan won over Democrats left and right with his charm. Even George W. Bush promised to be a "compassionate conservative" (though even now he's trying to sneak through more deregulation while our backs are turned).

McCain has promised us no such thing. He's shown us the America that he thinks he governs, and it's full of people who will lie about being assaulted by a black man, people who think having an Arabic middle name is reason to be lynched, and people who will never see a terrorist attack but who are more afraid of one than of what will happen when they can't afford health insurance because they've suddenly got to pay taxes on it.

Obama has run ad after ad based on his plan, including the other night's 30 minute ad buy. You might not agree with all of it, but it is out there for you to hear, for you to read. He has offered a vision of a country where we don't divide ourselves by red and blue, and he has won over states that no Democrat has dreamed of in decades. He has had no ethical scandals, no personal scandals, no steps out of line. He won all three debates.

Let's face it, if you vote for McCain now, you deserve what you get.

And it might feel like getting fucked with chainsaws.

(Cross-posted)

Also, I wrote something about the Obama infomercial for GlobalComment, if you're interested.

Latin American Dictators, Counterrevolutionary Groups, and John McCain in the 1980s

It's no secret by now that John McCain has kept and still keeps company with unsavory characters, to put it mildly. Additionally, by now, it's highly unlikely that anybody who hasn't made up their mind about the election yet will be persuaded by any of this. Still, this month has seen a few stories come up with a couple of damning stories involving McCain and Latin America in the 1980s.

First, there was a report on McCain's role with the U.S. Council for World Freedom. The USCWF was a direct offshoot of the World Anti-Communist League, the latter of which "had ties to ultra-right figures and Latin American death squads" and that was charged with, among other things, anti-Semitism. As the article states, although the USCWF claimed to purge these elements from their own organization, it still "claimed to support "pro-Democratic resistance movements fighting communist totalitarianism." And during the 1980s it became a vehicle for the Reagan administration to prop up some of the more totalitarian, anti-communist efforts in Central America," most notably in financially aiding the Contras to the tune of more than $5 million. The USCWF became one of the main means for the Reagan administration to illegally fund the Contras, circumventing Congress. That McCain was involved with this board is thus problematic not only because he, as a member of Congress at the time, was involved with a group that was directly helping Reagan to violate the Constitution; it's also troubling because, as Stein says, "it firmly associates him with a foreign policy that was, at the time and still, controversial." And this is all involving a man who's claiming to be better prepared and on the moral high ground over his opponent in terms of foreign policy.

Additionally, the story about McCain's 1985 "friendly meeting" with Pinochet, revealed in declassified embassy records has been making the rounds this week. As Boz points out, that McCain met with Pinochet in and of itself isn't necessarily an issue today; many politicians met with Pinochet. But there are problems that Boz raises:

First and foremost, McCain disagrees with the view I set in the above paragraph. He's made his disagreement with Obama's willingness to meet with "dictators without preconditions" a major part of his foreign policy. Has his policy changed since the time he met Pinochet, did he believe Pinochet to be a US ally in 1985 (by '85, even most Republican leaders had turned against Pinochet), or was there some sort of precondition to this meeting that we remain unaware of?

Second, additional documents indicate McCain and his wife stayed on the farm of a Pinochet ally for three days prior to the meeting, vacationing and fishing. That's not exactly an ideal circumstance to then meet with a dictator and demand better human rights or the release of political prisoners.

Finally, no attempt to publicly call for democracy? No public repudiation of Pinochet's human rights record? No meetings with pro-democracy opposition leaders (like Ted Kennedy did around the same time McCain met with Pinochet)? Why did McCain stay so quiet back then? [Answer: because Pinochet fought the "communists." - Mr. Trend.]

Certainly, neither of these stories will change much in the election, nor should they necessarily - there are manifold reasons why not to vote for McCain besides these. Still, they do reveal a really troubling side to his past activities that do give an important insight into how he might potentially deal with Latin America and in his foreign policy relations more generally.

Tempus Fugit

JP Stormcrow pointed out two radically-different-yet-equally-startling things in this thread.

