The Wandering Donkey

New Address

2008-11-05T22:27:00.003-05:00

This blog can now be found at The Wandering Donkey: http://www.thewanderingdonkey.com

Thanks,

Pat McGovern

Palin Tax Returns Returned

2008-10-05T00:44:00.002-04:00

Well, Sarah Palin released her tax returns on Friday afternoon. As someone who has largely done their own taxes for his own lifetime, I can still hardly sit in judgement on hers. Therefore let's turn to the experts!

As a preface to other things in this post I submit an excerpt of what Roger Olsen, Governor Sarah Palin's tax attorney, included their release of her records:

Unless employees have reason to know that the W-2 is incorrect, the IRS expects employees to rely on the employer's W-2 as prepared & filed with the IRS, as Governor Palin did. The income tax aspects of fringe benefits are complex and highly technical, and not subject to second-guessing by laymen. The State of Alaska is confident that its position is correct. Its employees were entitled to rely on that determination, So was Governor Palin.

Finally, under State law, the spouse of the Governor (or other family members on occasion) is entitled to payment of travel costs by the state when conducting official State business. I find no reason or rule of law that would lead me to a different conclusion as to his receipt of such State payments. Such payments for family members traveling on state business would not properly be included as taxable income on Governor Palin's federal tax returns.

Sounds a little defensive? No? Let's see what Paul Caron says, shall we?

Both conclusions seem problematic. If an employer mistakenly fails to include an item of income from an employee's W-2, does that really relieve en employee of her obligation to report the income on her tax return? How does Mr. Olsen's conclusion regarding the reimbursement for expenses of the Governor's spouse and children square with § 274(m)(3)? Undoubtedly the most amazing (brazen?) aspect of Mr. Olsen's opinion letter is that he cites absolutely no law in the four pages to support his conclusions -- no code or regulation sections, cases, or rulings.

Another discrepancy is the $196,531.50 income as Governor reported on her financial disclosure form (with the notation "[a]s reported to filer by State of Alaska"), compared to the $107,987 wages, tips, other compensation and $122,401.43 Medicare wages and tips reported by the state of Alaska on the W-2 attached to her tax return.

Now, I am no expert here. I freely admit that. I will tell you this, however, I insist on no wishy-washy BS when it comes to filing my tax return. That is whether I prepare, a "tax preparer" does it, or I hire a CPA. All of which have happened in my life. I want no controversy with the IRS!

Our "Maverick^TM" Governor Sarah Palin, however, is willing to challenge the "man." I personally find the discrepancy between the returns and the campaign filings particularly disturbing. It's almost as if she is saying "Well...the State originally said X amount was taxable, but, since I am the Governor, I got them to say it was really only Y."

As anyone who has ever dealt with the IRS knows, no private employer, and that includes states, gets to determine, in and of itself, what is federally taxable income, except the IRS itself. They get really, really, really, really annoyed when you try to mess with them. Especially when you are just citing your own beliefs and no enforcible laws, codes or rulings to back up your belief.

Minimum expectation? Governor Palin, win or lose, can look forward to a thorough review of her returns for the last god knows how many years. The IRS has to investigate it now. It is in the public domain and it looks at least a little iffy. They don't get to take a pass now. They have to be impartial.

Now, this sort of gets me to my next point. Why were only two years released? Where is the rest?

Most of the time, you get people releasing an amount equivalent to what could be audited by the IRS. Roughly seven years worth of returns. There is no rule on this or nearly any disclosure by candidates running for public office.

The concern here is we don't have a clean, no problems, return from either of the last two years, necessarily. That makes it all the more necessary to scrutinize the previous years to see if there is a pattern. But, they are not there, like they are for every other candidate.

That, in and of itself, will invite additional questions.

Do these people think at all before they act? It makes me proud of the Carter, Mondale and Dukakis campaigns!;-)

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Let me see....

2008-10-03T16:12:00.000-04:00

There is some buzz over the fact that Sarah Palin seems to have extensively used notes during last night's debate. Think Progress has a good post and video compliation:

Andrew Sullivan wonders if the candidates were allowed to bring in scripts?

I expect to see more on this. Wouldn't this normally be pounced upon? Can you imagine John Edwards or Joe Leiberman or Jack Kemp having a "script" at the lectern with them? Would would the media do with that? I know we're kinda offering a little bit of a mulligan here but c'mon!

I be less annoyed if she had actually answered more of Gwen Ifill's questions. But as I said last night, Joe Biden was debating a stump speech and that point is truer than ever.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Uh oh.

2008-10-03T15:13:00.000-04:00

This can't be good (for certain Republicans with national office aspirations). The judge in Alaska just told the five Republicans trying to stop the "Troopergate" probe to piss off (AP):

Judge Peter Michalski on Thursday threw out the lawsuit filed by five Republican state legislators who claimed the investigation had been manipulated by Palin enemies who wanted to produce a damaging report just weeks before Election Day. Their attorney, Kevin Clarkson, said the legislative body that ordered the investigation had exceeded its authority.

But Michalski agreed with defense attorney Peter Maassen, who argued that the Legislature has broad authority to investigate the governor. The mere appearance of impropriety does not mean any individual's right to fairness was violated, Michalski wrote in his decision.

"It is legitimately within the scope of the legislature's investigatory power to inquire into the circumstances surrounding the termination (of) a public officer the legislature had previously confirmed," the judge wrote.

As you can see on the right, Governor Sarah Palin is considering alternate strategies for solving this problem.

It in the meantime, Steve Branchflower, the investigator that the Alaska State Legislature hired to investigate this, is expected to turn in his report next week on October 10.

Just curious, will we ever have a slow news week again? Ever?

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

He'll know how to win a war.

2008-10-03T14:53:00.001-04:00

Governor Sarah Palin, from the New York Times transcript:

I think tomorrow morning, the pundits are going to start do the who said what at what time and we'll have proof of some of this, but, again, John McCain who knows how to win a war. Who's been there and he's faced challenges and he knows what evil is and knows what it takes to overcome the challenges here with our military.

He knows to learn from the mistakes and blunders we have seen in the war in Iraq, especially. He will know how to implement the strategies, working with our commanders and listening to what they have to say, taking the politics out of these war issues. He'll know how to win a war.

I bring this up for a simple, politically incorrect, reason. If you watch the video, and see the context, it is clear that Sarah Palin is inferring that John McCain knows how to win from experience. Unfortunately, his military experience came at a time that did not demonstrate any great military success for this country.

Now, this is no fault of his, or any other person who served with him at that time (at least at his level). But where the hell does "he knows how to win" come from?

His grandfather and father? Certainly they both were exemplary in their service to their country and helped us win the most important war this country has ever been in. But does that really qualify John McCain as someone who "knows how to win" this war?

His service in the Senate during the Gulf War possibly? By that logic Joe Biden knows how to win just as well!

I refuse to accept the idea that John McCain knows how to win this war because he served in Vietnam. Why the hell didn't the country elect John Kerry four years ago if that is the case?

Vietnam taught us how to lose a war, not win it. It taught us to be wary of what we are getting involved in and why. It is the reason a very sizeable chunk of Americans opposed going into Iraq in the first place. It did not teach anybody how to win a war though.

If that is why he "knows how to win" this war then you just opened up a can of worms, lady. Because a lot of us would like to know why it is that John McCain didn't take the same lesson a lot of the rest of us did away from Vietnam. Caution in committing our young men and women to battle. Prudence in deciding whether put their lives in jeopardy. Heck, how about a plan for removing them from harm's way if the proverbial cow pattie's hit the fan, or even if they don't. We still have images of our exit from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon embedded in our memory. There was a flawed/non-existent exit strategy there too.

John McCain does not seem to have learned any of these lessons from his service in Vietnam. When combined with the fact that we did not win Vietnam either, it makes one wonder exactly where in Senator John S. McCain III's past this overwhelming experience to become Commander in Chief actually occurs?

I had a great deal of respect for John McCain before this campaign. I still respect his service to his country. I respect that he suffered, greatly, and still does, for his country and countrymen and women. I am sorry though. As worthy of respect as his service and suffering are, neither are necessarily a qualification to be President of the United States of America. Sorry John, I'm not buying anymore. That may not be politically correct but it makes it no less true.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

"Shout Out" to North Carolina

2008-10-03T13:57:00.000-04:00

I hadn't had this thought myself until I read it over at The Arena. James Pinkerton says:

Palin is no Dan Quayle. But Biden may have won North Carolina for his ticket with that generous comment about Jesse Helms.

Here is the quote he was referring to (transcript via NYT):

I have been able to work across the aisle on some of the most controversial issues and change my party's mind, as well as Republicans', because I learned a lesson from Mike Mansfield.

Mike Mansfield, a former leader of the Senate, said to me one day -- he -- I made a criticism of Jesse Helms. He said, "What would you do if I told you Jesse Helms and Dot Helms had adopted a child who had braces and was in real need?" I said, "I'd feel like a jerk."

He said, "Joe, understand one thing. Everyone's sent here for a reason, because there's something in them that their folks like. Don't question their motive."

It probably hadn't occurred to me because it still hasn't sunk in that we have a legitimate shot at North Carolina this year. Still I hadn't heard anyone else mention this. Very insightful.

Was it intentional or just a bonus that Biden did that?

C'mon! We're talking David Axelrod! Of course it was intentional! Or, at least, he'll definitely say it was!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

There you go again...

2008-10-02T22:44:00.003-04:00

First impression I have of the Senator Joseph Biden vs. Governor Sarah Palin debate is that Joe Biden debated a stump speech. A very folksy stump speech.

He did, I think, debate it well. Did he win?

Well, I don't think he lost. Nor do I think Gov. Palin lost either.

Her ability to completely ignore the questions posed was spectacular. Apparently she thinks she has no "achilles heel."

I think that, long term, she did lose. She made gaffes. Not too many obvious ones but a couple.

The commander in Afghanistan is McKiernan not McClellan (that was the Civil War or War of Northern Aggression guy, depending on where you're from.)

She challenged Biden on his quote of McKiernan when he is right and she is wrong.

She undid what Obama voted for in the 2005 Energy Bill? Really? Specifics please.

There are plenty more and I'm sure I'll post about some of them in the next few days.

One more deserves special attention though. And may get her in some really hot water.

That is the assertion that the expansion of power that Vice President ~~Dark Lord~~ Dick Cheney has asserted is not only valid but should be expanded. All one can say about that is WOW. I would think that Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt both said "NOOOOO!" in the back room when she uttered that. That was a really scary answer.

Sen. Kit Bond was quick to dismiss the idea as ridiculous after the debate. But I think the damage was done.

Ultimately, this debate shored up the base for Governor Sarah Palin and made her seem less of a total disaster to the center. I don't think she convinced many moderates who are on the fence though. If anyone did that it was Joe Biden.

She does win in that she avoided what even many conservatives thought might happen. She didn't melt down. It wasn't a disaster. That, in it's own way, is a win.

This probably won't move anything either way. That is probably a net plus for both campaigns.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Sarah and the old senator

2008-09-30T16:09:00.002-04:00

Via Ben Smith:

"Oh no, it's nothing negative at all. He's got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we've been hearing his speeches for all these years. So he's got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I'm the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he's got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years."

Now, I'd be happy to go off on this latest Sarah Palin gaffe but somebody else already did a great job that I don't think I can surpass - John Aravosis at AmericaBlog:

So Palin is now saying that she wasn't trying to say "don't vote for the old guy." Instead, she was trying to say "vote for the new guy, not the guy with the old face who's been in the Senate a really long time."

You can't write this stuff folks. Every network and Hollywood studio in the world would toss this script in the garbage. Unbelievable.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Pelosi not to blame; Should McCain supend? Sadly and seriously.

2008-09-30T13:13:00.002-04:00

The work of fiction that Nancy Pelosi is to blame for yesterday's bailout vote is fading. On Nightline last night, Roy Blunt (R-MO) stepped back (via Political Punch):

Blunt was reluctant to attribute the loss of 12 Republican votes entirely to Pelosi's speech, but did say her speech was not helpful. "We clearly had some Members that were there but were precariously there and one or two of them may have been affected by the Speaker's speech," Blunt said. "In the weekend of negotiating this, the spirit in the room was very good, but the press conferences the Speaker and a few Democrats had outside the room were invariably partisan. None of that helped."

