Something to Ponder

I've thought about this many times, as have most of my friends and family members, but I've never seen it in an email forward, until tonight. Here it is:

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched
around?.....think about it.

Would the country's collective point of view be different? Could racism
be the culprit?

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including
a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter, along with her boyfriend?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating
class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe
disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his
standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair
while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain
killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable
organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?
(The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption
in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger
Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included
discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many
occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer
distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality,
do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they
are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes
positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in
another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in
the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

A Must Watch

Who is the real Barack Obama?

There are so many touching moments in this video, I suggest you try to watch the whole thing. And then email it around to your friends and family.

Sounds Like Fun

Via Marginal Revolution, not all sectors of the market are going to shit:

All over sunny San Diego, tough economic times have forced people to cut back on their $4 lattes and sushi dinners. But one new business is booming -- and ka-booming -- precisely because of frustration from the worst financial crisis to hit the United States in decades. Welcome to Sarah's Smash Shack, where pent-up patrons can relieve stress by hurling dinnerware and bric-a-brac against a wall, as hard as they can, day and night, seven days a week. San Diego entrepreneur Sarah Lavely charges her clients $10 and up to pulverize plates and glasses during 15-minute intervals. Music blares, clients dress in protective gear and a neon sign urges them to "Break More Stuff."(...)San Diego may boast surf and sunshine year round, but it also has its share of black economic clouds. Its real estate market has been hit hard by the high rate of foreclosures in California, the second highest in the nation, and its unemployment rate has risen to 6.4 percent from 4.8 percent in a year...

A Chilly Reception

Sarah Palin, the self-proclaimed Hockey Mom from Alaska, was booed off the ice at the Flyers-Rangers game in Philly.

The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama

From Frank Rich's New York Times column:

Obama can hardly be held accountable for Ayers’s behavior 40 years ago, but at least McCain and Palin can try to take some responsibility for the behavior of their own supporters in 2008. What’s troubling here is not only the candidates’ loose inflammatory talk but also their refusal to step in promptly and strongly when someone responds to it with bloodthirsty threats in a crowded arena. Joe Biden had it exactly right when he expressed concern last week that “a leading American politician who might be vice president of the United States would not just stop midsentence and turn and condemn that.” To stay silent is to pour gas on the fires. ...

We’re not at Election Day yet, and if voters are to have their final say, both America and Obama have to get there safely. The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism, and each day the mob howls louder. The onus is on the man who says he puts his country first to call off the dogs, pit bulls and otherwise.

Read the column in its entirety here.

Obama Reacts to Rep. John Lewis

From MSNBC:

In a statement, Obama-Biden spokesman Bill Burton writes that, while Obama does not agree with the comparison of McCain's campaign to those of segregation advocate George Wallace, he does believe that Rep. John Lewis is justified in his condemnation of "the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night," as well as Palin's assertion that the candidate "pals around with terrorists."

Here's the full statement: “Senator Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies. But John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night, as well as the baseless and profoundly irresponsible charges from his own running mate that the Democratic nominee for President of the United States ‘pals around with terrorists.’ As Barack Obama has said himself, the last thing we need from either party is the kind of angry, divisive rhetoric that tears us apart at a time of crisis when we desperately need to come together. That is the kind of campaign Senator Obama will continue to run in the weeks ahead,” said Obama-Biden spokesman Bill Burton.

Earmark Spending

Here is a graphical representation of earmark spending by state. Notice that the majority of earmark spending goes to states that historically vote Republican. Then contemplate the hypocrisy of the Republicans who decry pork barrel spending while their states throw elbows at the trough.

Obama GOTV

Front page article in the NYT on the Obama campaign's robust get out the vote effort.

[A] sophisticated battery of databases has been tapped to find voters who may be inclined to support the candidates. At the national level, Republicans have had better success at the modeling techniques, but the Obama campaign studied the Republican plan to help shape its own system of finding voters who are prone to support Mr. Obama.

The information is culled from a variety of sources, including magazine subscriptions, the types of cars people drive, where voters shop and how much they earn. Commuting patterns are analyzed. Voting history in local races is factored in.

The data, after it is studied and sorted at campaign headquarters in Chicago, is sent to every battleground state. The names are bar-coded and ultimately show up on the lists given to volunteers.

Maddow Article

A lengthy article on Rachel Maddow from The American Prospect. Interesting tidbit:

On days when she isn't pondering the meaning of punditry, she says she worries "about being a conventional-wisdom machine." To that end, Maddow tries to avoid opinion-based commentary--she doesn't even have a TV in her New York City apartment. "Much more than I wish was true, I tend to at least subconsciously agree with the last thing I heard that made sense," she says, "and so I try to consume as much fact and reporting as I can and as little of other people's analysis as I can."

Talking Point Memo

MAN: Governor, did you abuse your power?

PALIN: If you read the report, you’ll see that there’s nothing unlawful or unethical about replacing a cabinet member. You’ve got to read the report, sir.

This is technically true, which is why it's the talking point Palin and the McCain campaign will be running with from now until the election. But David Kurtz articulates why this response is pure spin:

Monegan's firing was just the tip of the iceberg.

The report details the extraordinary lengths that Gov. Palin, largely through her husband Todd, went to get her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired because of personal family reasons (namely, his nasty divorce from Palin's sister). It was this effort, which led to pressure being improperly brought to bear on numerous state employees, that constituted an abuse of power by Palin. As it should be. State employees should not be subject to personal vendettas from elected officials.

While the report also finds that the governor in Alaska has the inherent power to fire her department heads for any reason or for no reason, it concludes that Monegan's refusal to fire one of his state troopers at the insistence of the governor and her family was a contributing factor in his own firing.

So rather than the firing of Monegan itself being the abuse of power, the wide-ranging effort to retaliate against her sister's ex-husband, of which Monegan's firing was merely a part, was the real abuse. Monegan's firing is evidence of the broader scheme, not the scheme itself.

Sitting President

Screen grab of a banner ad I just saw.

The Audacity Of Stupidity

From a fairly spectacular article in the New York Times:

Mr. Bush has been telling people privately that it’s a good thing he’s in charge.

“He said that if [the financial meltdown] was going to happen at all, he was glad it was happening under his presidency, because he had a good group of people in D.C. working for him,” Dru Van Steenberg, one of several small-business owners who met with Mr. Bush in San Antonio earlier this week. The president expressed the same sentiment, others said, during a similar private session in Chantilly, Va., the next day.

The inevitability of the financial meltdown was not certain and was in many ways exacerbated by the economic policies of this administration. Addressing the problem without also addressing the causes is akin to treating the symptom but not the disease. Worse still, it's akin to treating the symptom while not connecting it to the disease. We are seeing the same type of response from Palin on global warming.

It's A Faith Showdown!

Via Politico, the invocation delivered before McCain's rally in Iowa this morning:

“There are plenty of people around the world who are praying to their god, be they Hindu, Buddha, or Allah, that [McCain’s] opponent wins. I pray that you step forward and honor your own name.”

Funky Maddow

In case you missed Rachel Maddow on Leno Thursday night.