1) The Cleveland Indians' (1948) and Cleveland Browns' (1964) last championships are temporally closer to the founding of their respective leagues (1901 and 1950) than they are to today. (The Cavs have never won a title, so that eliminates them from this little game).

2) John McCain's birth-year (1936) is closer to Appomatix Court House and the end of the Civil War (1865) than it is to this year's election. John McCain: older now (72) than the abolition of slavery was when he was born (71).

Yikes.

Eloquence, Performatives, and the Presidency

So I have 8000000000000 things to do right now, but I'm going to take just a moment to comment on something because I think it's important to note.

The New Yorker's Obama endorsement makes many excellent points. You should read it. But to my mind, the most important point it made was this one:

Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of “mere” words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one––something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s “mere” speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern.

See, the presidency is largely a symbolic office. Congress is the body that's going to have to actually make and pass these tax cuts and health care policies--all the president can do is encourage and sign. One of the reasons I was an early Obama supporter was that he seemed to have a much better grasp of and less warmongering slant on foreign relations. And foreign relations are carried out by, yes, talking. Words. Speeches.

There's a huge place for performative language in all of this. Timothy Cook outlines this whole process expertly in Governing With the News. The president makes a speech, and policy changes. Need an example? Remember the "Axis of Evil" comment, and how suddenly after that we seem to be dealing with North Korea and Iran increasing their nuclear capacities?

Every time the president makes a speech, it is news. Even now, when the candidates make a speech, it is news. That news gets carried not just to voters, but to other countries and other governments. The reason McCain keeps harping not on Obama's willingness to go into Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, but his willingness to talk about it, is that he knows that by making a statement the president has to back it up.

A popular president's speeches could buoy Wall Street just by pledging support; it is a measure of Bush's lame duckitude that he can't. Any president can screw foreign policy up majorly just by mistaking the names of countries or leaders; just ask Richard Nixon about Mauritius and Mauritania.

The president has to know when to speak and when to shut up, what to say and what not to say, and yes, be willing to talk to other leaders. Talk doesn't prevent action, or require some sort of soul-selling to Ahmadinejad like McCain seems to think it does. But it does indeed have an effect on what happens.

So having a president who is a man of "mere" words, as opposed to one who regularly mistakes one country for another (or one Supreme Court Justice for another--ask Justice Breyer if he's slightly insulted at being confused with Alito this morning) is actually rather important when you think about it.

And after watching those debates, which candidate do YOU think is more likely to shoot himself in the foot while attempting diplomacy, whether it's face to face or through the press?

Political warfare with the Wayback Machine

On the heels of Erik’s post about McCain and the Keating 5... if McCain is going to keep with his flailing campaign’s new mud-slinging-about-things-from-back-in-the-day strategy (or stuff Sarah Palin just decides to make up, Gad love ‘er), he be better be prepared for some karmic retribution.

I would suggest going back to 2006, when McCain chose to defend his immigration policy by insisting that American workers wouldn’t pick lettuce in Yuma for $50.00 an hour. Here’s the video; and the ensuing report from the Arizona Daily Star.

Were I David Plouffe, I’d be running this video non-stop in Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, and Indiana. First of all, if one has even been inside a factory in the Midwest or the South in the summer, it is at least as hot as Yuma, if not hotter. And the people that work in these factories, if they are lucky enough to work at all, get paid much less than $50.00 an hour (which is a $96,000 yearly base salary). Most Americans would pick lettuce for $50.00 an hour—the problem is no one is paying close to that for that kind of work. What most Americans will not do it is pick lettuce for $4 or $5 or $6 an hour, and with the way things are now, the most economically disadvantaged amongst us would do even that, just to keep a modest amount of food on the table.

Pay a living wage and you’ll find all the hard workers you need. I suggest watching the video—it’s classic pissed-off J-Mac looking like he’s going to fly off the handle and throttle someone.

You, sir, are no maverick.

Say the actual Maverick family, who have a long tradition of progressive politics. Yes, the word actually comes from an actual Texas family, and they're not happy about McCain and Palin's constant use of their name.

Unfortunately, they probably can't sue to force them to stop, but it is pretty hilarious.