Blunt said that Republican leaders "had twelve people beyond, that we thought we had going into the float that we didn't have for various reasons and I haven't had time to go back and ask them all why it was that they didn't do what we thought they were gonna do ... That one speech was not helpful but I think you don't want to give too much blame to that speech."

I listened to Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) this morning on WCPN's The Sound of Ideas say that anyone who's vote was changed by Nancy Pelosi's speech isn't seriously considering the situation and should find a new line of work. One of the few times I have actually found some respect for him.

Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) said "not a single vote" was changed by Pelosi's speech on MSNBC this morning with Joe Scarborogh (via TPM):

I told you yesterday, John Boehner is the one with egg on his face. He's the one who rallied behind the bill and then couldn't deliver the votes. Him...and OH YEAH! John McCain. Watch the spectacular tap dancing of Douglas Holtz-Eakin did on MSNBC yesterday:

Just as an aside, isn't it nice that at least most of the major networks, except for They Who Must Not Be Named, are no longer taking anything a McCain campaign spokesperson says at face value? It really is starting to restore my faith in journalism.

Even the McCain campaign has now stopped trying to pin this on Obama and the democrats directly. They have chosen a different tack. Blaming the Democrats and Barack Obama for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and this entire situation in their latest commercial:

According to Greg Sargent at TPM ElectionCentral, they released this ad just moments after John McCain said this in Iowa:

"I am disappointed at the lack of resolve and bipartisan good will among members of both parties to fix this problem," McCain said today in Des Moines, Iowa. "Bipartisanship is a tough thing; never more so when you're trying to take necessary but publicly unpopular action. But inaction is not an option."

"I call on everyone in Washington to come together in a bipartisan way to address this crisis," McCain later said.

Sadly, we have another month plus of this to go folks. I almost worry that if McCain just continues to be stupid people might start to like him for being a stubborn stupid. I hope that that is a ridiculous worry.

Finally, in what is admittedly a long post, even for me, the "good" people at FOX News (Oops! I named them!) fell over themselves trying to goad John McCain into fake suspending his campaign again:

As you can see, he will consider it.

The circus known as McCain-Palin 2008 must obviously go on.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Yeah, I trust you....

2008-09-30T10:53:00.003-04:00

I'd love to know how effective this Wachovia add this morning on WSJ.com is?

I know it takes time to actually pull ads, but sheesh.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Lisa Schiffrin and the logic of the right

2008-09-30T00:54:00.000-04:00

Digby has an amazing / scary piece about Lisa Schiffrin and her amazing ability to use reason and logic here. I swear I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I haven't for nearly fourteen years.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

WalMart Healthcare

2008-09-30T00:25:00.000-04:00

I hadn't heard this line before. I have NO idea when he said it. But he apparently did say it. See for yourself:

Look, I've got nothing against WalMart. I worked for them! Their licensed professionals are good people who do a good job. But are you really going to trust them with primary care?! WTF?!

Not for nothing, but you're dreaming when you talk about "eliminating lines" and "WalMart" in the same sentence as well.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Hey, she didn't mean that...But she can tell you herself

2008-09-29T20:25:00.003-04:00

Remember when you got to bring your Dad to that followup interview at your dream college after the first interview didnt go well?:

Neither do I. I expect that it would have gone just about as badly as this did if something like that did happen, though.

Exactly what is John McCain thinking? He looked exactly like a Dad trying to get his daughter out of hot water and suddenly remembering that the only way for her to do that would be for her to do that, herself.

Well, guess what? Whatever slim notions we did still have that Sarah Palin could hold her own were just disabused. Thats all thanks to you John. No one else to blame. Although I am sure you will find some way to try to blame Barack Obama, John. It's all you have left.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Video via TPM.

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

The American people and their allies....

2008-09-29T19:58:00.001-04:00

"Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unneccessary partisanship into the process." - Senator John McCain

"Now is not the time to fix the blame." - Senator John McCain

Pulsars have a hard time spinning faster than John McCain. (According to scientists, however, McCain still, try as he might, doesn't spin quite as fast.) These two statements were uttered within a 30 second span.

Point one. While it is true that McCain was obliquely referencing Nancy Pelosi's speech, and her fixing of the blame on George Bush's failed economic policies, on the House floor with the second quote, it seems rather a moot point considering he just tried to 'fix the blame' of why the bailout didn't pass with the first quote.

Point two. I cannot believe that the American people will let this guy get away with trying to blame Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi with injecting partisanship into the process when it was he, with his fake¹ "suspension" of the campaign, that injected partisanshop into the the process in the first place.²

I have a deep, sincere belief that Mike Judge's vision of the future in Idiocracy was, indeed, a vision of the future and not of the present. I love Jerry Springer and hate his show. Running a campaign like you run Jerry Springer's show is a poor way to do business. It may have been, or still be, a guilty pleasure for some but they aren't going to vote for the people on that show. Thinking otherwise shows who is really the idiot.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

¹ - I live in Northeast Ohio. The commercials may have stopped for an hour or so in the 12am-6am time period on Friday. Beyond that, we here in Ohio noticed no "suspension".
² - Teachers, if you wish, you can use this as an example of a rambling run-on sentence. But only if the word rambling is used in conjunction with it.

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

The offending speech and some reactions

2008-09-29T17:19:00.003-04:00

Here, via TPM, is Nancy Pelosi's full speech:

Here is what, presumably, is the offending portion of Nancy Pelosi's speech:

Here is Barney Frank and Rahm Emanuel responding to the Republicans:

You really can't describe it much better than Barney Frank did: "...and because somebody hurt their feelings they decided to punish the country."

Listen to the speech. Nancy Pelosi was probably a bit more partisan than she might have been but she was attacking Bush and the administration. Suddenly John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Eric Cantor and company are going to stand up for George W. Bush? You have to be kidding me!

Really?! How do you think this is going to play on Main St.? You really think that they aren't going to blame Bush for this crap happening too? You want to defend him? Guess who they will identify you with?

The Republicans should have thought this through a little more carefully. This could turn what was a bad election for them into a landslide. And since they threw the 'you are being partisan' crap first, it's now open season.

Maybe the House Republicans have "John McCain on the brain." This stunt has him written all over it. Country first, my a$$.

Hopefully, somewhere in the midst of all of this, we find a way to avoid Great Depression II.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Wasn't our fault! It was the crazy lady!

2008-09-29T16:47:00.003-04:00

Here is the guy who is responsible for the bailout failure trying to spin the blame:

Nice, huh? So you get to blame Nancy Pelosi for the fact that you guys:

screwed everything up with your deregulation

screwed everything up with your lack of oversight on the regulation that was left

continue to screw everything up by prefering to let everything melt down than pass something that your administration says will help.

The Democrats are talking partisan. You, John Boehner, are acting partisan.

Assuming we don't get thrown back to the stone age, history will show that both sides did stupid stuff here but one party actually let everything go to complete hell because their feelings were hurt.

Oh, and buy the way, twelve more votes still wouldn't have given the eighty that you promised John, which was down from the 100 that the Democrats originally insisted on.

Finally, I don't think that it helped that Roy Blunt was back there smirking the entire time before he spoke. If he wasn't smirking, than I guess he is even more obnoxious looking than usual today.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

"borderline illiterate"

2008-09-29T16:18:00.000-04:00

Noah Millman at The American Scene:

There are lots and lots of reasons not to like this bill. But most of those reasons are Democratic talking points. The GOP alternative proposal was borderline illiterate.

I’m writing this in haste, without a lot of reflection. But the whole way this has played out has been something of a watershed moment for me. There is only one party in Congress that thinks we are in a financial crisis, only one party in Congress with a functioning leadership.

I simply cannot express it better myself.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

It dies.

2008-09-29T14:10:00.005-04:00

The Republican party in the House of Representatives have secured their place in history. They have killed a bailout bill.

Yes, there were plenty of Democrats who voted against it but that was mostly because the Republicans could only produce a measly sixty-odd votes. Without more significant support, there was not going to be significant support from Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.

Oh sure, you can try to blame conservative Republicans like Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). The blame really belongs with one particular person who could not suck it up and live up to what the moment demanded: John Boehner (R-OH).

The allegedly esteemed "leader" of the Republicans in the House of Representatives esentially said the the bill had his support and he encouraged people to vote for it if their conscience allowed it.

Note to John McCain: If you want an example of inability to lead, John Boehner is your boy!

I'll have more later but basically, my initial read is that if Boehner had pushed it there would have been enough Republican votes to attract the Democratic votes that wanted to make sure there was cover. It could have been more like 280-153 if the Reps got closer to 100 votes and the Dems who wanted to make sure of Republican support came out of hiding.

John Boehner is to blame.

The result. The Democrats will now introduce a bill that they like and that they feel they can get passed. The Republicans have lost their chance to influence this.

Yes, that means they can wash their hands of this. That means they can't be blamed for it if it fails. It also means they are on the hook if everything melts down. And they can't claim the credit if it works.

More later, I'm sure.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Update: For those who want it, here is what Boehner actually said before the vote:

“I am encouraging every member of our conference whose conscience will allow them to support this bill,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader.

Wow, now that's leadership!;->

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Paul Newman 1925-2008

2008-09-27T11:20:00.004-04:00

paul_newman
Originally uploaded by José Manuel - ViPeR

Rest in peace.

New York Times Obituary for Paul Newman.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Obama wins?

2008-09-26T23:38:00.006-04:00

I am rather amazed by the reaction of the pundits on MSNBC. Almost universally, with the exception of Gene Robinson, they seem to think that John McCain won the debate on 'points'. I did not get that impression at all.

Interestingly, nearly every one of them, David Gregory, Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, Andrea Mitchell etc. qualified their assessment with the idea that 'stylistically' McCain lost points. It's the old "Well I think he won but people might have thought he looked like an old jerk." cover your a$$ excuse. The media didn't realize until the next day that Richard Nixon lost to John Kennedy in that debate in 1960. They thought Nixon may have won and certainly didn't do worse than draw. They didn't realize the reaction that people would have to his appearance. Everyone seems to be instinctively getting cover just in case they misread tonight.

I think that will have a lot to do with how people perceived John McCain tonight. He never looked at Barack Obama. Never addressed him directly, despite Jim Lehrer's entreaties to do so. He always is stiff, to some extent as a result of his war injuries, but he seems even more so at times tonight.

It was mentioned repeatedly, on many blogs and news items throughout the day, that he needed to avoid that 'gotcha' smirky laugh of his. It looks creepy. He didn't avoid it enough.

To be perfectly honest, I found myself caught up in how McCain looked saying things rather than what he was saying more than once.
Continue reading ^>> That isn't good. I wonder if someone with a more apolitical eye might have been so affected as well?

Beyond the appearance issue, I think Obama did, at the very least, match up to McCain on most of the questions presented. Indeed, on many of them, he kicked his butt.

McCain revealed very little of how he would govern tonight, beyond some very broad strokes. And yes, saying you will cut all earmarks, qualifies as a broad, not to mention unrealistic, stroke.

Obama actually answered the questions, at least, for the most part. Several times, he had to bring the discussion back to the point at hand because McCain tried to control the narrative and had taken a sharp left or right turn with his answer.

McCain, on several occasions, told stories instead of answering the question. I say instead of because when he was done with the story, he would invariably continue with an answer on an analogous topic which was more to his liking than the original question.

The people who had to be convinced tonight wanted to know what these two men would do when they become President of the United States of America. If they want to know who you are, that question would apply far more to Senator Obama than Senator McCain. Nevertheless, Senator McCain persisted in telling them who he is rather than what he would do.

I think that because the electorate is looking for that, this debate may have indeed been disastrous for John McCain. If you were looking for specifics, you got none from his side.

Obama was (to steal from Andrew Sullivan) commanding. He had a firm grasp of every issue thrown his way. I think he gave a few too many derisive chuckles at McCain's responses. He also needs to be more aware of his facial expressions when he is listening to McCain. The man may have said a few doozies but you need to control how you react and respond more diligently.