McCain Backlash

Obama Speaks In Urban Philly

A nice first person account of Obama's inner city rally in Philadelphia on Saturday:

And then, with the flags still flapping, it's on to a final bit that wraps all of the historical significance and identity-politics pride--the stuff that gets played up on 52nd Street and played down in a lot of other neighborhoods--into a patriotic package that could work just about anywhere, a national history of perpetual improvement: "That's the story of America. Each successive generation working hard. I'm here because somebody somewhere stood up for me. And because they stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And because they stood up, America became a place where dreams were realized."

The crowd eats it up, with all the attendant cheers and sobs and exultations. The music comes on and the other pols flank Obama as he basks in the applause. As the audience files away, a retiree named Edith MacDonald stays put in her seat. "This is just such a happy place," she says, watching the crowd stream past. Brooks and Dunn's "Only in America" is playing again, and McDonald shouts over it to tell me that she's the last one left from her generation, born in South Carolina before migrating north. "I told my family, God left me here for a reason," she says. "So when I go up to heaven and see my family, I tell them" that the country had a black president.

Favorable/Unfavorable

From Daily Kos:

CANDIDATE	FAV	UNFAV	NO OPINION
MCCAIN	40	51	9
OBAMA	59	33	8
BIDEN	57	30	13
PALIN	37	55	8

So that's a -29 for McCain-Palin and a +53 for Obama-Biden, an 82-point favorability gap.

Only Vote That Matters

Who's hotter: Democrats or Republicans?

Private Sector Caused Crisis

McClatchy has the facts on the mortgage meltdown. Far from Fannie and Freddie being the culprits, the evidence points to the private sector:

Federal housing data reveal that the charges aren't true, and that the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis.

Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height vrom 2004 to 2006.

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

_ More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

_ Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.

_ Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

Private Messages

Anytime anyone publishes private emails—especially those from two well-respected journalists—it reminds me of the whole Dave Eggers/David Kirkpatrick debacle back in 2001 (only in the sense that the emails were made public, not in the sense that there was a serious and fundamental problem with the way in which the interview was conducted, which is not the case with the emails that follow, but hopefully you can catch my drift).

Anyway, here we go, from Michael Scherer via Time.

Ambinder vs. Scherer: The Emails

On Friday morning, The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, who I count among the cycle's indispensable campaign reporters, wrote a blog post arguing that John McCain was not serious about his William Ayers attacks. On Friday afternoon, I responded with a post saying that McCain was serious, to the extent that serious is a thing that matters.

Ambinder and I continued our debate privately in email. After a few exchanges, we decided to post our entirely friendly and respectful give-and-take, in a slightly edited form. Read the original Ambinder post here. Read my blog response here. Here are the emails:

At 5:26 p.m., Ambinder wrote to Scherer:

Sarah Palin is a credible surrogate for McCain with independents?

And that's just the point: he seems tepid about Ayers; his decisions about what to say about Ayers seem political unless he commits to the message, unless he makes the argument rather than assuming that the argument will make itself. If McCain wants to discredit Obama because of the Ayers association, he needs to find a way to inform the people for whom the prospect of an Ayers connection will change their minds. Right now, all available evidence indicates that these voters don't know enough to care. McCain can fix that by doing 1 2 or 3. He's not. Therefore he just doesn't seem all that serious about Ayers. If the Ayers association really matters .... If it really bothers McCain, if it really ought to discredit Obama, then McCain ought to be shouting it from the hilltops. He's whispering right now from the valley.

At 5:55 p.m., Scherer wrote to Ambinder:

I agree that McCain is probably still deep down conflicted, perhaps more for reasons of legacy and reputation than anything else. (And, he actually did enjoy those gabfests with the press.) But I don't think the Ayers play is a misplay, or that McCain is somehow holding back against the plan. The campaign is carrying out the plan of using Ayers, ACORN, and whatever else to grab news cycles, to refocus the spotlight away from the economy, and attempt to take back control of the momentum.

Aides have been very clear about the desire to use Palin as point to drive news cycles. I don't think it matters that she doesn't appeal to independents, or that there is little substance to the attacks. The campaign's contention is that if you get in the news, it filters down, through impressions to voters.

And when it comes to Ayers, the details could become counterproductive. It's clear from the McCain messaging that the main idea is to "raise questions," not to clearly answer them. Next will be ACORN, and I would not be surprised to see Obama's record on crime issues in Illinois, and whatever else. And the whole thing will roll out as designed, unless they decide that the whole campaign is lost, which is unlikely, mainly because this election is still pretty close.

All that said, my post was not really about your post as much as an idea I have been trying to figure out how to write for a while: That the authenticity debate, as normally framed, is off when it comes to McCain. He is the same person today he was back when he was the media's friend and the enemy of slimy politics. It's just the mathematics of the nation changed around him.

At 6:05 p.m., Ambinder wrote:

But it's not working. To the extent that questions are being raised, they are being raised at the extreme margins of a 10 point race (or seven point race). They know this; they see the same polls and do the same focus groups. They're not grabbing news cycles. The news isn't about Ayers...

In fact, the stories that seep through seem to be about conservative intellectuals abandoning McCain, not about William Ayers -- or they're about McCain's soul -- or about conservatives questioning whether McCain has lost his soul, or they're about angry Republicans at events... One CNN segment on ACORN?. [Ambinder post-conversation note: CBS just did an ACORN segment tonight, too.}

McCain has always been more political and less authentically anti-politics than he is portrayed, but he has always been more principled and less political than most, which is why his frustration is evident from his performances on the stump..(or it appears so on TV, which is how 99% of the people see them). He is raging, internally. It's evident externally.

All of which is to say -- the misdirection is so transparent -- and, indeed, McCain advisers _tell us_ about the misdirection on background -- that I can't imagine they stick to it.

BTW: McCain, five minutes ago: "I want to be president and I don't want Obama to be...he is a decent person and a person you don't have to be scared of (boos)...if I didn't think I'd be a lot better, I wouldn,t be running."

Message that filters down (through a media that is, let's face it, kind of in tank for change, if not for Obama): Angry Republicans think Obama is a bad guy; McCain speaks truth to power and calls his "decent."

At 6:09 p.m., Scherer wrote:

Am watching too, but I think that is McCain just trying to make clear that he is not calling for anyone to lose their bearings over the election, which seems to have been happening at recent events.

I am not sure how much of McCain's evident frustration is internal doubt, and how much is that he feels the world--and the press--has unfairly turned on him. (I actually think the latter is a big deal. McCain's ability to morally dispatch those who stand in his way is substantial, as his record in the Senate shows.)

The argument we are having is whether the current strategy is failing as designed, or failing because it is not being carried out. I think the former. I think they don't have another play, and there is still hope that the worm turns. They are sticking to the script and adding a economic crisis graft on the side. It may not be working, but I don't think that's McCain not being serious.

At 6:13 p.m., Ambinder wrote:

Well, the press is another issue, but I totally agree with your POV, which, after all, is based on seeing him up close more than me.

What also confuses me is, quite frankly, his policy generation process, which seems ad hoc and counterproductive and not well thought out even as the guy in charge of it, Doug Holtz-Eakin, is universally respected. McCain's had new stuff to say this week, but it's been lost in the details, and the press is having trouble taking it seriously.

At 6:25 p.m., Scherer wrote:

The impression of policy development problems is unmistakable, and I suspect there are real problems behind the scenes. Doug’s efforts have been heroic, but this is one area where McCain seems to still suffer from the rapid up-scaling of his operation over the spring and summer. McCain may have figured out how to hold big events, but his campaign still has clear
disadvantages of scale when compared with the Obama operation, which has the benefit of an entire Democratic policy apparatus in exile. Doug has help, but his brief is enormous.

