10/6/08: McCain is no Maverick - but an adulterer and a coward

Wow, McCain’s recent decision to go negative on Obama is starting to backfire on him in a big way! Almost every major newspaper today carries an article detailing some aspect of McCain’s long list of character flaws that make him unfit to be President. Here’s a sampling:
The Washington Post has an article examining McCain’s long history as an adulterer and philanderer.

The Separate Peace of John And Carol

This details how McCain met a glamorous young heiress named Cindy Lou Hensley at a cocktail reception in Hawaii in 1979.
McCain spent months flying from Washington to Arizona pursuing this new relationship. Soon, the 43-year-old naval attache and his 25-year-old sweetheart were engaged.

There was only one complication: McCain was still married.

Carol Shepp McCain, then 42, had endured much in more than 14 years of marriage to John. She had raised their three young children alone while her husband languished in a North Vietnamese prison camp for 5 1/2 years. Her tribulations grew immeasurably after a near-fatal car accident that immobilized her for months and left her scarred for life. Despite their reunion and physical rehabilitation, by the late 1970s the McCains' marriage had begun to crack, as John engaged in what he later termed "dalliances" with other women.
Now it was being torn apart by his relationship with Cindy Hensley.

It goes on to say that he and Cindy received a marriage license in Maricopa County, Ariz., in early March 1980, four weeks before his divorce from Carol was final. John and Cindy were wed six weeks later, on May 17.
Now, I'm no expert, but isn't bigamy a felony, even if only for a month? But that's really the least of his sins.

Continuing on the same theme, the NY Times published this article earlier this year about McCain’s suspect relationship with attractive lobbyist Vicki Iseman during his 2000 campaign:
For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk
We don’t know what McCain and Vicki did or did not do in private, but it’s clear he displayed very questionable ethics in many ways throughout this affair – McCain was flying all over the place with this sexy telecom lobbyist, in her bosses' plane, and writing letters on her bosses' behalf . So this is about more than a possible extra-marital affair (which for McCain would not be news) – this is about ethics, abuse of power, lobbyists, political favors – all the things McCain claims to be against.

The longest and the most comprehensive article is a 10-pager in Rolling Stone magazine titled
Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty

Yes, this is a long read, but a fascinating one. It puts the life of McCain under the microscope and it's not a pretty picture. As it says:
This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.
It's worth the read, but just in case you don't make it thru, here's the end:

But perhaps the most revealing of McCain's flip-flops was his promise, made at the beginning of the year, that he would "raise the level of political dialogue in America." McCain pledged he would "treat my opponents with respect and demand that they treat me with respect." Instead, with Rove protégé Steve Schmidt at the helm, McCain has turned the campaign into a torrent of debasing negativity, misrepresenting Barack Obama's positions on everything from sex education for kindergarteners to middle-class taxes. In September, in one of his most blatant embraces of Rove-like tactics, McCain hired Tucker Eskew — one of Rove's campaign operatives who smeared the senator and his family during the 2000 campaign in South Carolina.

"Always telling the truth in a political campaign," McCain writes in Worth the Fighting For, "is a great test of character." He adds: "Patriotism that only serves and never risks one's self-interest isn't patriotism at all. It's selfishness. That's a lesson worth relearning from time to time." It's a lesson, it would appear, that the candidate himself could stand to relearn.

"I'm sure John McCain loves his country," says Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar under Bush. "But loving your country and lying to the American people are apparently not inconsistent in his view."

Meantime, the LA Times takes a closer look at McCain’s flying record
Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator
John McCain crashed 3 planes even before Vietnam - 2 were destroyed, and in the third, flying dangerously low over southern Spain (yes! That terrorist nation whose President he won’t sit down with!!) damaged his plane and cut power lines, causing a blackout in the area.
"Three mishaps are unusual," said Michael L. Barr, a former Air Force pilot with 137 (!) combat missions in Vietnam and an internationally known aviation safety expert who teaches in USC's Aviation Safety and Security Program. "After the third accident, you would say: Is there a trend here in terms of his flying skills and his judgment?"
Just for comparison, McCain flew 23 missions in Vietnam for a total of roughly 20 hours in combat. A Vietnam war veterans website points out that McCain was awarded 28 assorted awards for those 20 combat hours, compared to about 7000 hours for an average soldier on the ground.

Even Conservatives question McCain’s attack strategy, including conservative columnist David Brooks and GOP Strategist Mike Murphy. Chris Wallace on Fix News, too, questioned whether the McCain camp was doing the right thing in an interview with Joe “Turncoat” Lieberman.