I think the amorphous middle/independent/undecided people liked what they saw and got from Barack Obama tonight. I don't think even those who were leaning towards John McCain got anything they were looking for. He secured veterans, neocons (with his neocon view of Russia and Ukraine), and probably reinforced the social conservatives a little. That's not a gain, that's treading water.

Even if you posit that he won the debate tonight there is the problem that he needed to win it by a lot more than he did. I don't think he won it at all. That is a big problem for his campaign.

If you take the Sarah Palin - Katie Couric interview as evidence of how the Vice-Presidential debate might go, than this campaign is in some serious trouble.

I have complete confidence that somehow, someway, John McCain will find something to 'stir up a hornet's nest' with in the next week or so. It's what he does best. Maybe, sometime, it'll actually help his campaign. But if it isn't soon, although it may be his only hope, he may bury himself deeper than it is possible to recover from.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

David Axelrod rips into McCain campaing

2008-09-26T20:58:00.003-04:00

I've watched Paul Begala claim that David Axelrod could eat Karl Rove for breakfast. Maybe he's right.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Blunt: McCain "stopped a deal"

2008-09-26T17:19:00.003-04:00

John Aravosis has a good post over at AmericaBlog about an interview with Roy Blunt (R-MO) that Andrea Mitchell did earlier today. Read this:

"I do think that John McCain was very helpful in what he did. I saw him this morning, we've been talking with his staff. Clearly, yesterday, his position in that discussion yesterday was one that stopped a deal from, uh, finalizing that no House Republican, in my view, would've been for."

John is spot on in his analysis:

McCain was "helpful," Blunt says, because McCain killed the deal - he didn't help get a deal, he helped kill it. That isn't a maverick bringing everyone together, it's an erratic, confused bull in a China shop doing what his trigger-happy gut tells him (if I may mix my metaphors).

Now if only the rest of the MSM broadcasts something similar. (Yes, I know, you are now saying something about pigs with lipstick flying. Funny ha-ha.)

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Starbucks?!

2008-09-26T14:16:00.004-04:00

You know, there has been a lot written about how the Republican's are the Wal-Mart shoppers and the Democrats are the Starbuck's connoisseurs. In that spirit I happily submit the photo above for your viewing pleasure. It is, clearly, obviously, a Starbucks cup that Cindy McCain is sporting. What are we to make of this!? Take that. ;-)

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

(Photo:Gerald Herbert / AP)

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

McCain Wins!

2008-09-26T14:00:00.000-04:00

Alright, apparently we can all save the jet fuel and skip flying to Mississippi. John McCain won the debate.

Who says Thomas Dewey has a lock on premature celebration? There's another idiotic Republican in town Tom and he's looking to make you look like a friggin' genius.

They were brilliant enough to run the ad on the Washington Post. THIS MORNING! You know, when we were still playing the 'Doe's John McCain even know how to get to Mississippi' game? Wow.

Is it just me, or are you all looking for someone that resembles either Robert De Niro or Dustin Hoffman when looking at campaign pictures too. You know, just lurking around the edge, not being conspicuous.

Nah. I'm just paranoid. Of course, if McCain starts muttering anything about 'Old Shoe' while he's up there tonight, well, I might just need a drink.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

McCain's next 10 Hail Mary's

2008-09-26T11:45:00.001-04:00

Slate predicts McCain's next 10 Hail Mary stunts.

Absolutely a must read. My favorite?

9. Sells Alaska to Russia for $700 billion.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Is McCain Gaining or Losing?

2008-09-26T11:22:00.003-04:00

You know, the way it was presented on the front page of the Plain Dealer this morning in Cleveland wasn't good for John McCain. Big picture of Rep. Barney Frank and the gang with the word "DEAL", then, down at the fold, big picture of the White House meeting with Senator John McCain and company, and the words "NO DEAL".

I don't think that anyone remains under the illusion that John McCain went to Washington to seek an apolitical resolution to the financial crisis. I don't think anyone remains under the illusion that John McCain has 'suspended' his campaign. Not with the three major interviews last night. Not with the commercials that were still airing in prime time here in Northeast Ohio.

We had an agreement. Then John McCain landed, had Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) trot out some plan that, from what little we know of it, bore absolutely no resemblance to anything that has been seriously discussed for the last week. Oh yes, I know what you are going to say: "Wait! That wasn't John McCain! That was Republican leader John Boehner who made Cantor come up with the proposal!" Yeah, right, McCain had nothing to do with it. And John McCain still has a bridge to nowhere that he wants to sell you.

On it's face, the plan Cantor and the House conservatives are proposing makes some sense. It is basically a guarantee of the securities instead of outright purchase. There are a couple of problems though.

As Paul Bedard points out:

Continue reading ^>>

House leaders said that Treasury looked at the insurance idea and initially liked it but then went for the easier fix: Just buy bad loans. House Republicans, however, have balked at that plan, hence Boehner's call to Cantor to drum up a new idea. Insiders say that the insurance plan isn't exactly an alternative to the Bush-Paulson plan because Paulson's blueprint is written so broadly that the insurance proposals could be folded into the larger plan, leaving it up to Treasury to figure out which program to apply to each bad loan.

So, you see, Treasury looked at this, decided it was a little too narrow for what they might need and opted for the full monty instead. Now, I would like to point out that no one really knows what is needed here. I am not in favor of giving the entire farm to Hank Paulson either but exactly where is our choice? That is why the Democrats insisted on the oversight and the restrictions. Paulson does not have a track record of asking for too much lately. Too little? Maybe. Too much? No. So why are we going to cut him completely off? He, unlike most of the House members, has some idea of what needs to happen here.

Another problem. The BIG reason for doing this quickly is to free up credit markets that, at the moment, rival Arctic glaciers. The insurance plan would inject no liquidity. It might keep banks from failing. But only for now. Without freeing up the credit markets, things will undoubtedly continue to get worse and your going to find Secretary of the Treasury Chris Dodd/Phil Gramm knocking on Congress' door again in the next six months.

No matter what. I don't think that this is playing well for McCain. I realize that most American's don't like the bailout plan. But, realistically, all he did by going to Washington was hold it up. Something very similar to what was agreed to yesterday will be what gets approved in the end. If Nancy Pelosi can't get Boehner and McCain to provide the Republican votes, they will just have to pass it by Sunday anyway and frame it as: "Well, they got us in this mess, I guess we have to get us out."

So it turns out that John McCain injected presidential politics into the mix, thus making it a little more complicated to get any sort of deal done. John McCain is part of the problem with blocking a solution, regardless of it's popularity. John McCain is still trying to postpone the debate so he can continue to get in the way in Washington.

I don't know. I don't see leadership here. I see someone desperately trying to get into the spotlight and hoping he isn't getting the spotlight at a bad time.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Katie Couric - Sarah Palin Interview

2008-09-26T09:34:00.002-04:00

For anyone interested, here is the Sarah Palin - Katie Couric interview:

I don't know. She didn't come off very well to me. She didn't come off very well to a lot of people whose opinions I trust. I am really unsure how she comes off to the voters they are trying to attract though.

It starts out with her essentially deriding anyone who has travelled internationally before the age of 43 as the children of elitists. It ends up with her reducing her conception of our relations with Israel, Syria and Iran down to "good guys" and "bad guys." Somewhere in between she half insulted Henry Kissinger. And she and her boss continue to refer to Putin as the head of Russia. Dmitri Medvedev, not Vladimir Putin, is the President of Russia. While the now Prime Minister is widely assumed to be the one still calling the shots in a Cheneyesque sort of way, it is bad form to not at least pay some lip service to the actual President of Russia. It might piss him off if you continue to refer to Putin as Russia's leader.

Anyhoo, I was deeply unimpressed. Again, I am a tough crowd. I wonder how this played to Main Street?

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

I only have time for interviews not debates

2008-09-25T17:11:00.003-04:00

John McCain is apparently going to do interviews with all three networks for tonight after his White House meeting. Exactly how do you justify trying to cancel the debate, and claim that you are "suspending your campaign," when you have time to do not one, not two but three interviews with the national media? I sure they will be completely apolitical interviews. (Sorry if some of that dripping sarcasm got on you there.)

Absolutely mind boggling. Someone should really tell him that he has already fallen off the tightrope. Might be time to prepare for the impact.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Are you really sure suspend plays well?

2008-09-25T15:15:00.001-04:00

I have got to wonder. Is it really good for John McCain to have the average American keep seeing this headline "McCain Suspends Campaign"? I mean they solved this 'financial crisis' without even meeting with you. I think you might want to unsuspend before everyone thinks you've given up on the idea of running.

OH! That's right, your campaign's version of suspend and the rest of the universe's version are different. Witness Nancy Pfotenhauer's appearance on FOX this morning (keep in mind, the McCain campaign is 'suspended' when she does this):

Wow. I guess you could make the argument that you weren't speaking to a legitimate news organization. Otherwise, that doesn't jibe with the version of suspend most of us have.

Boy, have you got problems John. First you cancelled on Letterman. Letterman, in what can only be charitably be described as an unfortunate selection for you, went and got Keith Olbermann to replace you. Then you, instead of rushing back to Washington, like you told David Letterman you had to do, go do a sit down with Katie Couric. Did it not occur to you that both Katie and Dave are on the same network? Did it not occur to you he might find out? Did it not occur to you how bad this could look if he found out while he was taping and had Olbermann sitting there? Let's watch the results, shall we:

I am not sure, but I am starting to think that this three day period will be remembered for decades as "Where McCain lost the election." Kinda your "Kitty Dukakis" moment. Your "Poland isn't in the Soviet Bloc" moment. Your...well, you get the idea.

There's more, but I'll save some for later. God, you need a good debate. Oh, that is if you attend.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Deal

2008-09-25T14:09:00.000-04:00

Well, despite the best efforts of George W. Bush and John S. McCain, it would appear as if Congress has come up with a bailout package that everyone can live with, at least, well enough. Via MSNBC.

Like many thought, Senators McCain and Obama weren't needed.

Key lawmakers said at midday that few difficulties actually remained.

“There really isn’t much of a deadlock to break,” said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Makes you wonder about who made the right move here. I suspect it wasn't the senior Senator from Arizona.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Finally, he appears

2008-09-24T14:42:00.000-04:00

Well, at least he remembered that he is the President of the United States. George W. Bush will address the nation this evening at 9 PM.

Whether George W. Bush's failure to to address the nation up until now is due to an attempt to wash his hands of the situation or an utter failure to understand that this was a serious situation that warranted a national address is still up in the air. At least, he is finally doing it.

I found this particular quote.....precious, for lack of a better word:

Press secretary Dana Perino said the president wants to tell the American people how the crisis affects them and help them understand the depth of the problem.

One question. Doe he understand the depth of the problem? I wonder.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Talking your way out of the deal of the century

2008-09-22T12:06:00.006-04:00

Here's the deal. You and your wife have lost your jobs and you've also lost your life savings with some really bad gambles in the markets. You are very likely going to lose your cars, your home, and everything that you own.

Suddenly, Hank Paulson calls you up and says, look, no worries. We'll spend up to 50 million to buy those crappy investments off of you, allow you to get back up on your feet and get going again.

This, however, isn't good enough for you. It isn't enough that the government will buy the crappy securities at their nominal market value of $3,000,000 dollars. It isn't even enough that they will buy them from you for a premium, giving you a wash on the deal, at $17,000,000 dollars. Nope, they made the mistake of mentioning $50,000,000.

So now, you get a wink, wink, nudge, nudge from Paulson but that pesky Congress might get in the way. So you, and your other friends in "The Incredibly Poor Judgement Investment Club" who got this offer, now have your lobbyists attack, saying we need whatever we say we need. There can be no oversight. Only we know what can help us. All the while keeping your eyes on that big fat top end number.

That folks is what is happening right now. The banks, having been handed a golden goose, now want a golden calf. And they'll keep the goose too, thank you very much.

It is no longer a question of whether the governent will give it to them. We already have the standard 'pass it or else' line from the White House. The question now is whether Congress will give it to them. Given Congress' record of passing the buck and voting for the allowance of sweeping executive discretion in such things as the war on Iraq and FISA, I, sadly, have remarkably little faith that Congress will do what it should.

I am, also, not alone in either thinking that this proposal from Hank Paulson is both too sweeping and not accountable enough.