Friday, October 10, 2008

I Heart Jon

This wonderful little montage from The Daily Show sums up why Fox News is fucked in the head.

Talking about Bush

Tonight on Letterman, Elizabeth Banks, a total cutie, discussed what it was like to film the new Oliver Stone movie, W, which opens October 17. (Random side note, but I had dinner with Oliver Stone in 1998 and he totally hit on me in that gross I'm 55 and totally coked out, let me grab your hand and rub your arm while I'm falling down the stairs, sweating profusely kind of way. But I still like his movies.)

While filming, Ms. Banks met President George W. Bush at his Crawford, Texas ranch. She was with her husband, a recent business school graduate, who was looking for a job. According to Ms. Banks, President Bush asked about her husband's job search and then said, "Oh yeah, I need to get this economy going."

Ms. Banks was lovely enough to point out that this was in ... 2003.

Totally Deranged...

McCain Campaign Now Attacks Michelle Obama Over Ayers

From TPM:

The McCain campaign is now broadening their attack on Obama's past association with William Ayers to include Michelle Obama -- even though McCain has repeatedly said spouses should be off limits during the campaign.

The attack? Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers' wife and fellow former Weatherman, went to work in 1984 for the major Chicago-based national law firm of Sidley & Austin, and three years later, Michelle joined the mega-firm as well.

That's the entire attack. We wish we were joking. But we aren't.

In launching this latest, McCain is ditching yet another formerly-claimed principle as he faces the growing likelihood of defeat. In a statement back in June, the McCain campaign said: "Senator McCain agrees with Senator Obama that spouses should not be an issue in this campaign, and he has stated that position frequently."

The attack on Michelle came on a McCain conference call with reporters this afternoon featuring John Murtagh, who has been hitting Obama over the Weather Underground's attack on his family's home back in 1970. Murtagh noted that Dohrn and Michelle Obama had both worked at the firm starting in the late 1980s.

The firm's Chicago office currently employs more than 500 lawyers.

Murtagh didn't even bother alleging that the two even knew each other, instead suggesting that they might have. If so, he said, the Obamas have known the two longer than suspected.

"If it is true" that the two women knew each other, Murtagh said, "the relationship is almost a decade older than Senator Obama has acknowledged. And that can very easily be resolved by Senator Obama, by Mrs. Obama, by Mr. Ayers and by Ms. Dohrn."

"And incidentally, I would emphasize that we've all been focusing on Senator Obama," said Murtagh. "I think we need to speak to his wife."

Keep in mind that this wasn't any surrogate speaking off the cuff. He was on a call organized by the McCain campaign, and he was apparently reading from a prepared statement, which would of course have been vetted by McCain aides. And so another once-cherished McCain principle gets junked in the service of self-parody.

A Warning and A Challenge

The AFL-CIO speaks out and challenges the McCain/Palin ticket about the craziness that's going down at their rallies. From the Boston Globe:

The head of the nation's biggest labor federation is joining the chorus of voices warning about the increasingly angry crowds coming to John McCain's campaign events.
At rallies this week, McCain's criticisms of Democrat Barack Obama have been met with shouts of "terrorist," "liar," and other harsh words.

"Sen. John McCain, Gov. Sarah Palin and the leadership of the Republican party have a fundamental moral responsibility to denounce the violent rhetoric that has pervaded recent McCain and Palin political rallies," said John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, which has endorsed Obama. "When rally attendees shout out such attacks as 'terrorist' or 'kill him' about Sen. Barack Obama, when they are cheered on by crowds incited by McCain-Palin rhetoric -- it is chilling that McCain and Palin do nothing to object.

"In a world where unspeakable violence is too often promulgated by extremists, it is no small or trivial matter to call someone a terrorist -- or to incite potentially dangerous individuals toward violence," Sweeney said in a statement. "John McCain, Sarah Palin and Republican leaders are walking a very thin line in pretending not to hear the hateful invectives spewed at their rallies. McCain should end this line of attack in the strongest possible terms. Anything less puts McCain in the same camp as the racists and extremists who are bringing their angry rhetoric to his campaign events."

Intrade Update

Sarah Palin dropping off the Republican ticket has shot up on Intrade and is now selling at 8.

Troopergate Thought

Now that we know “Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda” and that she "abused her power" in violation of the public trust, how soon until the McCain publicly announces they are foregoing any more negative advertising and call on the Obama campaign to do the same?

Seriously?

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers:

"Barack Obama's attacks on Americans who support John McCain reveal far more about him than they do about John McCain. It is clear that Barack Obama just doesn't understand regular people and the issues they care about."

The issues these regular people seem to care about include: killing Obama; calling him a terrorist; calling him a socialist; calling him a Muslim; calling him an extremist; calling him a terrorist sympathizer; and calling him foreign. Clearly Obama does not understand these regular people and I think we can all agree that makes him an elitist homosexual.

PS: If you watch the video in the link your head might throb.

Nevada

Via Jonathan Martin, this article from the Las Vegas Sun:

A few Republican operatives, who declined to be named, offered blunt criticism.

The McCain campaign is “a joke,” one said. “There’s not a campaign in Nevada. A couple of guys, running around, being incompetent. Or even worse, arrogantly incompetent.”

The consultant said there was no discernible McCain ground game, which is political jargon for the massive effort needed to find likely supporters and get them to the polls.

He did hedge a bit, saying that if some earth-shattering event were to occur, McCain could still win in Nevada. Otherwise: “There’s not one single positive note for Republicans. I couldn’t be more pessimistic.”

Moral Hazard With McCain's Mortgage Plan

Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby points out another problem with McCain's mortgage plan:

McCain's plan could exacerbate the financial crisis in a perverse way. Help for families who are behind in their mortgage payments could encourage others to stop paying, too, in which case loans that are now good would quickly turn rotten.

Bad News For GOP

From CNN:

Sarah Palin has scheduled a bus tour for Sunday through West Virginia, a state that’s been leaning red throughout this presidential race...

Surveys of West Virginia voters this year have consistently favored McCain, but state polls have closed in recent weeks as the global financial crisis has dominated the headlines. A CNN/Time poll conducted in late September showed McCain with a slight 50-46 lead over Obama, and an ARG poll released this week suggested Obama had rocketed to an eight-point over his Republican rival.

The fact that Palin is campaigning in a state that should be tilting for McCain by a wide margin is terrible news for the GOP. If McCain can't win West Virginia he can't win the White House.

Sign Of A Good Campaign

The Obama Campaign has seen it coming for a while. No wonder they look like they're in control while McCain is flailing.

The Conservative's Canada

Where can Republicans threaten to move if Obama wins?

Conservatives have no Canada. Which is to say, they have no mythical land of ideological soul mates to which they can flee to nurse their wounds and commiserate over lost elections and flunked initiatives. Part of the reason for this may be temperamental: Even staring into the maw of an Obama-friendly electoral map, Republicans' first instinct is not to threaten expatriation. (The McCain-Palin slogan, after all, is "country first.") They have no backup plan for when the country they live in becomes politically unrecognizable.

Maybe they need one.

Head to Slate for the entire read.

Rep. LaHood: Palin Should Stop It

From CBS:

Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) represents the 18th District, which includes Peoria and other parts of central and western Illinois, including Peoria. He is retiring in January.