In response, the Obama campaign is stepping up its own attacks, but is so far staying away from personal attacks and focusing on McCain’s policies and history on issues which are relevant to Americans today. For instance, it released a 13-minute video detailing McCain’s involvement and Senate censure in the “Keating 5” savings-and-loan scandal, a situation that bears an uncanny resemblance to the current investment bank bailout. Here’s a 30-second trailer.
In this video, William Black, former deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., states, "Fraud is the creation of trust and its betrayal. The 'Keating 5' involved all the things that have brought the modern crisis. Sen. McCain has not learned the lessons, and has continued to follow policies that are going to produce a disaster."
UPDATE: McCain now denies his wrongdoing in the Keating affair after admitting it for 20 years. In the campaign in which he has already lost his honor and credibility, McCain is too much of a coward to stand up and accept responsibility for his past words and actions.
Obama said “Senator McCain and his operatives think they can distract you with smears. I cannot imagine anything more important to talk about than the economic crisis. And the notion that we’d want to brush that aside and engage in the usual political shenanigans and scare tactics that have come to characterize too many political campaigns, I think is not what the American people are looking for.”
But if McCain/Palin continue with the smears and the lies, Obama hinted they would respond strongly. "One of the things we've done during this campaign: We don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last," Obama said.

10/6/08 Mad dog Palin & John "Gollum" McCain

A Rolling Stone article titled “Mad Dog Palin” has this awesome cartoon!!!
Mad Dog Palin

Very appropriate, since over the weekend, Palin gave up all pretense of actually having anything relevant to say to the American people about their issues, and instead went on an all-out rampage on Obama, which is in line with, and even way beyond, the McCain campaign's stated goal of diverting attention to "personality and character".
Lagging In The Polls, Palin Shifts To Fear Tactics

Palin is lamenting that the “filter of the mainstream media” has not given her a chance to do what she really wants to do: talk about the issues.
Oh really? Why don’t you pick up the phone, Palin? A hundred reporters will be at your doorstep in 5 minutes for your long-awaited very first press conference of the campaign. Heck, they’re probably there already, you just can’t see them past the 6-person deep “security” layer keeping them away.

Meantime, I thought I'd bring back this hilarious Daily Show clip that got lost because it aired on Thursday, along with the VP debate. Jon Stewart nails John McCain for claiming credit for the bailout bill while also trash talking it - in the very same speech!! Talk about the ultimate Flip-Flop..
McCain IS Gollum!!

10/6/08: Nobel Laureates for Barack Obama

61 Nobel Laureates endorse Barack Obama, including Stanford’s Paul Berg, Burton Richter, Douglas Osherhoff and Roger Kornberg.

An Open Letter to the American People
August 23, 2008
This year's presidential election is among the most significant in our nation's history. The country urgently needs a visionary leader who can ensure the future of our traditional strengths in science and technology and who can harness those strengths to address many of our greatest problems: energy, disease, climate change, security, and economic competitiveness.
We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him.

In the meantime, Palin has denied that human activities cause global warming and questioned scientists’ integrity on the subject!!
Sarah Palin puts polar bears on thin ice
Of course, a Palin/McCain administration (sic) would only continue the Bush White House’s long history of fake “science”. But even Bush these days admits global warming is real and manmade! Somehow, I doubt that a Palin/McCain administration is going to be a boon to scientific progress.

10/4/08: Get your daily Palin humor here!

The Great Debate on SNL.
This is hilarious! They are just dead on with the lampooning - all the things the mainstream media can't/won't say!



And here's another of those things that would be really funny if this lightweight wasn't half a heartbeat (and an election, thank god) away from being the next President. Just when you thought 8 years of Bush and "nu kular" was about all you could take:

Sarah’s Pompom Palaver
Here's some of her non-answers from the "debate" in Dowd's words:
Talking at the debate about how she would “positively affect the impacts” of the climate change for which she’s loath to acknowledge human culpability, she did a dizzying verbal loop-de-loop: “With the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that, as governor, I was the first governor to form a climate change subcabinet to start dealing with the impacts.” That was, miraculously, richer with content than an answer she gave Katie Couric: “You know, there are man’s activities that can be contributed to the issues that we’re dealing with now, with these impacts.”

Huh? and again, huh?

Her answer to what she'd do about the nuclear race:
“Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet.” (Mostly the end-all.)

And I "reared my head" and howled at this part:
When she was asked by Couric if she’d ever negotiated with the Russians, the governor replied that when Putin “rears his head” he is headed for Alaska. Then she uttered yet another sentence that defies diagramming: “It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there.”
Reared heads reared themselves again at the debate, when she said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “were starting to really kind of rear the head of abuse.”

Finally, I liked Dowd's finish:
Palin .. uses a heck of a lot of language to praise herself as a fresh face with new ideas who has “joined this team that is a team of mavericks.” True mavericks don’t brand themselves.