But the New York Times reported on Sunday that the real Mavericks - a storied south Texas family with a long tradition in progressive politics - are not too happy about what they say is the misappropriation of their family name.

“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” the Times reported Terrellita Maverick, 82, saying. The San Antonio resident is the scion of a family which has been outspoken about liberal causes for generations, and has otherwise bucked conventions.-Reuters

Times

It's About Time!

I have been wondering for months--why no discussion of John McCain as one of the Keating Five? If McCain is going to try and fight the 60s all over again and bring up Obama once passing former Weatherman Bill Ayers in the street, why not look to the past and show a real-life shady connection.

John McCain thinks his ethics are unimpeachable. The problem with thinking that is that you aren't the judge of your own ethics. Others are. And when you were a central figure in one of the most important congressional corruption scandals of the 20th century, you might want to lay off the self-righteousness a little bit.

Finally, the Obama campaign is attacking McCain's connection to the Keating Five, though it is in some sort of documentary that no one will watch except people who are already Obama's supporters.

I'd like to see some commercials run on this issue, especially if McCain's sleazy attacks start having an effect in the polls.

John McCain--A Corrupt American.

Speaking of Ties to "Terrorists"....

There are many reasons not to buy into Palin's (and McCain's) claptrap talk about Obama being linked to "terrorists," (including the fact that basically every investigation has shown little beyond occasional run-ins), and I'm sure I'm not the first one to bring this up.

That said, it's really, really, REALLY hard to swallow "terrorist" claims from a campaign that embraces Henry Kissinger, given how Kissinger intentionally worked to overthrow democratically elected leaders and actively worked to implant and support regimes murderous in Chile, Argentina, (to mention only a few just in Latin America) that collectively used state-sponsored terrorism to kill more than 34,000 of their own citizens. But calling out Kissinger for war crimes and crimes against humanity - that's just crazy-talk from obvious anti-American radicals!

.....and if the Kissinger link weren't bad enough, Dave reminds us of McCain's "Nazi fetishist" friend. I'll say this for the McCain campaign: I've never seen a campaign at any level that was so willing to rely almost entirely upon arguments against their opponent (Obama's inexperienced; Biden's old; ties to "terrorists") that the candidates levelling the charges were even more guilty of (Palin's "experience"; McCain at 72; Kissinger and Liddy). It would be funny if it weren't so real....

Where Are Johnny Boy's Principles?

I don't understand. I thought McCain hated earmarks. Yglesias points out that a mere 9 days ago, McCain stated that a bailout loaded with pork was unacceptable. And now we see him voting for it. Is that what he flew to Washington to deal with? Make sure there were some good earmarks in there? If he really cared about earmarks, wouldn't he have voted against it?

In all seriousness, I'm sure he figured that having the bill meant more than the earmarks. But it does make him vulnerable on his pet issue.

Of course, I have no problem with earmarks. I don't necessarily like the process by which they are created and allocated. But I still believe in government spending to spur the economy and many of the earmarks serve science. McCain can laugh at the Montana project to study grizzly bear DNA, but that sounds like potentially valuable science from my perspective.

The new bailout plan is at best marginally better than the last one, but what makes it better are the provisions that have nothing to do with it. The clause forcing insurance companies to make mental health equal to physical health in their coverage. The increase on FDIC insurance up to $250,000. Money for rural schools. These are all good things, as are many of the other amendments. It would be nice for this money to be shared in different ways, but despite McCain's blustering, the system isn't changing anytime soon.

A Few Questions Concerning McCain's Rhetoric

Why does John McCain keep calling himself a "Teddy Roosevelt Republican?" What is he even trying to say with this? Does anybody actually care about, or even know what a "Teddy Roosevelt Republican" would be? Does Teddy have any significance or meaning to Americans today? Or should I just start making old jokes and "he's so out of touch..." comments about McCain?

(And I'm being serious here - does anybody have any insights on to what purpose this all might serve?)

Debate reviews!