LaHood supports the McCain ticket, but doesn't like what he sees at some of the McCain-Palin rallies: When Barack Obama's name has been mentioned by Sarah Palin, there are shouts of "terrorist," and LaHood says Palin should put a stop to it.

"Look it," LaHood said. "This doesn't befit the office that she's running for. And frankly, people don't like it."

LaHood says it could backfire on the Republican ticket.

He says the names that Obama is being called, "Certainly don't reflect the character of the man."

Powell and Wright

A commenter at The New Republic wonders if McCain is not bringing up Rev. Wright because he has cut a deal with Powell -- no Wright talk in exchange for Powell not endorsing Obama. The notion that there is a deal in place is silly, but I wonder if there's not some truth to the sentiment. Perhaps McCain is staying away from Wright out of fear that not doing so would drive the former Secretary of State into endorsing Obama. Far less silly, far more reasonable.

Obama -> ACORN -> Voter Fraud

A new McCain ad ties Obama to ACORN and then to voter fraud. You can watch it below and judge it for yourself, but notice the use of grainy tapestock, the repeated shots of a police raid, the flickering video. The effect evokes terrorism (particularly the Waco standoff). Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but when the video opens with the question "Who is Barack Obama?" the video invites itself to be questioned.

Puppy Love

Via Sullivan a video title "My Dogs greeting me after returning home from 14 months in Iraq". A nice video for a Friday afternoon.

Balanced Look At Health Care Plans

Ron Brownstone evaluates the health care plans of both Obama and McCain.

In an ad this week, the Obama campaign described that trade as "the largest middle-class tax increase in history."

That's flat wrong. For all but the highest earners with the most-expensive insurance plans, the credit would more than offset the additional taxes workers would face from ending the exclusion, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center calculates. The real problem with McCain's idea is that, without the economic incentive provided by the exclusion, more employers might stop offering coverage. And even employers who want to continue could find it difficult because younger workers would be likely to use their credit to buy stripped-down, cheaper coverage on their own. That would leave employers covering only older and sicker workers, which could quickly swell premiums to unaffordable levels. That concern prompted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable to criticize McCain's plan in an eye-opening New York Times article on Tuesday.

McCain's approach would save people money when they are young but expose them to greater financial and health risks as they age. It repudiates the essence of insurance, which aims to spread risk not only across the population but across an individual's lifetime. Obama is wrong to portray McCain's plan as a tax hike. And the Democrat's alternative raises its own tough questions, especially about cost. But Obama does not exaggerate when he says that his rival is offering a "radical" new vision of how Americans can safeguard their health.

Obama Sex Aid

An Obama dildo. Coming soon: George Bush butt plug.

Golden Girl For Obama

High Speed Photography

Via my brother, awesome high speed photography.

Another Obamacon

Christopher Buskley, the son of William F., is voting for Obama. He explains why here.

Why the Recession is a Blessing in Disguise

Read the whole thing at The London Times Online. But here are some tidbits:

We'll smoke less, be fitter, thinner and greener. Oh, and the roads will be safer. There is a surprising side to a downturn

When times are good, research by Stanford University and the University of North Carolina shows that people of all classes tend not to take care of themselves and their families. The better off may have gym membership but all classes drink too much (especially before driving), they eat more fat-laden food - either pre-packaged from supermarkets or in restaurants - and are more likely to neglect their families. In downturns, people have more time to visit their elderly relatives and are more likely to look after their children themselves rather than booking them into expensive after-school activities or crèches.

Grant Miller, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford, says that in a boom people work longer, harder hours to take advantage of the conditions and are more stressed and less likely to do things that are good for them: “Cooking at home and exercising are seen as a waste of time.”

But when wages drop, and jobs are scarce, the young feel that it makes more economic sense to prolong their education, and the elderly will retire earlier because there is less incentive to keep earning.

This research backs up a paper, published in 2000, entitled Are Recessions Good for your Health? by Christopher Ruhm, professor of economics at the University of North Carolina. Professor Ruhm analysed death rates from 1972 to 1991, comparing them to economic shifts. He found that for every 1 per cent increase in unemployment rates, there was a 0.5 per cent decline in the death rate.

The Class War

An interesting op-ed from David Brooks at The New York Times on why the GOP has no more smart people.


Tidbits:

The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.

Conservatives are as rare in elite universities and the mainstream media as they were 30 years ago. The smartest young Americans are now educated in an overwhelmingly liberal environment.

This year could have changed things. The G.O.P. had three urbane presidential candidates. But the class-warfare clichés took control. Rudy Giuliani disdained cosmopolitans at the Republican convention. Mitt Romney gave a speech attacking “eastern elites.” (Mitt Romney!) John McCain picked Sarah Palin.

Palin is smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable. Her convention and debate performances were impressive. But no American politician plays the class-warfare card as constantly as Palin. Nobody so relentlessly divides the world between the “normal Joe Sixpack American” and the coastal elite.

She is another step in the Republican change of personality. Once conservatives admired Churchill and Lincoln above all — men from wildly different backgrounds who prepared for leadership through constant reading, historical understanding and sophisticated thinking. Now those attributes bow down before the common touch.

And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission — because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away.

7% Swing

Since 2004 the number of registered Democrats has grown by 5% while the number of registered Republicans have decreased by 2%. The rate of Democratic growth has outpaced the rate of population growth as well.

Troopergate Madness

The Troopergate report drops today. Last night the Palin-McCain campaign released their own report clearing her of any wrongdoing and today Palin's lawyer is attempting to discredit the actual report.

"They didn't even try to interview the governor. You want to know why she reassigned Monegan, it would be nice to talk to her. They didn't even try," Van Flein said. "It's a report that's going to be half-done at best. And anything that's half-done will likely be half-baked."

Anyone think this is remotely true? Didn't think so.

Candid O

The newest issue of Men's Health doesn't hit newsstands until October 21, but here is a preview:

On Unplugging:

"Eliminating TV has been helpful-- I'm still a sucker for Sports Center...The most difficult thing is to carve out time to think, which is probably the most important time for somebody who's trying to shift an organization, or in this case, the country, as opposed to doing the same things that have been done before. And I find that time slips away."

On Recharging:

"My blood pressure is pretty low, and I tend to be a healthy eater. So I probably could get away with cutting [my workouts] back a little bit. The main reason I do it is just to clear my head and relieve me of stress. It's a great way to stay focused."

On making time for his family:

"I don't miss the important things. I haven't missed a dance recital. I haven't missed a parent-teacher conference. But there are some things I do miss, and those are some of the tradeoffs you make.

"But, look, there's no question there are sacrifices involved here. I'd like to say that quality time replaces quantity, but sometimes it doesn't. You know, a lot of the best moments of family life happen spontaneously. If you have less time to devote to them, there are fewer of those moments."

On how to quit smoking:

"Eliminate certain key connections--that first cigarette in the morning, or after a meal, or with a drink. If you can eliminate those triggers, that should help."

And on meeting expectations:

I always try to make sure that my expectations are higher than those of the people around me...I never want people to feel as if I've overpromised to them. I try to explain in a real honest way how difficult some of the changes I'm talking about will be. But I never want the effect to be that I'm not working as hard as I can on their behalf...that I'm not continually trying to improve. I'm actually glad for the high expectations."