10/4/08: Palin Piles on the Poo

Palin has become a non-factor in this election - or so I thought until I read this NYTimes op-ed:
Pitbull Palin Mauls McCain
Yeah, you read that right. After being thoroughly humiliated by her only 2 serious interviews, and winking and "darn"ing and side-stepping her way through the debate, I was under the impression she was going to be moth-balled till Election Day, rolling her out only to carefully selected and well-heeled rightwingers to fill those fast-emptying coffers. But Rich puts forward a cogent argument that Palin and her backers have way more insidious plans in the hatching – they have decided to stop at nothing to make Palin President. It’s hard to believe that anyone, even hard core Republicans, can see this vacuous, vicious, dishonest, hockey mom as their salvation, but if there’s even an ounce of possibility to this scenario, it’s even more vital to this nation that Obama/Biden must and will succeed. This woman has the potential to be most evil and divisive force since – oh, say, the Civil War – and today she has the nerve to call Obama a terrorist!!?? She’s taking this already sleazy campaign to new disgusting depths that have never been and hopefully never will be seen again. The Palin/McCain campaign (that’s not a typo – she’s used it a few times herself) have decided to spend 100% of its money from now till Nov 4 on negative ads attacking Obama. They have decided they have nothing of substance to offer us the American people on the economy, healthcare or even the war and are hoping that offensive, disgusting personal attacks on Obama will be enough to get this douche-pair into the White House. This pitbull needs to be sent back to face the music in Alaska with her tail between her legs. As for the old guy, maybe a nice retirement home in Florida or someplace not starting with a “S” since he can’t seem to keep them straight (Sunni, Shia, Sudan, Somalia, Spain).

10/3/08: Palin is still good - for laughs!!

OK, I know I announced that Palin is officially a non-factor in the election. But she's still good for a lot of laughs between now and Election Day - and god knows, we've badly needed some!

I just loved this flow chart guide to Palin's debating technique! We sure could have used this help yesterday (and perhaps Ifill too, who was browbeaten by McCain's media blitz into not following up on Palin's non-answers - she answered maybe a half-dozen of 25 questions last night)!
Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart
by adennak
Fri Oct 03, 2008 at 01:39:13 AM PDT
I know some folks out there might have had trouble following the Vice Presidential debate. Particularly, trying to parse meaning from the things that Sarah Palin said. With that in mind, I have compiled a handy resource for your perusal. I hope to update this chart, both graphically and grammatically, when it is no longer ten to five in the morning. For for the mean time. . . enjoy!
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It's also funny to watch the McCain camp flailing to explain one of Palin's worst mistakes on the night (see, this is what happens when she actually answers a question!). When Biden said that he and Obama supported closing a loophole in bankruptcy laws to help keep people in their primary homes and said that McCain was against it (because he loves to support his banking friends), Gwen Ifill turned to Palin and asked "Governor, is that so?" and Palin said "No, that is not so" and then went on to - blather about how she's such an energy guru?! Today, "The McCain campaign confirms to ABC News that Palin misstated McCain's position. "
I LOVE IT!!!!

10/2/08 Biden is my new hero!

And the Winner is - Biden!!

Palin became a non-factor in this election today. You heard it here first. Oh, she did fine. But would I trust her to be President? Not on your ( or my) life. Soon she will be back in Alaska and disappear from the national scene.

But the real story today is Biden. He became a star. He was magnificent. This man I would trust to be a stand-in for President. He did better than I ever thought he would. He kicked ass today.

And a majority of Americans agree! The Quick Vote on the CNN home page reads right now:
Sen. Joe Biden 70% 138118
Gov. Sarah Palin 26% 52271
Neither 4% 7125
Total Votes: 197514

OK, this is biased because Democrats are actually thinking people who are more likely to be online at CNN! But every nationwide poll says the same thing - the CNN nationwide poll says Biden 51% Palin 36%.
CBS says Biden 46% Palin 21%
I'm pretty sure any other major poll is going to be the same (unless you only poll Repubs!). Here are some opinions:
NY Times
TIME


OK, now for my personal takes:
Biden was clear, strong and Presidential. He stayed away from attacking Palin and kept his focus on McCain - and he did a great job there. He connected most on a emotional level when he talked about being a single father after the accident that killed his wife and infant daughter. Sure, he might have planned to bring that in at some point, but I thought he seemed genuine. As expected, he blew Palin away on all the foreign policy and security issues, but he also did better on the economy, on tax cuts, on what he would do if he had to take over as President - on pretty much everything, in fact. The best thing I can say about Palin was that she did better than in her Couric or Gibson interviews, but that's a pretty low bar. She did not answer most questions directly, didn't identify a single thing that McCain/Palin would do differently (partly because Biden did a superb job of linking Bush to McCain with iron chains!). Biden also found a way to bring in my biggest fear with a McCain/Palin win - the loss of the Supreme Court to the right for the conceivable future. He just did great in every way!
Here's Biden's emotional moment:

Also, watch this - one of Biden's strongest responses of the night, in reply to the billionth reference by Palin to McCain's "maverickness": Maverick, he is not!