Karthika and I both, independently of one another, wrote debate reviews. Of course, we did watch the debate together, along with some fried chicken and a bottle of really cheap champagne, so it may not be entirely surprising that we came up with similar conclusions. Though she's always been more skeptical of Obama than I have, so the fact that she agrees with me made me feel better. ;)

If anyone wants to see snark in real time, I live-twittered this debate and plan to do so on Thursday night with the Veep debate. As this one should offer even more opportunities for hilarity, I invite anyone on Twitter to play along. Suggestions for the Palin/Biden drinking game are welcome.

Until Thursday, then.

Karthika's review:

Often in debates, Barack Obama has been known to be a tad uncomfortable and evasive. He has been accused of being too deliberative in his responses, sometimes talking out loud while mulling over them, and answering in meandering fashion – a fashion that does not conform to the 30-second sound bite, the most effective quantum in presidential horse races. But on Friday night, the junior senator from Illinois defied these charges against him - he was pithy and to the point, calm and collected, effectively making the claim that he was ready to be president.

John McCain, on the other hand, slouched and glowered, sighed and snickered, and never once looked at his Democratic opponent.

I hate to put it down to gestures and posturing, but luckily, I don’t have to. For McCain wasn’t exactly winning on substance either.

If Obama has spent the last few weeks roping McCain in with George Bush on the campaign trail, at the debate, he firmly tied the knot on that relationship. “We [have] to recognize that this is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain,” he said in his very first answer to Jim Lehrer’s question on the financial recovery plan. READ MORE

My review:

McCain’s repeated references to not being “Miss Congeniality” ended up a bit confusing—a veiled reference to his running mate? An attempt to paint Obama as shallow? Some sort of dogwhistle to beauty pageant parents that I’m not familiar with?

Or maybe it was just an acknowledgement that presidential campaigns since, at least, Kennedy have become a sort of beauty pageant interrupted by demands to know which candidate is a better drinking buddy. However, if this campaign is going to be a beauty pageant or an image contest, McCain’s got a ways to go on his appearances, and his command of substance isn’t nearly good enough to make up for it. READ MORE

Science, Obama and McCain

No presidential candidate offered to show up for the Science Debate at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute in April, but both candidates made it a point to visit evangelical pastor Rick Warren to answer questions on faith and moral values. It’s pretty clear where the candidates’ priorities are, and a little disheartening, considering stem-cell research promises to cure life-threatening diseases, and a rapidly warming world threatens life itself.

While the candidates may not be focusing on science, scientists certainly are keeping a close watch on them. McCain and Obama stare out of the cover in the latest issue of Nature, a prelude to a series of articles on the two rivals’ positions on everything from research to wireless Internet.

And boy, is there reason for it. The current administration has made a mockery of science by tailoring the EPA’s reports on global warming and manipulating endangered species lists to achieve its own political ends; NIH funding has seen a sharp decline from its glory years. It falls to the next American president to decide if stem cell research will be given the green light it needs, and whether mandatory greenhouse gas regulations will be instilled.

It is not hard to guess which of the two contenders in this race is more sympathetic to science. Well, it isn’t hard in any race, but this season, the difference couldn’t be starker. And not so much for McCain’s lack of support for science (after all, he’s proposed increasing NIH funding and voted to remove restrictions on stem cell research) as for Obama’s detailed positions on various issues dealing with scientific advancement in this country.

While Obama’s science advisory committee is a who’s who of academicians and scientific experts, McCain’s is a list of the usual suspects: political strategists, congressional staff, and corporate leaders. Obama intends to appoint a chief technology officer to oversee cross interactions, information sharing and improvement of technology among the various governmental departments. In addition he has proposed to counter the digital divide in America by expanding broadband access. One has only to look at his Web site to determine that the Illinois senator (and his advisers) know a thing or two about technology: the clean lines, abundant features, the seamless harmony, and the ease of use reflect a tech-savvy designer. As Noam Cohen deduced in an analysis – far too frivolous by New York Times’ standards – Obama would be a mac in the world of computers.

Add to that the scrupulous way in which the supposed novice to national politics has run his campaign – a true, Internet-style, power-distributive, bottom-up democratic approach. Josh Green of The Atlantic calls him this year’s hottest Silicon Valley start-up. The campaign’s use of the Internet to rally support certainly has to go in the books as one of the top reasons for Obama’s success, right alongside inspiring speeches, enviable charisma and good judgment.