Continue reading "Talking your way out of the deal of the century"^>>
As early as Saturday, as details started leaking out, many started jumping off the ship. Josh Marshall at TPM on Saturday night:

Mulling this more and listening to the insights in your emails, the key clearly is how much the government pays for these distressed assets. They may be bad debts. But that doesn't mean they have no value at all. Bought at the right prices and given time on the books -- which the government is uniquely in a position to allow them to do -- the government could even turn a profit on some of them. But the key is at what price they're bought and whose get bought. That seems like precisely the kind of process that requires oversight and accountability to make sure the taxpayer doesn't get fleeced.

Paul Krugman was ambivalent about all of this when I saw him on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday night. He was no longer ambivalent by Saturday afternoon:

Here’s the thing: historically, financial system rescues have involved seizing the troubled institutions and guaranteeing their debts; only after that did the government try to repackage and sell their assets. The feds took over S&Ls first, protecting their depositors, then transferred their bad assets to the RTC. The Swedes took over troubled banks, again protecting their depositors, before transferring their assets to their equivalent institutions.

The Treasury plan, by contrast, looks like an attempt to restore confidence in the financial system — that is, convince creditors of troubled institutions that everything’s OK — simply by buying assets off these institutions. This will only work if the prices Treasury pays are much higher than current market prices; that, in turn, can only be true either if this is mainly a liquidity problem — which seems doubtful — or if Treasury is going to be paying a huge premium, in effect throwing taxpayers’ money at the financial world.

And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving.

Part of the reason everyone is becoming increasingly uneasy is because of things like this in Sunday's New York Times:

The scope of the bailout grew over the weekend. As recently as Saturday morning, the Bush administration’s proposal called for Treasury to buy residential or commercial mortgages and related securities. By that evening, the proposal was broadened to give Treasury discretion to buy “any other financial instrument.”

Elrod has a good post on opposition to the MOAB (Mother of all Bailouts) over at The Moderate Voice and Andrew Sullivan is "more than a little queasy."

Meanwhile, neither Obama nor McCain seems particularly enthused by any of this.

McCain seems to be trying to continue to cultivate a persona that is against the grain for him. He is an anti-regulator. He seems to have settled on the idea that he just doesn't trust any Republicans currently in office. He attacked SEC Chairman Chris Cox earlier in the week. Now he doesn't trust Hank Paulson:

"Never before in the history of our nation has so much power and money been concentrated in the hands of one person. This arrangement makes me deeply uncomfortable," McCain told an Irish-American group in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state.

I'm not disagreeing with him. I just think he and his campaign are walking a tightrope on this one. His anti-regulation, pro-free market natural approach to things may cause him to mis-step badly here if they don't be very, very careful. Given his gaffes of the last two weeks (we won't count the huge one on August 29), that might be a very dangerous course to take.

This part of that MSNBC article was particularly interesting:

In a statement to reporters, McCain urged the creation of a bipartisan oversight board to review the government bailout rather than entrusting Paulson with complete power to craft it. He said the board should be headed by a trusted financial steward like billionaire financier Warren Buffett, and said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg should be involved as well. Both Romney and Bloomberg made enormous fortunes in business ventures before entering politics.

"I believe we need a high level of oversight and an oversight board to impose real criteria for those who need help and those who do not and that we have a careful steward of the taxpayer's dollars," McCain said.

Yup. That will go over real well with Main Street. Get Warren Buffett (I'll give you that the average American probably is OK with him), and add in two independently wealthy politicians who made huge amounts of money on Wall Street to help guard Main Street from getting ripped off here. Yeah, right, we'll get back to you on that one. In other news, people also think McCain has a bridge to sell them.

That also skips over the fact that, again, in a time of crisis, when leadership is needed, John McCain wants to form yet another time consuming commission.

Obama, according to the piece:

Obama ticked off seven conditions that he believed should be imposed on the Paulson proposal, joining some fellow congressional Democrats in raising warning flags and signaling the bailout mechanism might not make it out of the legislature by week's end as demanded by the Bush administration.

Obama said any bailout must include plans to recover the money, and protect working families and big financial institutions and be crafted to prevent such a crisis from happening again.

Again, Obama is offering at least some specific safeguard ideas. McCain is decrying putting too much power into Paulson's hands and recommending a commission of experts (albeit ones who made plenty of money on Wall Street.)

Finally, President George W. Bush, presiding over a financial crisis that rivals Herbert Hoover, had this to say:

"Obviously, there will be differences over some details, and we will have to work through them," Bush said, but "the whole world is watching to see if we can act quickly to shore up our markets and prevent damage to our capital markets, businesses, our housing sector, and retirement accounts.

"Failure to act would have broad consequences far beyond Wall Street. It would threaten small business owners and homeowners on Main Street."

Translation: "Let's see if I can pressure Congress into writing one last blank check before I bolt this place for Crawford!"

I think, given the current state of opinion in general, that it is extremely unlikely that the administration, Republican members of Congress and the bankers (notice how all of these groups want the same thing?) will get a "clean" bill free of oversight or regulatory powers. It is also highly unlikely that Treasury will get the get out of jail free card that they wanted inserted with language prohibiting 'judicial review.'

The example I started with remains valid. You have to cut the greed off at the knees. It is ingrained in anyone who works on Wall Street. If there is money there, they are trained to find a way to get it. It is what they do.

That is not what this bailout is about. And that is why some serious oversight is needed if we are to attempt this endeavour. If the oversight is included, give it a shot. If it is not, let them rot. We will probably suffer less long term damage by letting them hang by their own ropes than continuing to let them rob us blind.

The banks, by lobbying hard for a 'free and unfettered' authorization to the Treasury department are making us all look at them even more suspiciously. They are already getting a huge, absolutely massive, undeserved gift. Apparently, it isn't good enough unless it comes without strings. They may well find no gift if they continue this crap.

We can only hope that what does come out of all of this is a) enough to actually stem the tide of this crisis and b) not going to create a crisis of it's own. I share your uncertainty.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

John McCain approved this message

2008-09-22T11:49:00.002-04:00

I think it is possible that I may have to post the opening to Saturday Night Live every week until November:

Another one out of the park.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Race card? Not.

2008-09-19T16:00:00.005-04:00

Karen Tumulty thinks this John McCain ad "played the race card":

Andrew Sullivan disagrees.

I wasn't sure about this claim. After all I don't particularly think that Barack Obama and Franklin Raines look 'sinister' as Tumulty comments. Michael Goldfarb has a rebuttal, albeit tinged with some hysteria, that makes some sense. I'd really like it if someone had a timeline for when the following video, the Jim Johnson ad, was posted, because I swear this video wasn't out until people started ripping into the Raines ad. It appears to have been posted several hours later, not at the same time (and, no, I am not insinuating that Goldfarb said it was the same time).

Either way, I think the "Fact Check" commercial had more racial overtones, as I stated at the time. (Although I still want to know why on earth they would bring up wolves with her record on that, lord only knows.) Here is that video, just for good measure:

Let's just stop looking for the race card. If and when it is played it will not be something we need to work on discerning.

I think it is just stupid that they used Franklin Raines. Listen to their justification on this (from Michael Goldfarb's post):

So we contacted Ms. Tumulty and told her of the multiple sources that tie Raines to Obama, including three separate instances in the Washington Post, none of which was ever challenged by Raines or the Obama campaign until yesterday.

Are any of those sources not the Washington Post? If so, would you mind informing the rest of the world. Beyond that, since when do you have to deny every minute untrue detail that is printed in every paper in order to make sure you are not associated with something.

You mean, if I slip an ad in the Classified section of the WaPo saying that John McCain has a standing invitation for Kim Jong Il to visit Sedona, print it three times over the course of a couple of months, and you guys don't deny it, it's true! Cool!!

Before that, he actually had the balls to say this:

Tumulty also takes Obama’s response, signed by Mr. Raines, at face value.

We are supposed to assume they are lying? How about you? Your campaign hasn't earned any 'truth' awards lately.

This is just like those crappy reporters who can't be bothered to pick up a phone to call someone and get a confirmation or denial. Basic crap folks. LOTS of reporters don't do this anymore. I don't know why on earth I would expect a major party presidential campaign to do that if the reporters can't be bothered to.

I think I agree with Sullivan, no racism here. But it all is really stupid.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Who advises him...

2008-09-19T09:43:00.002-04:00

Great new commercial for Obama. Keeps hammering the "John McCain admits he doesn't understand the economy" theme and combines it with who is advising him:

A fired CEO, an insulting former Senator and George Bush. Hmm... This should get some movement our way.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

What? Who me?!

2008-09-18T15:46:00.006-04:00

To your right, you see the Chairman of the SEC, Christopher Cox. Today, coming straight out of left field, perhaps in the A-4 Skyhawk he flew in Vietnam, Senator John McCain said said:

“The Chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the President and in my view has betrayed the public's trust,” McCain said. “If I were President today, I would fire him.”

My first question on this is why? Did he create this situation. Should he have somehow 'regulated' harder. Wouldn't you, the formerly great deregulator, have been even more up his behind in general if he had? Why, exactly, does Christopher Cox get the blame for regulating companies the way Phil Gramm and yourself wanted them regulated ten years ago: laxly?

Second, to his credit, I don't think the current President of the United States in on board with this idea:

Asked to respond to McCain’s criticism of Cox, White House spokesperson Dana Perino told NBC News, “The chairman has the president's confidence.”

Third. Guess what. You can't fire him anyway! At least, technically (from ABC):

But the president does not have the power to fire the SEC chairman.

Commissioners of the following independent regulatory commissions cannot be removed by the president: the SEC, the Federal Reserve Board, the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission.

Of course, that's no obstacle. Especially to a Republican:

The McCain campaign called protests that the president cannot literally "fire" an SEC commissioner "a foolish distinction."

"Not only is there historical precedent for SEC chairs to be removed," said McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds, "the president of the United States always reserves the right to request the resignation of an appointee and maintain the customary expectation that it will be delivered.”

So, can a president "fire" an SEC chairman? Not literally, no.

But colloquially, yes.

Lastly, are you sure that this is the best course of action to take at the moment? Sure it's full of 'leadership' and testosterone but I kind of agree with Jim Geraghty over at NRO (a rare occurrence):

I have a quibble, and it's similar to my objection to the "George Tenet should have been fired on September 12, 2001!" argument. Even if you can legitimately lay the blame at the feet of the official in question (easier for Cox than Tenet, I would argue) you're effectively promoting that person's lieutenant. This presumes the President doesn't have some perfect SEC Chairman/crisis manager in mind, and even then you've got to get that person through the confirmation process with showboating, table-pounding, preening Senators. You also are ensuring that everyone in the organization in question is focused on covering their butts instead of fixing the problem at hand.

On September 12, I wanted CIA employees focused on tracking down al-Qaeda, and devoting exactly 0 percent of their time to worrying about whether they would be fired or purged.

Very good point.

This demonstrates leadership in the sense that you made a snap decision that the head of the SEC should be fired. He isn't really responsible. The deregulation of the past decade and the greed of the coporate overseers, whether they be CEO's or board members, is responsible.

This isn't a "let's solve it" leadership decision. This is a "let's find the most convenient scapegoat" leadership decision. That's all you are doing. No problem solving to see here, move on, move on.

I hope you get just as much flack on this one as you are still getting for your José Zapatero gaffe. You deserve it.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

Catholics United for...

2008-09-18T12:48:00.005-04:00

Well, I think John McCain needs this like the proverbial hole in the head:

Not only are these pro-life Catholics not voting for you, they are running ads that can only have a net negative effect on your evangelical base. Nice.

Maybe this is some backhanded way of supporting the only Catholic on either ticket, Joe Biden?

It certainly helps Barack Obama and Joe Biden a lot more than you would think a pro-life Catholic organization might want to do. What? Who the heck are you folks gonna vote for? Bob Barr? He's almost as hypocritical as McCain on abortion.

Oh well. We'll take the help anyway :-)

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

P.S.- The group, since I didn't mention it in the post is Catholics United. I, as a reformed Catholic, don't support their views, nevertheless I usually post a link if I'm posting your video. So there's the link.

José who?