10/2/08 The Day of the Debate!

While we wait breathlessly for the Great Debate, here's something to keep you all amused - a good 5 minute compilation of Sarah Palin's Greatest Hits so far!
Sarah Palin's Greatest Hits- Youtube
Doesn't include the Supreme moment though - you can find that here.
But this is even better - it's Jon Stewart's version of Palin's Plays!

Daily Show Oct 1

10/1/08 Palin's Party Panics!

UPDATE: Here's the link to that video of Couric asking Palin about Supreme Court cases I talked about earlier - judge for yourselves!!!!

So what’s responsible for Obama’s sudden resurgence in these critical battleground states?
Three things :

1. Obama’s impressive performance on the debate resonated well with the undecided voters – he more than held his own on security and scored much better than McCain on the economy, where he’s way more trusted to deal with this ongoing crisis.

2. McCain’s grandstanding last week (claiming to “suspend” his campaign to go back to the Senate to show his “leadership” on the bailout, both claims were bogus) didn’t go down well with voters.

3. Finally, people got to see more of Palin, and they didn’t like what they saw! She was interviewed by Katie Couric again yesterday on CBS Evening News, parts of which you may have seen on Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN or other news broadcasts (here are all 5 parts that were shown). What they showed in the interview sent chills down my spine – can you believe this VP candidate could not name a single newspaper she reads regularly?
Now this is not a trick question, folks!! Scary! Also, her extreme views on abortion even in cases of rape and incest and her opposition to the morning-after pill were featured. Here’s what I dislike: she says she’s proud of her views on abortion, then why can’t come out and say she thinks it should be illegal when asked directly instead of beating around the bush? We all know it anyway.

It was probably at this point that Couric brought up the Supreme Court and Roe v Wade – because, let’s face it, Judge Stevens is 88 years old, and probably can’t survive another Republican term. And if Palin/McCain get to pick one more justice, we all know what the result will be for America. Anyways, what was not shown at this point is even more chilling than what was shown – according to a Palin aide, the unaired part included a question from Couric about whether she had heard of any other Supreme Court cases other than Roe v Wade. The answer was – total silence. Is that more or less scary than the verbal fumbling about the newspapers or the bailout or Rick Davis? You decide.

This may have been the last straw that broke the conservative camel’s back. You may have seen Jack Cafferty’s final say on Palin (if you haven’t, check it out. I don’t think it’s been said better), or Gloria Borger's, or Fareed Zakaria's (McCain's VP decision is 'fundamentally irresponsible').
But what’s even more interesting, is that in the last couple of days, there has been an outpouring from CONSERVATIVES who have come out and said Palin should withdraw from the ticket!! Now these are Republicans, who are fully aware of the consequences of a late VP withdrawal from the ticket, and yet they’re choosing to ask for her to step down!! Now that should cause all Republicans to at least pause and think about their choice.

Here’s some of their views.

While some journalists say privately they are censoring their comments about Palin to avoid looking like they're piling on, pundits on the right are jumping ship. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough says Palin "just seems out of her league." National Review Editor Rich Lowry called her performance "dreadful." Dallas Morning News columnist Rod Dreher described the interview as a "train wreck." Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker urged Palin to quit the race, saying: "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself." Other conservatives who have expressed their doubts about Palin include David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, and conservative pundits Charles Krauthammer and Ross Douthat.

To summarize, I'll quote myself from a couple weeks ago:
McCain/Palin = 4 more years of war

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of rich getting richer, poor getting poorer

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of economic crisis

McCain/Palin = 4 more years of jobless and homeless people

Scariest of all:

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, goodbye Roe v Wade, back to coathanger abortions in basements

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, hello constitutional amendments

McCain/Palin = 1 new right wing Supreme Court Justice, goodbye USA as we know it.

10/1/08 Obama leads in Ohio and Florida!!

More good news from the polls today (taken over the weekend) while we wait for news on the bailout – and this is HUGE from an electoral college perspective – Obama leads in Ohio AND Florida! There is no way McCain can win without these states. But we’re still a long way from home . IF 2 things happen: 1) this holds up in other polls 2) we can actually get these voters into the booth on election day, THEN we’ll have something to look forward to for the next 4-8 years!

So, folks, don't relax just yet - as Tim Gunn would say - "Make it work!!"

Polls: Obama leads in critical trio of states
Campaign Battlegrounds