Obama has spoken about conducting “online fireside chats” as president, has proposed a Google-like database for all federal money spent, and suggested putting non-emergency legislation online for five days for people to vote on. Most notably, in a Q&A with Nature (which McCain refused to participate in), Obama spoke of the necessity to invest in basic research, which can reap great medical rewards in the long run, despite the fact that specific projects are often unpredictable. Scientists often have trouble getting their heads around this unfortunate fact of science, with the NIH itself insisting on applicative proof and potential benefits when approving funding for research projects.

In addition, Obama has categorically stated that he will lift the ban on stem-cell research. That he has more than a cursory grasp of the subject is evident from the fact that he has distinguished between embryonic and adult stem cells and reinforced the versatility of the former. Obama’s endorsement of the America Competes Act, intended to increase research budgets and his proposal to use science and technology to address issues such as health care and climate change are reassuring to any proponent of science.

For a person who rarely refrains from invoking the name of god at the stump, he is quite firm in his rejection of teaching creationism in schools. “I do not believe it is helpful to our students to cloud discussions of science with non-scientific theories like intelligent design that are not subject to experimental scrutiny,” he said to Nature. Joe Biden, also well known for his religious beliefs, but true to form, has been slightly more blunt on the subject of intelligent design. “I refuse to believe that the majority of people believe this malarkey,” he has said more than once. Biden has not so subtly questioned Palin’s position on stem-cell research despite the affliction of her youngest child with Down syndrome.

It is positions such as this, in addition to her refusal to believe that global warming is man made, that make Palin's presence on the Republican ticket more terrifying than it already is. McCain may not check email or the Google, but at least he gave a perfunctory nod to the Darwinian theory before launching into an ode to the hand of god in the Grand Canyon.

To his credit, and possibly to his political detriment, McCain has been more vociferous than most republicans on issues of energy policy, including removing tariffs for biofuels, and endorsing the cap-and-trade approach for emissions regulation. With regard to medical research, he has twice voted to remove restrictions on stem-cell research and proposed increased NIH funding.

However, the addition of Sarah Palin to the ticket erases any confidence the scientific community had placed in the senator from Arizona. If there were danger that McCain might toss science into the proverbial frying pan, then Sarah Palin would not hesitate to drop it directly into the fire.

North Koreans are how much shorter than South Koreans?

So now we've had our first debate. We watched it on Fox (Fox 11 Los Angeles, not Fox News on cable), which was interesting for the post-debate spin. Of course, McCain won according to them. The point that one guy brought up was that McCain referred to Obama as "Senator Obama" and Obama called McCain "John". The "analysis" was something about how that would hurt Obama amongst people from the South.

The spin is pretty gross; I think it would be more responsible for presenting networks to have no "analysis" directly after the debate. Just show the debate and cut back to regular programming. The "analysis" will be there on the cable news networks and the internet if people want to hear it.

What matters more, though, is the public perception of who won (not that the debates made a difference in 2004; John Kerry, according to public polling, "won" the debates). The polls that have come out indicate an Obama win-- 51% vs. 38% in the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll. The CBS poll had it at 39% (Obama won), 24% (McCain won) and 37% (tie). The best news for Obama could be the following: 60% of respondents said that Obama was ready to be President, which is a 16% improvement over pre-debate polls on the same question.

I can't wait to see how Fox will frame the Palin "win" next week.

(In case you missed it, here's a link to a transcript. Also, Jim Lehrer is fantastic; most of these network media honks could learn a lot from his professionalism and integrity. Luckily, we get Gwen Ifill, another real professional, for the VP debate. Hard to imagine people like Lehrer and Ifill are in the same profession as hack asshats like Gibson, Kristol, Stephanopoulos, etc).

More on McCain's...

Erik said most everything. I had to rant elsewhere about it, and so I dug up some fun info on the votes McCain has missed and how little he cared about, say, the first economic bailout bill. Or the Webb GI Bill.