2008-09-18T09:29:00.008-04:00

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon knows who Zapatero is!

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Spain. That is who John McCain appeared, at the least, to not be familiar with in an interview on a Spanish language radio station.

Via Time magazine:

During an interview in Miami earlier this week with Spanish-language station Union Radio, a reporter asked McCain whether, if elected, he would receive Zapatero in the White House. McCain answered, "Honestly, I have to analyze our relationships, situations, and priorities, but I can assure you that I will establish closer relationships with our friends, and I will stand up to those who want to harm the United States."

Ouch. The question about Zapatero, clearly framed by the reporter as a question about Spain, came after inquiries on Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba. As a result, much of the Spanish press has decided that the Republican candidate, who hails himself as the experienced foreign policy choice in this election, confused Spain — a NATO member and key ally in the fight against terrorism — with one of those troublesome Latin American states. That was certainly the interviewer's impression, for she followed up with a gentle reminder that Spain was a country in Europe. As Spanish newspaper El País put it, "In the best-case scenario, [his answer] demonstrates his ignorance with respect to Zapatero."

Of course, there's a worse-case scenario: that McCain would, if elected, maintain his predecessor's chilly relationship with Spain.

Wow! Simply wow! I mean he wasn't asked about someone say, like Gilbert Houngbo. Oh! You don't know that Gilbert Houngbo is the Prime Minister of Togo? Oh! You didn't even know there was a country named Togo? Well, at least it's not a member of NATO.

We are, however, talking about a member of NATO and an ally, if tenuous, in the war on terror. Bush would have been ripped to shreds on this one in 2000, never mind 2004. And he got a lot of 'gimmes' because everyone knew he wasn't a foreign policy 'expert.' You, John McCain, have this as one of your principle assets on your resume.

So, yes, John. We are going to hammer you on this.

Plenty of good reading on this at TPM here, here, here, here and here(there's even more, but you get the idea).

One actual station on which the interview aired: caracoll1260 scroll down to the "Hoy por Hoy" section for audio

The Spanish language channels version of the interview: Cadenaser.com

The full untranslated English version has been tracked down by TPM (it is one of the links above, but..): El Cid -- in English

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Another defection

2008-09-18T09:11:00.003-04:00

Elizabeth Drew, author of Citizen McCain, has a piece in Politico on why she can no longer support or defend John McCain:

McCain’s recent conduct of his campaign – his willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition – has reinforced my earlier, and growing, sense that John McCain is not a principled man.
In fact, it’s not clear who he is.

The informed supporters are dropping like flies. Depending on how, exactly, Rick Davis and the boys handled Carly Fiorina's 'timeout,' one has to wonder if, sometime in the not too distant future, she might say a little more than that he couldn't run a business. Hmm... That would be interesting!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

They can't run a company but....

2008-09-17T16:14:00.005-04:00

Well, yesterday we had Carly Fiorina telling us that not only Sarah Palin, but also John McCain would not be able to run HP.

Let's look back at March, however (Reuters):

Warren Buffett said on Monday that he would be comfortable putting Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in charge of running a business..

Let's see: Fired Fortune 500 executive, who had some ethical lapses, says her guy (and gal) couldn't do the job she did; All time top 10 extremely successful business person says that Barack or Hillary could run one of his businesses. Hmm...

Now, to be fair, Warren did exclude the flagship of Berkshire Hathaway itself when making this statement but still!

Meanwhile, CNN reports that Carly has been exorcised from the campaign, at least for the moment:

A top McCain official contacted by CNN said, on condition on anonymity, "No big deal, but not how you get on the surrogate all-star team. Very Biden-like."

“This campaign source said Fiorina would be discouraged from additional media interviews.

Another top campaign adviser was far less diplomatic.

"Carly will now disappear," this source said. "Senator McCain was furious." Asked to define "disappear," this source said, adding that she would be off TV for a while – but remain at the Republican National Committee and keep her role as head of the party’s joint fundraising committee with the McCain campaign.

Fiorina was booked for several TV interviews over the next few days, including one on CNN. Those interviews have been canceled.

Not good. But apparently she isn't completely exiled:

A third source said "it was another bad day for her, and important people are mad because the timing is horrible… But I would not necessarily buy the Siberia storyline."

After all, what are they going to do for the 'face' of their 'economic plan?' Bring back Phil Gramm?? LOL!!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Not sure what to make of this..

2008-09-17T14:51:00.004-04:00

I am not sure what to make of this. Gawker.com claims to have copies of screenshots from Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo email account which is alledged to have been hacked into last night.

Sarah Palin's Personal Emails

I give you the link for your perusal although I don't vouch for the authenticity.

It does seem like a legit story. That would bring up a number of questions.

First, why would you do this? This is almost certainly going to have an initial consequence of generating sympathy for Sarah Palin. It will not, and does not appear to, be a smoking gun.

Second, why the heck did she have the accounts deleted! She is under investigation. Whether either or both of those accounts were public record is still being debated in legal circles. Until it is decided, they can't be deleted! That's destruction of evidence.

Certainly, deleting the "business" account, which by the way, was not apparently hacked, would be willful destruction of public documents, unless she downloaded everything first. And in a verifiable way.

Of course, all of this is rumor and conjecture at the moment. But, like I said, this looks legit.

Update: it is also on Wikileaks.

Update 2: Apparently, John Aravosis at AmericaBlog had this around 12:30pm too. He also doesn't seem to know for sure if it's real or hoax.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

From Nowhere

2008-09-17T14:20:00.002-04:00

Here is a letter to the editor that the Anchorage Daily News got:

Palin won't build the bridge, but she's sure willing to use it

Greetings from Nowhere, Alaska. I am a three-term Ketchikan City Council member. I am, and have always been, an opponent of the bridge, but Gov. Palin is taking a cheap shot.

The purpose of the bridge was not a quicker way to the airport (which actually it wouldn't be) but a way to reach developable land. Ketchikan is 30 miles long and 4 blocks deep -- jammed between the Pacific and mountains. A large hydro project will come on-line in two years but there are very few places suitable to build additional businesses or industry on this island.

The bridge was to open up a large expanse of flat land for development on Gravina Island. It was not a project created so greedy buffoons could drive to the airport. Gov. Palin knows this but continues to trot Ketchikan out for national ridicule.

What does it say about a leader who is willing to ridicule constituents to make political points?

-- Marty West

Ketchikan

Seems it is not just the media and left wing bloggers that Sarah Palin has to watch out for.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Polls on Sept 17th

2008-09-17T13:23:00.000-04:00

Well lets see, Daily Tracking Polls...

Rasumussen has it John McCain 48% to Barack Obama 47%

Not any change from yesterday but still McCain seems to have topped out at 50-47 several days ago. Obama's top number has been as high as 51% as recently as 9/2. That just can't be something that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis likes.

Gallup now has Barack Obama leading John McCain 47%-45%. In this poll McCain has been sliding since Sept 9 when he still had a 48%-43% lead. I don't think this bodes well for his campaign. They've led the discussion for the last two and a half weeks. Only in the last few days has the economy presented itself as the story. Granted 2/3 of this poll was conducted after the weekend of Lehman Brothers collapse and Merrill Lynch's sale. That just indicates that McCain is taking the heat (justifiably) on this and that you didn't build up enough good will to whether the coming storm.

In the electoral prediction arena, Electoral-vote.com has McCain with 257 votes(270 needed to win), Obama with 247 and 34 votes too close to call (tied).

Virginia and Pennsylvania are the tied states. I still think Mark Warner will provide a reverse coattails effect for Obama in Virginia. Pennsylvania may be a tossup until the very end.

Michigan, Minnesota and Washington have become closer in the last week and states such as Missouri, Nevada and New Mexico have moved into McCain's column.

Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com has the projection at 288 for McCain to 250 for Obama. Before you panic too much, with his formula for calculating such things, McCain Palin/convention bump has only come to full effect in the last few days. Any backing off will, conversely, take a while to be seen in the results as well.

Short version is, it is almost the same as Electoral-Vote but with the ties going to McCain. Granted, he has Pennsylvania and New Mexico for Obama and Virginia, Colorado and Nevada for McCain. There are plenty of states, including those, in play, he just doesn't call any as 'ties' or 'too close to call'. It's either one way or the other. So there will be plenty of variation as we move forward on this, especially if the 'Palin bubble' really has burst.

ElectionProjection.com is another one that does not like to use the 'tie' or 'too close to call' option. The have Obama up 273 to 265. I am not as sure of their methodology. I am not a real big fan of using national poll numbers in any way when figuring out how a state may vote. But who knows, I didn't take a whole lot of courses in statistics in college, he might wind up the most accurate of them all.

Conclusion, thus far, it appears that McCain has, at best leveled off, and may indeed be slipping slowly toward pre-convention numbers. How much of that is people with Sarah Palin hangovers, or the voters starting to get exactly how much the McCain campaign has altered the truth (OK, lied) in the last week, is hard to know. Later this week, or early next week should give more insight into that.

Still, the Democrats do not need to panic, yet. McCain should have gotten a much bigger bounce with the Palin/convention combo than he did. That he didn't is probably making Rick Davis have some white knuckles. The Wall Street mess should make those knuckles even whiter in the coming weeks.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Dangerous Territory

2008-09-17T12:49:00.003-04:00

Here is John McCain's new stance on regulation:

There's a problem here for our dear Senator McCain. He's been a passionate deregulator for a quarter of a century! He was still a passionate deregulator last week! From the Washington Post:

In 2002, McCain introduced a bill to deregulate the broadband Internet market, warning that "the potential for government interference with market forces is not limited to federal regulation." Three years earlier, McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country's financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies.
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That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments.

McCain now condemns the executives at those companies for pursuing the ambitions that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act made possible, saying that "in an endless quest for easy money, they dreamed up investment schemes that they themselves don't even understand."

He was complicit in allowing these companies to do the very things that he is now railing against. Put another way, if not for he and Phil Gramm, Lehman Brothers and AIG would not have been able to get into the trouble they got into because it would have been against the rules. John McCain and Phil Gramm took away those rules. Now we see why those rules were there. Now we see what happens without regulation.

He is trying to take the offensive here, but, if anyone calls him on it right now, he is like a sitting duck. He has to be called on this now, and hard. He has to be called on it before he establishes some type of 'regulator savior' image with the voters.

Show the voters how he created this. This wasn't even George W. Bush. This is on him. Hammer it in, over and over!

This is manna from heaven David Axelrod! Use it! Now!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Obama Plan Ad 2 minutes long

2008-09-17T12:21:00.003-04:00

Well, here is the TWO MINUTE 'Plan' ad that Barack Obama has released:

It's a great non-negative show them what you've got ad. If you can get people to sit for two minutes.

I agree with Elyas Bakhtiari at The Moderate Voice:

Whether it works or not, you have to at least give Obama credit for trying to raise the level of political discourse.

At the very least it will present a real contrast to what McCain-Palin have been pushing out.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Hast thou heard of genetics? It's the latest thing! DOH!

2008-09-17T11:16:00.003-04:00

One has to wonder at this MSNBC article: Pass it on: Sons of infertile men may be next.

Apparently, scientists are worried that boys born to men who had treatment to overcome their own infertility may, themselves, wind up with the same problem or worse.

“This is the generation we’ve created,” said Dr. Tommaso Falcone, who chairs the obstetrics and gynecology department at the Cleveland Clinic and directs the Reproductive Endocrinology Research Laboratory. “We may have tens of thousands of boys born with infertility.”

They are just thinking about this now that the first wave of boys is smack in the middle of puberty?

It simply boggles my mind that it almost seems as if this rather logical deduction is suddenly occuring to some very bright people.

Or, mabye it's just filler story for MSNBC. Who knows.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

US Embassy in Yemen attacked

2008-09-17T11:07:00.003-04:00

Islamic Jihad of Yemen is reportedly claiming responsibility for an attack of the US Embassy in San'a, Yemen earlier today, according to MSNBC.

So far, it appears the there were no Americans among the 16 people reportedly killed and the embassy is reporting that all of it's people are accounted for.

What does it mean? Well, beyond the fact that Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East still despise us, I am not sure. It was, apparently, a very well coordinated attack, despite the fact that they failed to penetrate the perimeter and gain access to the embassy itself.