Stop, Reverse

From Politico:

"There’s very little a candidate for president can say and very little the president can say about what’s happening in the stock markets except hope that they correct themselves," [Rick] Davis [McCain's campaign manager] said, adding that McCain's mortgage plan could be an "elixir" for the financial crisis.

"I can’t imagine a situation where on a daily basis the campaign would put out a statement about what the market was doing," he said. "It doesn’t meant that we don’t care and aren’t trying to do something about it."

The campaign, he said, shouldn't become a "CNBC news show on the stock market."

How do you go from suspending your campaign to deal with the finacnial crisis to this? Oh yeah, you decide the only way to win is to spout lies at your campaign rallies and basically encourage people in your audiences to do the same. And you rely on hatred instead of hope to carry you through.

The Wisdom Of One

We've all heard about the wisdom of crowds, but new research suggests that similar success can be had by offering a person multiple guesses to a single question and then averaging the guesses. Here are the results from the research paper:

The average of two guesses from one individual (within-person average) was more accurate (lower mean squared error) than either guess alone...

Moreover, the benefit of averaging was greater when the second guess was delayed by 3 weeks than when it was immediate...

Thus, one benefits from polling the “crowd” within, and the inner crowd grows more effective (independent) when more time elapses between guesses...

Simply put, you can gain about 1/10th as much from asking yourself the same question twice as you can from getting a second opinion from someone else, but if you wait 3 weeks, the benefit of reasking yourself the same question rises to 1/3 the value of a second opinion.

Weekly Physics Post

The new Scientific American contains an article about a new theory on the origin of the universe. Instead of a big bang scientists are hypothesizing a big bounce.

If we imagine rewinding the expansion of the universe back in time, the galaxies we see all seem to converge on a single infinitesimal point: the big bang singularity. At this point, our current theory of gravity—Einstein’s general theory of relativity—predicts that the universe had an infinite density and temperature. This moment is sometimes sold as the beginning of the universe, the birth of matter, space and time. Such an interpretation, however, goes too far, because the infinite values indicate that general relativity itself breaks down. To explain what really happened at the big bang, physicists must transcend relativity. We must develop a theory of quantum gravity, which would capture the fine structure of spacetime to which relativity is blind...

Because of the quantum-gravitational change in the balance of forces, no singularity—no state of infinite density—can ever arise. According to this model, matter in the early universe had a very high but finite density, the equivalent of a trillion suns in every proton-size region. At such extremes, gravity acted as a repulsive force, causing space to expand; as densities moderated, gravity switched to being the attractive force we all know. Inertia has kept the expansion going to the present day...

Without a singularity to demarcate the beginning of time, the history of the universe may extend further back than cosmologists once thought possible...

Read on for more.

Namibia > United States

How far we've sunk: Namibia has a sounder banking system than the United States.

East-To-Make Solar Cell

NPR has the story of an Australian scientist who's developed a way of making solar cells that requires little more than a pizza oven, nail polish remover, and an inkjet printer.

Palin Hired PR Consultant To Grab Spotlight

The more you find out about Sarah Palin the more typical she becomes. Front page story on the WaPo has the latest detail:

During her first months in office, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin kept a relatively light schedule on her workdays in Juneau, making ceremonial appearances at sports events and funerals, meeting with state lawmakers, and conducting interviews with Alaska magazines, radio stations and newspapers.

But this spring, Palin's official calendar chronicles an extraordinary rise to national prominence. A fresh face in Republican politics, she was discovered by the national news media at least in part because of a determined effort by a state agency to position her as an oil and gas expert who could tout Alaska's determined effort to construct a natural gas pipeline.

An outside public relations expert hired under a $31,000 contract with the state Department of Natural Resources pitched the "upstart governor" as a crusader against Big Oil, a story line that Palin has adopted in her campaign as Sen. John McCain's running mate. The contract was the only time the Palin administration hired an outside consultant to set up media interviews, a function performed in many states by government employees.

At the state Capitol, Palin agreed to be "shadowed" for days by some national reporters, and her dealings with the legislature dropped off so dramatically that some House and Senate members donned red-and-white "Where's Sarah?" buttons to show their disapproval. But her high-visibility campaign paid off, helping Palin win notice from political pundits, who began including her on lists of long-shot choices for the GOP vice presidential spot.

The Fabulous Sara Geiger

My good friend Sara (a wicked talented artist out in LA) is now a contributor to the Huffington Post.

Check out her comics here and here.

Congrats SG!

McCain Confused

Last night McCain said that his new $300 billion mortgage plan would require new money. This morning McCain is saying that his mortgage plan would not require new money, according to Marc Ambinder.

$500 bucks says McCain is not totally sure what his mortgage plan encompasses.

Hooligans and Socialist Takeovers

This guy seems like a plant to me, but regardless, at the end of his rant, McCain agreed and said the man was "right."

Looking for a Leader?

Here he is, speaking with voters in Ohio this morning. Great clip.

Sarah Palin Sex Doll?

Now on sale.

Hysterical

From Daily Kos:

Big Obama Debate Gains?

Nate Silver has a hunch:

[It] looks to me like the debate may have been a pretty significant help for Barack Obama.

The Zogby-Reuters
poll is already out. From reading Zogby's write-up, it sounds like
Obama must have had about a 9 point lead in Thursday's interviewing
and, oh, a 5-6 point lead in Wednesday's interviewing. This compared
with a 2-point lead over the Sunday-Tuesday window, before the debate
occurred.

Totally Schizo

From Swampland:

According to a new 30-second spot from the McCain campaign and the RNC, there is a connection between Barack Obama's association with domestic-terrorist-turned-professor-turned-Chicago-citizen-of-the-year Bill Ayers and the collapse of the housing, financial and credit markets. The connection is so obvious, the ad doesn't bother to explain it -- it just jumps from talking ominously about Obama's "blind ambition" in associating with Ayres to, abruptly, the alleged role of congressional liberals in blocking regulation and pushing for more shaky mortgages. And the connection is? As Howard Wolfson says, the ad is schizophrenic. It doesn't make sense. Which means voters probably won't buy it.

Here's the ad:

About That Pipeline

McCain states that Palin is responsible for a pipeline delivering natural gas to the lower 48 from Canada. Only problem: That pipeline does not exist. Think Progress has the details.

Pillow Talk

I broke the news of this to my mom late last night. The entire year her husband was in Iraq—and calling her from a Baghdad-based phone—they were liking being spied on. I didn't ask about any pillow talk, but still....

From CNN:

Report: U.S. spied on Americans' intimate conversations abroad

Congress is looking into allegations that National Security Agency linguists have been eavesdropping on Americans abroad.

The congressional oversight committees said Thursday that the Americans targeted included military officers in Iraq who called friends and family in the United States.

The allegations were made by two former military intercept operators on a television news report Thursday evening.

A terrorist surveillance program instituted by the Bush administration allows the intelligence community to monitor phone calls between the United States and overseas without a court order -- as long as one party to the call is a terror suspect.

Adrienne Kinne, a former U.S. Army Reserves Arab linguist, told ABC News the NSA was listening to the phone calls of U.S. military officers, journalists and aid workers overseas who were talking about "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."

David Murfee Faulk, a former U.S. Navy Arab linguist, said in the news report that he and his colleagues were listening to the conversations of military officers in Iraq who were talking with their spouses or girlfriends in the United States.