I wrote more here.

You know it's bad when I compare him unfavorably to Bush and Reagan.

Also? Letterman: (h/t Susie Bright, among others)



(Anyone find it funny that CBS, the "communist broadcast service" from last election, is now the softball network of choice for the Republican candidates?)

What the Hell?

McCain is suspending his campaign because of the financial crisis? He wants to cancel Friday's debate?

What?

This is arguably the most desperate and pathetic move in the history of American presidential campaigns. Seriously. #1. It's even more weird since it is a foreign policy debate, supposedly McCain's speciality in a format that is not Obama's favorite. Huh. Sounds fine to me.

As many others have pointed out already, including Obama--part of being president is dealing with multiple things at once. I guess the Republicans are saying that McCain really cares about the economy--more than being president. But this is both absurd and is not going to work. I think Americans want actual leadership. They want someone who can deal with a financial crisis and take care of Iraq and deal with Russia and health care and a bunch of other things. All at the same time. McCain is showing that he either can't or won't do these things.

Barney Frank said this about McCain's stunt: "It's the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of either football or Marys." Yes. This is true desperation. It's badly thought out and shows him to be entirely incapable of the office.

The first thing I was thinking was that there have been lots of presidential campaigns in US history. They have happened in good times and they have happened in bad times. And no my knowledge no one has ever actually called for suspending the campaign. Then, Eric Rauchway did my homework for me. He points out that on September 24, 1864, we were in the middle of the Civil War. Campaigning was intense that year and did not stop for a second. On September 24, 1932, we were dealing with the Great Depression, a crisis more serious by like a magnitude of 400 to this one. Yet FDR, Hoover, and their surrogates were trading blows left and right. And On September 24, 1944, in the middle of World War II, Thomas Dewey was attacking Franklin Roosevelt. I'm sure David Horowitz would call this treason....

See, this is how you campaign. You talk about the issues at hand. You try to demonstrate how you will deal with them. You don't stop campaigning and try to cancel the upcoming debate.

Commentary on this from around the intertubes has been pretty interesting. Aimai picks up some good stuff from The National Review. This guy gives McCain some advice:

I think McCain should show up for the debate looking reluctant and disheveled. He could apologize for this condition, saying he had to rush back from doing the nation’s business. He could be like Grant having to apologize to the impeccably dressed Lee at Appomattox for showing up all muddy and in an old private’s coat. There was, after all, a war that needed winning.

Huh. I thought all NRO readers supported the Confederacy. Learn something new every day.

Meanwhile, David Letterman of all people really nails what I think the public response to McCain's stunt is going to be:

"You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves."

Yes, indeed.

The 2008 presidential campaign may well go down as one of the 2 or 3 most bizarre in American history.

On Palin

Ok, so I'm cross-cross-posting, but my full piece is up at GlobalComment, thanks to Natalia.

John McCain waited until after Barack Obama’s speech to make a superbly-timed announcement of his vice-presidential pick.

Unfortunately for him, he undermined what were his best arguments against Obama with that choice.

Sarah Palin is the first-term governor of Alaska, a large, oil-rich state with a small population, and she’s even younger than Obama. Her only political experience before beating the previous Republican governor, Frank Murkowski, in a primary in 2006 was being mayor of Walsilla.

Palin is a mother of five, including one son who’s off to Iraq and another, just born, with Down syndrome. She is staunchly pro-life and considered a Christian conservative, but, rather obviously, is a high-profile working mother.

She campaigned on ethics reform and is considered (much like McCain) a party maverick. She is also seen as a break from ethically-challenged Alaska Republicans like Senator Ted Stevens. However, Palin is under investigation herself for possibly having abused her office to get her former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, fired from his job as a state trooper, according to the Wall Street Journal. She supports drilling as energy policy, and her husband is a longtime BP employee, but he’s a blue-collar type. Palin has also threatened to evict ExxonMobil and its partners from their drilling rights to publicly held oilfields.

This woman is quite a contradiction, seen at once as a sop to the religious right who have not quite come around to McCain and as outreach to disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters who value biological sex over a record on the issues. Read the rest