We'll see how this plays out.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Even Armey says so

2008-09-17T09:13:00.003-04:00

Via the Washington Post:

“Did Dick Cheney. . . purposely tell me things he knew to be untrue?..I seriously feel that may be the case. . . Had I known or believed then what I believe now, I would have publicly opposed [the war] resolution right to the bitter end, and I believe I might have stopped it from happening.”

That folks, is a quote from Dick Armey as taken from Barton Gellman's book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency.

Yep, Dick Armey is now calling out the Dark Lord himself.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Hey, George? You can't throw them a bone?

2008-09-16T23:32:00.005-04:00

Well, it's official folks, the Republican party ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin had exactly two days to celebrate the end of government intervention. They have been beside themselves with glee that the government finally said 'enough' with the Lehman Brothers crisis.

Well, as of tonight (via Reuters):

The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday, with the full support of the Treasury Department, authorized the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend up to $85 billion to the American International Group (AIG).

And, how could they not. Indeed, with the number of tentacles that AIG has in worldwide finances, I'm sure Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson fielded all sorts of calls from finance ministers and central bank heads the last few days. This one had the potential to some serious damage to the entire world-wide monetary system. In other words, as you will hear from the money pundits tomorrow, this was a no-brainer.

Problem #1: You drew your line in the sand and had to call it a mere two days later. Dear lord! How much are we going to be on the hook for?

Problem #2: This problem isn't really all that important as it involves the electoral hopes of our dear friends Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin but it is more relevant subject matter for this blog. The problem involves how the 'government stay out of our business' theme that both of these 'mavericks' (or 'mavricks' if you're at the RNC) will now work out for these two.

Can you really argue that, after Paulsen and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke turned their backs on Lehman Brothers over the weekend, that this is excessive intervention? Maybe.

What McCain can't argue is that a lot of this can be laid squarely in his lap. He and his former cheif economic advisor, and author of what economic plan he does have, Senator Phil Gramm, are largely responsible for the deregulation that helped this crisis come about.

How is 'the deregulator' going to turn this mess around? Well, by calling for a commission, of course! NYT:

“We need a 9/11 commission, and we need a commission to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it,’’ he said. “And I know we can do it and how to do it.”

That's not leadership, that is kicking the can down the road in the middle of a hurricane. You know why, of course! Because he will have to admit his culpability in all of this if he calls BS on what the primary cause was. He can't do that, because he would like to get elected. Another example of his 'honor' and 'country first' mentality.

The press better start to call him on the fact that his deregulation was a key in all of this being able to happen.

Talk about the chickens coming home to roost at an inopportune time!

Let's see them put lipstick on this pig!

It's going to take a lot of lipstick. And it'll still be a pig.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Hit Hard, Hit Fast

2008-09-16T11:46:00.002-04:00

And, when possible, hit above the belt. This one counts as one of those left hooks after you've set him up a bit. Whether this commercial helps to start bringing Senator John McCain and his campaign down, well, we'll just a have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, here is what I'm talking about, the latest Obama commercial:

Simple, direct, repeats the gaffe over and over. Nicely done. Don't stop now Obama campaign. We're convinced you guys might be the real thing. Keep at it!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Tuesday's Mental Health Break

2008-09-16T11:26:00.002-04:00

Well, our economy may be falling apart, except for McCain's 'fundamentals', but we can still take a moment to laugh, via The Onion:

Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate May Steal Support From McCain

Comments, as always, welcome,

Pat McGovern

New Obama Ad "Deception"

2008-09-15T12:49:00.004-04:00

The Obama campaign has released a new ad to air in the key battleground states and on national cable, via TPM Election Central:

You have to hit him hard on the honor and integrity if he wants to run those type of ads and that is exactly what Barack Obama is doing, finally. McCain now has nowhere to go but to do something stupid in retaliation. And retaliate he will since he has to defend the honor that he, nevertheless, chose to forgo.

This is the only way to beat the Rovian politics. Governor Palin is still, now that she is back in the lower 48, repeating the "Bridge to Nowhere" lies:

As Josh Marshall notes:

You'll note that while Palin is continuing to restate the lie, there's a tone of defensiveness in her voice this morning, since they clearly know they've been caught.

Amazing, isn't it? How they keep repeating and repeating the lies, even after being called on it by a major nightly news anchor?

Obama's camp must do this. They have to show his 'honorable' facade for what it really is: A facade.

People don't hear what McCain's campaign people say. Here's what one said to Politco via MSNBC:

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said this to the Politico about the increased media scrutiny of the campaign's factual claims: "We’re running a campaign to win. And we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it.”

That is what I am talking about. The Brian Rogers and the Rick Davis' aren't even trying to hide this right now. They are sure that the lies will be covered up by the media in the interest of having 'balanced' news coverage. (See TPM here and the LA Times here.)

Heck, Karl Rove thinks they're going too far, (on FOX with Chris Wallace):

WALLACE: All right, and for fair game, what is McCain doing that goes a step too far?

ROVE: Well, McCain has gone in some of his ads — similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test.

Wow. Karl Rove thinks they've gone too far!

Still, the only way people will no the extent of the lying, for sure, is if Barack Obama starts attacking on them. Of course, the mainstream fourth estate could grow a pair but that is not necessarily going to happen.

You know, I thought that then Governor George W. Bush had sold his soul to the devil when he ran in 2000 and 2004. Regardless of whether George did it is clear that Senator John S. McCain III has done so. It is sad to see a man who has claimed such pride in his honor just throw it away in such a fashion.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Early Saturday Impressions on Palin

2008-09-13T11:35:00.005-04:00

I don't think she came off too badly.
Charles Gibson did a better job than most expected. Too good for many on the right. Too bad. You can't handle "Charlie Gibson"? Gimme a break.
I still have real issues with this:

GIBSON: When McCain asked you to take the spot on the ticket, for a moment, did you think no?

PALIN: I did not. I thought yes, right off the bat. When he offered me the position, as his running mate, the first thing I said to him was, if you really think that I can help the ticket, if you really think that I can help this country, absolutely, I want to do this with you.

How do you not have some trepidation when asked that? If you don't, are you really someone I want making reasoned decisions for this country on my behalf?

I may have more later.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

And This is Surprising?

2008-09-12T16:31:00.003-04:00

Thomas Frank has a piece at wsj.com where he gives us the attribution of the quote:

We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity.

This is the quote that Governor Sarah Palin prefaced with "A writer observed:" in her acceptance speech in the Republican National Convention. That writer was Westbrook Pegler, a right wing columnist in the New Deal era. Frank has this also:

As the New York Times pointed out in its obituary of him in 1969, Pegler once lamented that a would-be assassin "hit the wrong man" when gunning for Franklin Roosevelt.

I am not sure what the point is here. Essentially, what we are talking about here is the New Deal version of Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck with a bigger vocabulary.

Who knows if the speech writers knew the attribution. I am sure that if Charles Gibson asked Sarah Palin who Westbrook Pegler was, she'd have no clue. But even if they did know, would they have cared? Probably not.

Should we really care? Yes and no. Yes, because they continue to use right-wing extremists to exemplify their small town values. Our small towns are not full of right wing nutjobs. They just happen to be the loudest ones.

And: No, because this is yet another red herring for us all to chase while John McCain and Sarah Palin continue to fail to address the issues.

Keep your eye on the ball people. Westbrook Pegler isn't the problem.

Hat-tips to: AmericaBlog and TPM Election Central.

Comments welcome,

Patrick McGovern

Perhaps He's an Animatronic John McCain

2008-09-12T15:03:00.006-04:00

I have come up with this theory. You see, much like Chris Mathews and Andrea Mitchell, I am struggling with the idea that this John McCain is the same guy I remember from before this year.

So my theory isn't just that he doesn't actually know what his campaign is doing, it is that he is a) dead or b) being confined out of public view and, in his place, the Republicans and Karl Rove have an animatronic machine in his place. Almost like the movie Dave but without the real life stand in.

Is that ridiculous? I think so. The events of the last eight years make me less likely to just dismiss it out of hand though.

Reality is, this man has decided that winning is more important than honor. Win or lose, Senator John McCain cannot, with any kind of private introspective honesty, look back on this campaign and say he ran it honorably.

From AP on The View today:

McCain said he had chosen Palin because she would help to reform Washington, specifically cited curbing federal spending for earmarks. When pressed about Palin's record of requesting and accepting such money for Alaska, McCain ignored the record and said, "Not as governor she didn't."

From the Anchorage Daily News, again:

For the 2007 federal budget year, the administration of former Gov. Frank Murkowski submitted 63 earmark requests totaling $350 million, Palin's staff said. That slid to 52 earmarks valued at $256 million in Palin's first year. This year, the governor's office asked the delegation to help them land 31 earmarks valued at $197 million.

Folks, there is a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between reducing the amount of the earmarks you request for your state and claiming you have been asking for no earmarks. The McCain campaign and, now from his mouth too, John McCain, continue to claim the latter when it is a patently false assertion and has been proven so, demonstrably, repeatedly, over the course of at least a week.

I think my animatronic explanation works best if you don't think that McCain could be consciously doing this.

Andrew Sullivan, also trying to reach on this, has another possible explanation:

There are two possibilities. 1. He's lying, regardless of the consequences. 2. He really hasn't been briefed or cannot retain the briefing or is simply in denial about the facts.

He supports hypothesis #2. I guess we all seem to want to believe in the old John McCain still.

Whether it's because he has completely derailed 'The Straight Talk Express,' he doesn't know/understand what it actually happening, or he is really an animatronic stand in, this is really a very sad process to watch.

As an aside, another quick quote from that AP Link:

"My heart sort of runs with McCain and my mind probably tends to run toward Obama." — David Scorup, 58, a county government official in Othello, Wash.

Would that there were more like this man.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

No. We haven't forgotten...

2008-09-11T23:59:00.000-04:00

Now, a moment of non-partisanship:

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Chafee calls Palin comments "wacky" and "cocky"

2008-09-11T15:47:00.004-04:00

Well, it isn't just Democrats who have a relatively low opinion of Sarah Palin. Some Republicans do to. Former Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) to AP via MSNBC:

"People were coming into my office, phone calls were flooding in, e-mails were coming in, 'I just sent money to Obama, I couldn't sleep last night' — from the left. To see this cocky wacko up there," Chafee said to laughter.

Chafee said in an interview Thursday that he found much of Palin's convention speech objectionable, particularly her "mocking" assertion that Obama was overly concerned with al-Qaida terrorists getting read their rights.

That comment "got to the core of everything wrong with the last eight years," he said.

"I consider that wacky, and certainly her tone was very, very cocky," said Chafee, a visiting fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. "So I thought they were appropriate words."

Now, in the interest of fairness, Lincoln Chafee probably would be best described as a liberal Republican. Heck, we are talking about the only Republican to vote against the use of force in Iraq! Nevertheless, this is someone who, despite the fact that he now supports Barack Obama, was a friend and supporter of John McCain for many years.

Of course, it'll be turned around that Barack Obama called Sarah Palin "wacky" and "cocky." Hmm....Maybe he should.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Olbermann's 9/11 Excoriation

2008-09-11T11:12:00.003-04:00

Here is Keith Olbermann on MSNBC last night, excoriating the Republicans, in general, and John McCain, in particular for their gratuitous use of 9/11 footage at the Republican National Convention:

Personally, I think he may have gone a little over the top with the "Do you have personal knowledge of how to get Osama bin Laden?" bit. Otherwise, I thought it was a great rebuke.

Of course, he, like Bill 'Papa Bear' O'Reilly, is preaching mostly to the choir. Who knows, maybe some independents were watching and will start to realize exactly how much our politics has be dominated by fear-mongering for the last seven years.

One can hope.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Florida is the new..Florida?

2008-09-11T10:27:00.003-04:00

In a recent judicial election in Palm Beach County Florida, 3,478 ballots went missing. According to WPTV, they may simply have been sent to the landfill:

Considering all that went on around there eight years ago, this is truly mind boggling. And we didn't even need Katherine Harris!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Lipstick On a Pig continued

2008-09-11T09:58:00.004-04:00

NPR's Robert Siegel had a great piece on "Lipstick on a Pig" last night on All Things Considered. He spoke with Joel Salatin, of Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, and had him try to put lipstick on a pig. It apparently did not make any difference;-) It's radio, so obviously, no video, but it was a great piece.