According to Faulk, they would often share the contents of some of the more salacious calls stored on their computers, listening to what he called "phone sex" and "pillow talk."

Both Kinne and Faulk worked at the NSA listening facility at Fort Gordon, Georgia. They told ABC that when linguists complained to supervisors about eavesdropping on personal conversations, they were ordered to continue transcribing the calls.

Joel on the NYSE trading floor

This is from the homepage article on CNN.com

Obama Billboard

Sigh:

A billboard in West Plains, Mo., showing a caricature of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wearing a turban has caused quite a stir in town.

The sign, located south of West Plains on U.S. 63 across from the Dairy Queen, says: "Barack 'Hussein' Obama equals more abortions, same sex marriages, taxes, gun regulations."

Hussein is Obama's middle name. His Kenyan father was Muslim, but Obama grew up in a Christian family.

Throughout the presidential campaign, Obama has fought Internet rumors that he's Muslim.

Howell County Democrats are upset about the sign.

"Not only is it lying, but it's also in poor taste," Jim Vokac, president of the Howell County Democrats Club, told the News-Leader. "It certainly is free speech, but it's poor taste. It does reflect poorly on the area."

The West Plains Daily Quill reports no one has claimed responsibility for the sign.

The Unspoken Concern

Sullivan gives voice to a concern not being discussed much in the media:

This is a moment of maximal physical danger for the young Democratic nominee. And McCain is playing with fire. If he really wants to put country first, he will attack Obama on his policies - not on these inflammatory, personal, creepy grounds. This is getting close to the atmosphere stoked by the Israeli far right before the assassination of Rabin.

For God's sake, McCain, stop it. For once in this campaign, put your country first.

McCain Is A Coward Redux

A more forceful way of putting what Joe Biden said yesterday:

John McCain is not man enough to own his shit. John McCain will not openly confront Obama with his smears and lies and innuendo. John McCain will not come out and talk about Ayers, he has to be asked. That is why he goes to places like Fox News, so he can be asked. What a coincidence.

John McCain is a coward.

John McCain would rather hide behind his wife and Sarah Palin than say it himself.

He would rather produce 2 minute ads that his campaign will never pay to air anywhere, and hope that the tire-swinging media will bring up the topic so he doesn’t have to do it himself.

John McCain just wants to throw shit out there, and “raise questions” about Obama, and hope his supporters connect the dots, because he is too much of a coward to directly push this toxic stew. He would rather hide behind right-wing bloggers, surrogates, and scummy websites staffed with wingnut welfare recipients like the NRO and the Weekly Standard.

John McCain had 90 minutes to bring this stuff up to Obama, to his face, and passed.

John McCain is a coward.

One thing that has stuck out in each of the debates is Obama's eagerness to address McCain directly. He has been hampered by the format, but he clear wants to take on McCain. For his part, McCain can hardly muster the decency to look at Obama let alone address him directly. No one knows why this is, but my hunch is that McCain has a deep fear that simply addressing Obama would affirm his status as a man to be addressed. There is something dehumanizing going on with how McCain is handling Obama.

SNL Does Second Debate

From last night's Thursday Update SNL show:

Great Column

Little late on this, but read Tom Friedman's column from Wednesday if you haven't already.

The Latino Vote

Ben Smith:

Polls show Obama winning the broadest support from Latino voters of any Democrat in a decade, while McCain is struggling to reach 30 percent, closer to Senator Bob Dole's dismal 1996 result than to Bush's historic 40% four years ago.

McCain seems to have wound up with the worst of both worlds: He appears to be getting no credit from Latino voters for his past support for immigration reform, while carrying the baggage of other Republicans' hostility to illegal immigration.

Another Media Endorsement

Esquire endorses Barack Obama for President:

More than any other recent election, we are voting this year not merely for a president but to overthrow two governments. The one we can see is the one in which constitutional order has been defaced, the national spirit degraded, and the country unrecognizable because so much of the best of itself has been sold off or frittered away. The other one is the far more insidious one, a doppelgänger nation of black prisons, shredded memos, and secret justifications for even more secret crimes. Moreover, the current administration has worked hard not only to immunize itself from the political and legal consequences of the government we can see, but it has also worked within the one we cannot see in order to perpetuate itself.

For the past several months, it has worked to make extricating ourselves from the catastrophe it has wrought in Iraq as hard as possible. It has sought to make permanent the culture of corporate brigandage and predatory incompetence that it has made a hallmark of its stewardship of the country and its government. Salted throughout the vast bureaucracy are dozens of little homeschooled land mines, the products of a dozen cheapjack diploma mills selling patent-medicine history to the spiritually gullible. The fantastical hiring practices that only recently have come to light in the Department of Justice are only the most visible example of this, but the poisonous philosophy that has guided this administration is in all the institutions of the government Barack Obama hopes to lead. It is not dormant. It is there, replicating itself like a virus does in the cells of the body, waiting until it can erupt and debilitate him and his administration.

And nowhere is it more clearly visible than in the federal courts. It is in the courts where the depredations of the past seven years can become permanent. It is in the courts where the un-American legacy of George W. Bush can live forever -- or, at least, as long as most of the rest of us do. The Supreme Court already is dangerously close to an extremist conservative majority, and Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito were both born after John Paul Stevens already had passed the bar, and it was Stevens who, as recently as last June's Boumediene decision, helped create a thin 5 -- 4 majority in favor of reestablishing the right of habeas corpus for those people being detained by the administration in places like Guantánamo Bay. The decision threw out a key provision of the 2006 Military Commissions Act, a bipartisan piece of legislative cowardice that sank the Great Writ into a deep mire of euphemism and deceit. One vote, to uphold the right that En-glish nobles wrung out of King John in 1215. One vote, on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. One vote, from an eighty-eight-year-old man who'd already founded his own law firm when the chief justice under whom he serves, and who predictably voted in agreement with the president who'd appointed him, was born. One vote, on one of 107 federal courts.

There is no evidence at all that anything will change under a President John McCain, who has already identified Roberts and Alito as his beau ideals of Supreme Court justices. He has made brave noises about torture and the extraconstitutional prerogatives of the executive, but President Bush and his men went on and did what they wanted anyway, and McCain walked away, begging for votes from fundamentalists who hate him, meeping his displeasure in ways that were barely audible. The virus will gestate and spread on his watch, all throughout the federal government. Bushism must be ripped out, root and branch, everywhere it has been established, or else the presidential election of 2008 is a worthless exercise in futility. Barack Obama may not be the man to do it, but John McCain, for all his laudable qualities, clearly is neither willing nor able to do so.

To continue to govern ourselves this way is unthinkable. It is unsustainable as a democracy to continue to mock so egregiously in secret what we continue to profess in public. That is the task for the next president. That is the main reason to vote for Barack Obama of Illinois. We strongly encourage you to do so.

Panic Attacks?

Jonathan Martin write about the behavior we're seeing at McCain-Palin rallies being the result of conservative panic. His opening paragraphs:

The unmistakable momentum behind Barack Obama's campaign, combined with worry that John McCain is not doing enough to stop it, is ratcheting up fears and frustrations among conservatives.

And nowhere is this emotion on plainer display than at Republican rallies, where voters this week have shouted out insults at the mention of Obama, pleaded with McCain to get more aggressive with the Democrat and generally demonstrated the sort of visceral anger and unease that reflects a party on the precipice of panic.