Turns out there is some video though. At least of the pigs. Joe Windish at The Moderate Voice visited there last year and posted this video of the pigs (if you're interested):

Well, at least we know the pigs and the farm are real. Not that anyone is impugning NPR's credibility, but you never know whose going to accuse anyone of what anymore.

Finally, TPM has come out with a shirt base on this logo:

You can order adult male shirts with the logo here.

You can order adult female shirts with the logo here.

Hopefully, there may be even more products!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

TPM Sarah Palin Earmarks video

2008-09-11T09:32:00.002-04:00

For your viewing pleasure:

Yup, she hates earmarks alright;-)!

The great crew at TPM has now dug even deeper uncovering just what it was that the State of Alaska and it's reform-minded governor were asking for. The link to TPMMuckraker is here. The link to the State of Alaska's requests is here.

Apparently, it includes $3.2 million for seal genetics research among a slew of other things. I pick this out because TPM Muckraker contrasts this with John McCain:

"We're not going to spend $3 million of your tax dollars to study the DNA of bears in Montana," McCain said earlier this year, referring to a request from Montana for federal money to study the endangered grizzly bear. "I don't know if it was a paternity issue or criminal, but it was a waste of money."

It's amazing. You really have to wonder if Bill Clinton would have gotten away scot free with the "I did not inhale." line if Karl Rove had been his advisor. Hell, he might never have gotten impeached!

Lie. Lie. Lie. Repeat. Lie. Lie. Lie. Repeat.

Have at it! Truth! Truth! Truth! Repeat!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Disassociation

2008-09-10T20:01:00.003-04:00

I myself, once upon a time, liked a straight talking Republican from Arizona. He was once one of the few Republicans on the national scene that I would have ever considered voting for. The last few months, and especially the last few weeks and days, have been very painful for anyone who ever believed the words coming from the mouth of the senior Senator from Arizona.

As such, I had been considering writing something expressing my utter disgust with Sen. John McCain's relatively recent choices to completely abandon what were his previously stated principles. All the while, disingenuously trying to maintain that he is still a maverick, still a reformer, still an honorable person who happens to be a politician.

Then, I read Andrew Sullivan's post earlier. The post: McCain's Integrity I cannot neither match nor exceed his eloquence, so, despite the fact that I was never a supporter of his, I will allow his post to speak for myself as well. I as sure it's speak for a great many people.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Lipstick McPig

2008-09-10T16:42:00.002-04:00

Courtesy of John Aravosis and AMERICAblog:

Does anything more need to be said?

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

What do you call this?

2008-09-10T15:58:00.005-04:00

Check this latest lie out:

Notice how they quoted Factcheck.org. Here is some of their post on this video:

They call the ad "Fact Check." It says "the attacks on Gov. Palin have been called 'completely false' ... 'misleading.' " On screen is a still photo of a grim-faced Obama. Our words are accurately quoted, but they had nothing to do with Obama.

Our article, posted two days earlier, debunked a number of false or misleading claims that have circulated in chain e-mails and Internet postings regarding Palin. There is no evidence that the Obama campaign is behind any of the wild accusations that we critiqued. There is no more basis for attributing these viral attacks to the Obama campaign than there is for blaming the McCain campaign for chain e-mail attacks falsely claiming that Obama is a Muslim, or a "racist," or that he is proposing to tax water. The anti-Palin messages, like the anti-Obama messages, have every appearance of being home-grown.

They go on to debunk some other parts of this commercial:

The ad also quotes the Wall Street Journal as saying that the Obama campaign "air-dropped a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers to dig dirt on Governor Palin." That's also a distortion. The Wall Street Journal opinion article did not say that the Obama team was there to "dig dirt." It said they were there do "dig into her record and background." Maybe the McCain-Palin campaign knows something we don't about what's in Palin's record and background.

Really friggin' cute. I am waiting for someone else to detect the racial overtones I felt when I watched this. We'll see. It won't be Obama to call them on that score though.

I can see them keeping this up for the next 57 days. I can't see the American public buying into this BS non-stop for 57 days. I was wrong the last two times though.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Lipstick on a pig

2008-09-10T12:55:00.004-04:00

Let's get past this. Obviously, Senator John McCain and his campaign are trying to distract by seizing on any little thing throwing it at the wall and seeing if it sticks. You can tell that Karl Rove is involved with this campaign.

I suppose you could accuse the left wing blogosphere for doing the same to Gov. Sarah Palin. But, and this is a big BUT, that is left wing (and even somewhat moderate) bloggers, not a major candidates campaign. Have you seen Obama/Biden throw anything untrue out there themselves? No.

Here is the currently offending quote:

That's not change. That's just calling the same thing something different. You can put lipstick on a pig -- it's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change; it's still going to stink after eight years.

What! How is that an insult to Sarah Palin?

That interpretation is the equivalent of saying to someone, "You're an a&%hole!" and then that person turning around and saying, "What did you say about my mother?!" And then the accusation being considered credible by those who heard the entire exchange!

Let's find an example of a person who has used this term. Such as NPR points out:

The expression is a common political cliche; Obama used it in a 2007 in reference to the Iraq war, and during the primaries John McCain himself called Hillary Clinton's health care proposal lipstick on the pig of her failed plan from the 90s. _{(italics mine)}

Oh, you want another example....hmmm...

How about Vice President Dark Lord, uh, I mean, Dick Cheney on Nov. 1, 2004:

THE VICE PRESIDENT: The President and I know better than that. We know that it is not our job to conduct international opinion polls. Our job is to defend America. (Applause.)

Now, in the closing days of this campaign, John Kerry is running around talking tough. He's trying every which way to cover up his record of weakness on national defense. But he can't do it. It won't work. As we like to say in Wyoming, you can put all the lipstick you want on that pig, but at the end of the day it's still a pig. (Applause.) That's my favorite line. (Laughter.) You want to hear it again?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: As we like to say in Wyoming -- (laughter) -- you can put all the lipstick you want on a pig, but at the end of the day it's still a pig.

So good, he said it TWICE! Was he referring to Teresa Heinz Kerry?! Who the heck did he think he was?! Oh, that's right he is the Dark Lord of the United States.;-)

C'mon people, let it go. I know you are smarter than this. I know you are smarter than a lot of this. Please prove me right.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Update:

Here is the video of Obama's response earlier today.

Todd Palin, Yup'ik Eskimos and Sarah Palin's Native American Record

2008-09-09T16:46:00.002-04:00

Earl Ofari Hutchinson had a very interesting post on Sarah Palin's record on civil rights on Saturday. Todd Palin No Poster Boy for Yup’ik Eskimos or other Native Alaskans reviews Sarah Palin's record, or lack thereof, regarding civil rights in her home state.

Since the single largest minority in Alaska are the Native Americans, with somewhere around 18-19% of the population claiming some descent, the focus is largely on that.

Given the governor's propensity for advertising the Yup'ik descent of her husband, Todd Palin, one has to wonder if this subject might yet become a focus for the national media.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

"....lesbian Air America radio host..."

2008-09-09T12:19:00.003-04:00

Tim Graham, of the Media Research Center, was on Fox and Friends this fine morning. He decided to, while piling on the criticism of NBC and MSNBC, refer to Rachel Maddow as, "this lesbian Air America radio host, Rachel Maddow."

Here, have a look see:

Do I have to explain the problem here? This guy is the "Director of Media Analysis" for this outfit?

You know, I will admit MediaMatters has a left slant, duh, but I have never heard anyone associated with them resort to that type of base name calling.

Rachel Maddow would eat this guy for lunch in any battle of wits.

Remember, it's the bullies that resort to name calling because they fear they are inferior to the name call'ee'. If it weren't so offensive, if the wonderful, family values people of Fox and Friends didn't chortle when he said it, I'd say ignore it. But it was that offensive, and those family values people did chortle instead of saying, "Whoa! Hold on!"

So, have at all of you!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Cheney: "She's a Good Candidate"

2008-09-09T10:57:00.007-04:00

My how times change. Dick Cheney and George W. Bush have endorsed the selection of Sarah Palin, for better or for worse. We knew about Bush's 'endorsement' from the convention when he addressed the crowd via Satelite. This is the first we've heard from the Dark Lord, I mean Vice President, however. From The Trail:

"We've had all kinds of vice presidents over the years. Everybody brings a different set of experiences to the office and also a different kind of understanding with whoever the president is," Cheney told the group of reporters traveling with him in Rome.

"Each administration is different," added Cheney, whose long experience in Washington before becoming Bush's running mate laid the groundwork for his role as one of the most powerful vice presidents in history.

"And there's no reason why Sarah Palin can't be a successful vice president in a McCain administration. It won't look exactly like the Bush administration or the first Bush administration, the Ford administration. It'll be relatively unique to this president and this time that they're in office."

He goes on to say:

"I think she's a good candidate, and I don't see any reason why she can't be an effective vice president."

That seem to run around the experience issue. He seemed to have a very different idea of how important experience and preparation were four years ago.

It's a very significant responsibility when you consider that at a moment's notice you may have to take over as president of the United States and make all of those decisions. It's happened several times in our history.

And I think that probably is the most important consideration in picking a vice president, somebody who could take over.

- Vice President Dick Cheney, October 5, 2004, The Cheney-Edwards Vice Presidential Debate

I guess ignoring facts are not the only thing that neo-conservative Republicans are good at. Ignoring ability, as has also been evidenced by the Bush administration with Mike Brown and Alberto Gonzales, is also a hallmark trait. At least, when it comes to their own.

Now, considering the Vice-President's popularity is somewhere south of even his boss, I don't know if this help or hinders McCain Palin. Given how happy they were to keep George W. Bush and Dick Cheney away from St. Paul, MN, it may be that they aren't all that happy that they are talking about this now either. It sure isn't helping to sway me to the cause.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

"No way, no how, no McCain, no Palin!"

2008-09-09T10:13:00.004-04:00

Here we go folks, let's listen to Hillary in Florida:

Now, here is what I said on August 29, after Sarah Palin's introduction speech:

The fact that she had the gall to bring up Hillary's 18 million cracks! OMG! If Hillary wasn't invested in Obama before, she sure as hell will be now! Hillary will work overtime to make sure that ceiling holds for at least four more years.

I think that the 18 million cracks reference was a serious tactical mistake by the McCain campaign. Did they vet the speech? Did they think Hillary would take that sitting down?

I think Hillary will volunteer herself for attacking this one personally now. She may not have been a willing attack dog before but look out now. No half term governor, former mayor of a city of less than 9,000 people is going to hijack what she started, after all the time and effort she put into this, especially if she will not benefit from it.

Here is where is begins. She will not attack her as a woman. She will attack her ideas. She will attack them mercilessly. She will attack them more often and more intensely than she would have if John McCain had picked anybody else.

That is not being petty. This woman represents absolutely none of the values that Hillary Clinton has based her career on. They are diametrically opposed. That is why she will campaign, and campaign hard for Barack Obama now.

What I really love is that she is not directly calling out Sarah Palin on adopting her "18 million cracks" line in that speech. The Democrats have learned so much. It almost makes me want to cry.

They are staying on message. The message is voting for McCain/Palin is four more years of Bush/Cheney (albeit without the Dark Lord himself). And they are staying on that message. No distractions.

And now, because of Governor Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton will also be pounding that message home for the next 2 months. It's amazing.

Will wonders never cease?

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Fiscal Conservatism at it's Finest!

2008-09-09T09:21:00.004-04:00

Got this via TPM Election Central Morning Roundup. In the Washington Post, Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home:

Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.

The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.

I would think this is a complete non-story for many, even most, governors. Except for the ones who wave their fiscal conservatism around like a torch. And especially the one's who are waving their fiscal conservatism around like a torch while running for Vice-President of the United States.

The problem for the McCain campaign now is that much of the stuff Governor Palin is getting bashed with is now substantive stuff, her record, that conflicts with what she and the campaign are telling us about here. The "Bridge to Nowhere" farce, the rest of the earmarks fiasco and now this.