Yes, the GOP is on the precipice of a monumental loss to a Democrat, but attributing the panic to fears about losing glosses over the most important factor: race. The vitriol spewing forth in 2008 is of a different order than what we saw in 2004 or 2000. It's different than what we saw in 1992. It's important that stories like Martin's are published, but it's just as crucial that they publish the full story. What we're witnessing is decades of post-Civil Rights latent racism finding an amplifier in a presidential candidate with dark skin and a funny name.

Set Your TiVo

Ad Age is reporting that Barack Obama is buying 30 minutes of time on major TV networks for a program to air from 8 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Oct. 29.

Not An Onion Story

The AP:

Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.

This is not without historical precedent. Though largely forgotten, Richard M. Nixon released a report clearing himself of any wrongdoing in the Watergate scandal on August 8th, 1974. More recently Bill Clinton released a report on the eve of the infamous Starr Report clearing himself of any wrongdoing with Monica Lewinsky. And finally the 2008 Cubs preemptively released a report on the eve of the playoffs clearing themselves of any wrongdoing in choking against the Dodgers.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Palling around with radical right-wing secessionists

Sarah Palin's ties and connections with the right-wing fringe secessionist party are a lot closer than the media has reported on - including attempting to name a really crazy anti-government militia guy to the Wasilla City Council seat she just vacated by being elected mayor.

Stay Classy, Bill

Bill O'Reilly calls a black professor 'boy.'

Fake Presidents

Snap!

Joe Biden:

"Sarah Palin says, you know, 'I was in second grade when Joe Biden was elected to the United States Senate at age 29.' That's true, but she was in sixth grade the last time John had a new idea."

Teeter Tot

This is fun—and there were even a few tricky questions. Plus, it's cute when Obama's head peaks out of the White House.

Match-o-Matic

A Poem for Hannity

I rode in an elevator with Sean Hannity when I lived in New York and I can say for certain that while he may be plump, he is NO WHERE NEAR as cute as a manatee.

Ode to Sean Hannity

by John Cleese

Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity

More Race Baiting

McCain Co-Chair Frank Keating, former Governor of Oklahoma, today said that Obama was "a guy of the street" who "used cocaine."

True, Obama did use cocaine in his youth, but he was never a guy of the street -- ie, a thuggish black guy -- and painting the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review as some radical street-wise junkie is a damning sign of the current GOP mindset. Keating might as well say that Obama is a crack addled Nigro who wants to rape your children and poison your water. At least that way he'd be honest about his feelings.

Debate questioner on Facebook

At the debate on Tuesday, I was extremely irritated when McCain told the questioner, 'you probably have never heard of Fannie Mae before the financial crisis.' Well, so was the questioner. He posted a comment on his Facebook page. I love the Internet.

Dow To Hit 7,000

NYU economist Nouriel Roubini predicts that the Dow will hit 7,000 sometime next year. Scary stuff. Unfortunately, Roubini has a strong prediction track record.

S-E-X-Y

I'm stealing this line from Juniper the Gooseman but I agree 100 percent.

If Barack Obama is going to make a habit of standing in the rain in a white dress shirt, he is going to make me forget that I support him because of his policies, intelligence, and judgment.

McCain Is A Coward

And Joe Biden calls him on it:

"All of the things they said about Barack Obama in the TV, on the TV, at their rallies, and now on YouTube ... John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him," Biden said this morning. "In my neighborhood, when you've got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him."

19 Points!

From Time:

Obama has opened up a 19-point lead (56-37%) over McCain among likely female voters. He even leads narrowly (48-45%) among white women--a group that George Bush won by 11 points in 2004. Among married women, whom Bush won 57-42% over John Kerry, Obama is ahead 51-42%.

Pollster Mark Schulman notes that no Democratic presidential candidate in recent history has had numbers that strong with married women and white women.

The Limits of Race

Check out Time's latest cover story by David Von Drehle. He crisscrossed Missouri to speak with swing voters about the election. And what he found out may surprise you.

I'm an Alaskan, not an American

My dad wrote the Obama campaign a letter on Tuesday asking why they weren't going after Palin's Alaskan Independence Party ties. Then today, RFK, Jr., went and copied him.

DON’T TOUCH ME

To piggyback on EE Dorr's earlier post about McCain's explosive temper, this piece from The Daily Beast is worth a read.

How the Senator Lost it at a Puerto Rican Casino

For this entire presidential campaign, the media have been waiting for John McCain’s famous temper to explode. A few small examples have been reported without anyone trying to make a big deal about it. The rule seems to be that if he can keep it bottled until November 5, he’s home free. But if he explodes in the interim, it becomes an official issue. This isn’t completely nuts. If he can’t hold it in for just the few months he is under maximum scrutiny, then he has a real problem. Otherwise, hey—Bill Clinton also had a temper, it was said, along with other uncontrollable passions.

Until recently this anger business didn’t bother me much. There is a lot to be angry about. Furthermore, I was not confident that McCain’s anger passed the whose-ox-is-gored test: As an Obama supporter, would I be equally alarmed if my preferred candidate had anger issues? (Which some folks say he does, by the way.) Then I heard the following story.

“DON’T TOUCH ME,” he repeated viciously. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?”

It comes in an email from my friend Jeff Dearth, a media investment banker and former publisher of The New Republic. We also went to junior high and high school together in Michigan. He would not make this up. In 2005, Jeff attended a magazine industry conference at a casino hotel in Puerto Rico. (I was there, too, though not a witness to what follows.) The guest speaker was McCain. He put on a terrific performance, breaking up the friendly crowd by referring to journalists as “my base.” (To anyone who remembers this period in McCain’s history, his attempt this year to paint Barack Obama as Britney Spears or Paris Hilton because Obama is now the media darling seems especially cheap.)

McCain’s game is craps. So is Jeff Dearth’s. Jeff was at the table when McCain showed up and happily made room for him. Apparently there is some kind of rule or tradition in craps that everyone’s hands are supposed to be above the table when the dice are about to be thrown. McCain—“very likely distracted by one of the many people who approached him that evening,” Jeff says charitably—apparently was violating this rule. A small middle-aged woman at the table, apparently a “regular,” reached out and pulled McCain’s arm away. I’ll let Jeff take over the story:

“McCain immediately turned to the woman and said between clenched teeth: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME.’ The woman started to explain...McCain interrupted her: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME,’ he repeated viciously. The woman again tried to explain. ‘DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?’ McCain continued, his voice rising and his hands now raised in the ‘bring it on’ position. He was red-faced. By this time all the action at the table had stopped. I was completely shocked. McCain had totally lost it, and in the space of about ten seconds. ‘Sir, you must be courteous to the other players at the table,’ the pit boss said to McCain. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? ASK ANYBODY AROUND HERE WHO I AM.”

This being Puerto Rico, the pit boss might not have known McCain. But the senator continued in full fury—“DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”—and crisis was avoided only when Jeff offered to change places and stand between McCain and the woman who had touched his arm.

What is bothersome about this story, if it’s true, is only partly the explosive anger. More, it’s the arrogance. At the craps table, who cares who he is? And there’s the recklessness of such a performance in a casino full of journalists (unless McCain absolutely couldn’t control himself, which is even scarier). But this gamble paid off. Although there were published reports that McCain had gambled late into the night, which properly treated that matter as charming, this particular episode has gone unreported until now. Maybe no journalist saw it. Or maybe this illustrates the unwritten rule of political journalism that all human-interest anecdotes must reaffirm a previously established belief. Arrogance is something McCain is not known for. Quite the opposite. Logic might dictate that an anecdote showing that, say, Obama has webbed feet would be more interesting than one showing that he is a skinny guy with big ears. But that’s not how it works.

Jeff Dearth is not an extreme partisan or an activist for either candidate. He supports Obama, in part because he is truly alarmed at the thought of the arrogant hothead he saw becoming president. (“I’d happily gamble with Senator McCain again,” he says, “but I definitely wouldn’t gamble on him.”) It alarms me, too. John McCain is the best Republican presidential candidate of my lifetime. But a performance like this would give me pause about supporting a candidate of either party.

McCain, Obama Superheroes

From the O.C. Register, via Cyndee Lou.

There's Nothing Some Fear More Than Citizens Exercising Their Constitutional Rights

A pretty good rundown on voter disenfranchisement from Jezebel via Morgan in Portland.

A Call to Action

I think Daniel Chun sums it up nicely in his column:

Consider all the meaningless shit that we become obsessed about -- ex-girlfriends, neighbors' dogs, celebrities' vaginas -- and now think about this: a 72-year old liar with anger problems might become the most powerful person in the world. And if he dies, he'd be replaced by a babbling, evolution-doubting, Supreme-Court-case-not-knowing woman whose knowledge about the world comes from a 3-week cram session. This deserves one month of your obsession.

(Thanks Katie for this one.)

Why 2008 Is Not 2004

Liberals, take a deep breath. Obama is not Kerry. Kerry was never in this good of position. Time heals many wounds but it also distorts what we remember. Kerry never held a commanding lead over Bush and in the run up to the election he was actually trailing. Bush winning was not a surprised if you paid attention to the polls. Take a look.






















If you pay attention to the polls this year you see Obama is destroying McCain almost as badly as McCain is destroying his own reputation and legacy.

David West Has Obama's Back

David West plays for the New Orleans Hornets. He's a big dude. He's got Obama's back.

McCain's explosive temper

No politics, no science, just fun

If you get bored for some reason, you can check this out. Click and drag the woman to move her around.

Diet Coke And Sperm

Ran out of spermicide but Diet Coke? You might not be as screwed as you thought.

Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide. Sharee A. Umpierre, Deborah Anderson and Joseph Hill mixed four different types of Coke with sperm (in test tubes, mind you), and found that Diet Coke is the most lethal sperm killer. No sperm was left standing after its wrath.

Origins

For those wondering about Obama because they are unsure of his origins, they should know that John McCain was born in Panama.

Now, this is not pertinent information so here is something that is pertinent: John McCain once publicly scorned his wife by calling her a cunt.

Not just for nerds

World of Warcraft has given MMRPGs a massively bad wrap, but I still think you guys should check out this sweet new game called Superstruct. It's a fun FREE experiment hosted by the nonprofit thinktank the Ten-Year project in an attempt to learn more about how people will react to the global crises of the future. It's a great way to have fun while still doing your part to create a better future!

Here's an example of one of the superthreats you can strategize to overcome:

Magic 60 Update

Nate Silver gives the Dems a 25% chance of winning a 60-seat majority in the Senate.

I Just Cannot Believe These People

Here is the full video for the Andy Martin segment that Fox News ran. I just don't even know what to say about it. It is absolutely ridiculous. First of all, the segment is called Obama and Friends: History of Radicalism. Between comparing Obama to Hugo Chavez to the menacing music to the mug shots of Bill Ayers to the insinuation that Obama bought his house because it was within blocks of Bill Ayers. It's just absolutely insane.

The Weather Underground

I saw this documentary in college when the director visited campus. It's rather excellent. Netflix it if you're interested in learning more about the Weatherman, the terrorist organization founded by William Ayers.

More From Outside McCain Rally

The rhetoric amongst these people is disgusting and is an indictment of the McCain campaign, for it's the McCain campaign that is encouraging this sort of display.

Palin Email Hack Indictment Flawed?

Orin Kerr thinks there's a major flaw with the indictment against the kid who hacked into Palin's email:

[H]ere's the potential problem with the indictment. In order to charge the case as a felony rather than a misdemeanor, the government needed to claim that the intrusion was committed to further criminal or tortious activity...

Oddly, though, the indictment doesn't exactly state what the crime or tort is that the intrusion was designed to further. It just states that the intrusion was "in furtherance of the commission of a criminal act in violation of the laws of the United States, including 18 U.S.C. Section 2701 and 18 U.S.C. Section lO30(a)(2)." But Section 2701 and Section 1030 are the intrusion statutes themselves! It makes no sense to allow a felony enhancement for a crime committed in furtherance of the crime itself; presumably the enhancement is only for intrusions committed in furtherance of some other crime. Otherwise the felony enhancement is meaningless, as every misdemeanor becomes a felony.

The indictment... effectively doesn't say what crime the government is charging (in that the the government must show the unauthorized access and also the crime that the access is in furtherance of -- if you're the defendant, how to you defend yourself against an unnamed crime?).

More Debate Polling

USA Today/Gallup:

While 53% of the 735 people surveyed said their opinions of Obama had not changed, 34% said they thought more favorably of him and 12% viewed him less favorably. All 735 said they had watched the debate.

The reactions to McCain were almost mirror opposites: 54% said their opinions about him had not changed, 33% felt less favorable and 12% felt more favorable.

Undecided Voters

Nate Silver looks at the data and concludes that this year the number of undecided voters is not out of line with the past. Here's a telling chart.

This goes against Karl Rove's assertion today that there are more undecided voters now than in any election since 1968.

Important Words

Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a brutally honest look at what's happening:

I've been thinking about this McCain-Palin Obama "palling around with terrorist" idea more lately. The saddest thing about many Republicans isn't just that they disagree with liberals on race--it's they are largely ignorant on race. When the McCain campaign cast the spell of diabolical jingoism, they have no idea of the forces they are toying with. We remember Martin Luther King's murder as a sad and tragic event. Less remembered is the fact that ground-work for King's murder was seeded, not simply by rank white supremacy, but by people who slandered King as a communist.

This was not some notion bandied about by conspiracy theorist, but an accusation proffered by men who were the pillars of the modern Republican Party:

As late as 1964, Falwell was attacking the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "civil wrongs" legislation. He questioned "the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations." Falwell charged, "It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed."

Falwell was not alone. These men didn't kill Martin Luther King, but they contributed to an atmosphere of nationalism, white supremacy and cheap unreflective patriotism that ultimately got a lot of people killed. Confronted with Aparthied South Africa, men like Helms and Falwell used the same "communist" defense. While Mandella wasted away in prison, they dismissed the whole thing as a communist plot.

Let me be clear--This is the ghost that McCain Campaign is summoning. This is the Ring Of Power that they want to wield. The Muslim charge, the "Hussein" thing is nothing more than today's red-baiting, and it is what it was then--a cover for racists. You may say I'm overreacting, and I really hope you're right. 999,000 out 1 million times we'll go on like normal and proceed to Election Day. But if some shit pops off, the thug and thug-mongers will not be able to throw up their hands and say "How could I have known?" Ignorance will not save them. Their stupidity is a scourge on us all.