You know, average Joe or Jane Governor, lives 600 miles from the State Capitol and wants to bill a per diem to the state? You probably say, "Oh hell yeah! I would too!" (Unless you're from a hardcore conservative red state.)

Unfortunately this campaign has revelled in highlighting how much of a budget cutter Sarah Palin is. She couldn't cut back on this? She makes $125K a year and hubby makes lord knows how much on the North Slope (you tend to make pretty big bucks there) and she and he need to take all of this money?

It's her and their fault we'll pick on this one. And this is one that won't play real well with the very base she's supposed to attract. Oh well.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

First Palin Gaffe?

2008-09-08T17:49:00.003-04:00

Sam Stein reports over at Huffington Post that Governor Sarah Palin may have made her first gaffe in policy articulation. As reported by McClatchy:

McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, speaking in Colorado Springs, Colo., said Fannie and Freddie had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." The companies, however, aren't taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization.

Not exactly a killer. But when every word you say is apparently being scripted, you aren't going to get a lot of breaks. Especially from the left.

This might be her first gaffe but it won't get a lot of traction. On the bright side, at least for those waiting for the Governor to fall flat on her face, it only took a few days for her to get tripped up in a scripted, teleprompted speech. That is a relatively ominous sign for the McCain campaign.

The media and America let the bar be lowered in 2000 and even in 2004 for a certain person from Texas. I don't think either is going to let the bar get that low this time. Better do some more cramming Governor!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Be It!

2008-09-08T17:44:00.005-04:00

Jamie Lee Curtis had a great post in The Huffington Post yesterday. An excerpt:

Gandhi said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Be it. Don't talk about it, don't pontificate about it. Be It. Action word. Demonstrative. Maybe Nike just drafted off that great statesman and made us all "Just do it."

Whatever, the call to action is now. Be it.

Very nice little post. She also worked in Jung. Only problem is it might go over the heads of some of Gov. Palin's more rabid followers. Oh well.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Would/Will he do it again?

2008-09-08T13:26:00.004-04:00

Here is the skit John McCain did on May 17, 2008 on Saturday Night Live:

You really have to wonder if he would do that, or will do that again. I don't think he really wants to attract any more attention to his age at this point for obvious reasons. It was alright when he locked up the Republican nomination and was still going to select somebody on who would be ready on day one. But...

Speaking of the obvious reason, do you think Tina Fey might consider coming back for two months just to parody Governor Sarah Palin? Can you think of anyone better? Sure, Amy Poehler is still there, and her abilities are beyond question, but, c'mon, Tina would still be better!

Gotta wonder exactly how much McCain/Palin will be able to poke fun at themselves without feeling self-conscious. That arena may belong exclusively to the Obama/Biden campaign this fall.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

I'd LOL if it weren't so pathetic

2008-09-05T17:06:00.004-04:00

In what can only really be described as a pathetic oversight that, nevertheless, you have to laugh at, the Walter Reed Middle School/Walter Reed Medical Center story has another odd twist:

It was used as the backdrop on The West Wing for Matt Santos announcement that he was running for President! Check it out:

TPM and TPM Election central have been all over this all day.

Wow! Somebody is going to be in trouble for this one methinks!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Biden: The Silence Was Deafening

2008-09-05T16:28:00.002-04:00

Here's Joe Biden speaking in Langhorne, Pennsylvania:

Some really great points. There was silence on the middle class, healthcare, environment and jobs. Yes, jobs. 'Trickle down' job creation mentions do not count.

I love the part of how the Republicans reminded him of the kid in school who, when you wore new shoes would say, "Hey! Nice Shoes! Were they your mom's?"

Classic. And very on point.

Maybe the Democrats have a shot this year.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

(Yes, part of the reason I posted this was to break up the Sarah Palin news fest. It would have merit on a normal day regardless.)

Mike Wooten Speaks

2008-09-05T16:12:00.003-04:00

Here's CNN's exclusive interview with Mike Wooten, the ex-in-law trooper in the trooper-gate drama:

Obviously, this guy is no angel. It is even possible that he should no longer be a trooper. Fortunately, for all of us, there are procedures for this. He went through them. He was suspended. Governor Sarah Palin allegedly pushed for more after all of his disciplinary hearings had been done.

That would be borderline unacceptable behavior if it was just in general. It's your ex-brother-in-law? That really bad judgement.

His character, as they point out, is not the focus of the investigation here. It's hers.

That said, someone very smart told him to act like an angel, hold no grudges and say he's excited for Gov. Palin. No idea how honest that all was. But is was smart.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

P.S. - The video will run fine in Internet Explorer. I have however had problems with CNN videos in Firefox and Google Chrome. I apologize if this is an issue but it is out of my hands.

The Reformer

2008-09-05T14:51:00.005-04:00

Tom Toles:

Most of the commentators seemed struck by how 'McCain distanced himself from the Bush legacy' last night. Not all of us were struck that way. Tom Toles gets what a lot of observers including Rachel Maddow last night on MSNBC have been saying. Oh, you want source? Well since I can't find a transcript so here (Maddow talks right after they get Buchanan to stop):

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Political Darwinism

2008-09-05T14:01:00.004-04:00

I was so hoping someone got this shot because I did see this last night at the convention!

Well I got me my wish! 'Mavrick' is right up the with the people who are 'Untiers not Dividurs'!

Cheap shot? Maybe. Funny? Hell yeah!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

So, If You Can't Find The Wounded Vets.....

2008-09-05T13:01:00.004-04:00

you must be....A WITCH! (Sorry for the Monty Python humor there.)

This is truly classic, and a highly unusual blunder that the Republicans aren't expected to make at a convention.

You know that fancy 'mansion' like looking picture with the big green lawn that was behind John McCain during part of his speech last night? Made him look like he had a 'green screen' behind him on the close ups? Well a number of people were wondering what it was.

To your right you see first a picture off the RNC's own website last night. Following it is a picture of Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California. Yup, that's definitely Walter Reed Middle School.

If you are wondering why they would show Walter Reed Middle School, you are not alone. You also no longer have to wonder.

They meant to show Walter Reed Medical Center. Yup. That's right. Now that's trying to say "We won't screw up like the last guy!" by screwing up. They are, apparently, already pointing fingers at one another. Even Andrew Sullivan has picked this one up.

Seriously, you really can't make this stuff up!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Obama - O'Reilly Part One

2008-09-05T10:54:00.005-04:00

OK. Here is the first part of Bill O'Reilly's "interview" with Barack Obama. First, you will understand the "interview" being in quotation marks when I reference any person, Chris Wallace included, who works for FoxNews and talks to someone. I don't consider most of them journalists. My 'credentials' are nowhere near as good as theirs but I suspect that I may have more talent than most of these talking point regurgitators.

With that spew against FoxNews done, I have one other before the interview. It is utter nonsense that you can embed just about anything off of Fox's site but Bill O'Reilly. Apparently he is stupid and doesn't understand how the internet works. How allowing the embedding of your material can increase viewership. It is why I rarely embed anything from Fox. Comedy Central finally got this! You can't Bill?

Hopefully the video stays up. You can find it on your own at Fox's website. I won't provide any help on that one. They won't help themselves, they aren't getting it from me.

Now, you only have to stomach listening to Bill for about seven minutes here, I know it's hard but go ahead:

I thought that, so far Barack Obama has handled himself very well. He was close to ripping off Bill's leg and beating him with it at one point, but he held back nicely. I am glad this is getting split up. I really can't handle this guys voice for more than 5-10 minutes at a time.

I understand the "why" of this whole thing. I don't think that Barack Obama has much to gain with this interview other than the fact that they can't say he's afraid to come on after this. I suppose that is enough in itself. But wow, you have to sit down for that long with Bill O'Reilly to be President? I couldn't do it.

I will attempt to bring parts deux and trois to you as well after they air (next week)?

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Nancy Wilson's pissed

2008-09-05T09:49:00.004-04:00

Ann and Nancy Wilson, the sister's who formed the core of the rock band Heart, issued a statement yesterday afternoon angrily denouncing the use of their song Barracuda on Wednesday night for Governor Sarah PalinEW has this story.

Well, the Republicans used it again last night after Governor Palin joined Senator John McCain after the completion of his speech. Boy was Nancy pissed. She and Ann issued another joint statement:

"Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image......"

I'd print more of the statement, but EW is saying that the statement is 'exclusive', which, though it strikes me as vaguely absurd, I will avoid any issues there.

I had known about the Wilsons displeasure with the use of Barracuda before last nights speech. There were even rumors of a cease and desist letter being sent but that does not appear to be the case. I did, therefore find it odd that they would continue to use it.

Isn't Sarah Palin getting enough bad press? Does she have to go and steal a song from Heart?

Why can't politicians use songs from people who like them? Ronald Reagan used Born in the USA for his 1984 campaign despite the fact that a)Bruce Springsteen hated him and b) if you ever listened to the lyrics beyond the "Born in the USA" part, it was a completely inappropriate song for his candidacy anyway!

It's amusing that Republicans, in particular, like to use songs that have lyrics that denigrate many of the same things that they stand for. It's like they can't be bothered to listen. Hey, wait a minute, there might be a theme there.....

Can we please get permission for this stuff people! Everyone else has to do it. You aren't above everyone else.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Palin Sex Scandal

2008-09-05T08:48:00.003-04:00

No, no, no. Not that one, this one:

In So-Called Sarah Palin Sex Scandal Shocker, National Enquirer Claims Vice Presidential Nominee Had an Affair
The National Enquirer claims Sarah Palin had an affair with her husband's business partner.
View more »

Who knows if there is anything to this one. I didn't really think there was anything to the John Edwards story when they broke it. Mabye they have this one right also. Maybe not.

What amuses me is the whole holier than thou attitude of the McCain camp. Steve Schmidt:

"The smearing of the Palin family must end," he told the press.

Dude! You studied at the knee of Karl Rove! Karl wore out our tolerance for this kind of double standard. Cut it the hell out. For double standard evidence against the right and the McCain campaign see Jon Stewart video I already posted here.

The fun, if that is what you call this, will apparently go on for two more months. Unless, of course, McCain does what McGovern did and wimps out on his backing of her. Doesn't sound like something he'd do, but this is definitely not the John McCain I knew eight or fifteen years ago.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

First Thoughts - McCain Speech

2008-09-04T23:14:00.005-04:00

My real first thought here is that I finally heard a little bit of the guy I kind of liked eight years ago.

My second thought: I didn't hear enough of that guy.

This speech was pretty good, but, again it mostly pandered to his base. It was a rehash of 2004 with the emphasis on national security, safety, and who do you trust to be commander in chief. That makes a lot of sense for him. He is a war hero with what most people would consider great national security credentials.

Problem is, this is 2008. That stuff still flies with the base. It rather farther down on the food chain with most of the electorate.

Education is the civil rights issue of this century.

What the heck does that mean? One doesn't anyone in the Republican party get that using weak analogues like this denigrate the original issue? Or maybe they do?

I know some of you have been left behind in the changing economy and it often seems your government hasn't even noticed. Government assistance for unemployed workers was designed for the economy of the 1950s. That's going to change on my watch.

Josh Marshall at TPM seems to think John McCain is calling for the abolition of unemployment insurance with this line. I didn't quite get that here but a) I can see where you might and b) I may not be reading this right. I thought it was a bit more about expanding job retraining, but, given the lack of specifics throughout this speech, how would I know?

They really need to reteach the man to smile. It seems forced every damn time he does it. At then he puts it away real quick. Not an asset on TV.

I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it.

My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them. My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.

A brief bit of the large swaths of debunked boilerplate that made up the vast majority of this speech. Every one of these points has been debunked as either made up or grossly exaggerated over the last week multiple times.

The Republicans think they have become masters of repeating the lie until it becomes truth. Problem is, they don't repeat enough. Now, George W. Bush, well, if you asked him what he had for breakfast four years ago he would have replied "9/11". He figured out how to work the talking points into every single paragraph he uttered.

The McCain people just aren't as driven with their message. Thus, they will get called on the lie. People will recognize it for a lie. It won't get repeated enough.

Plus, after eight years, people have gotten pretty used to, and sick of, Republican political operatives creating their own reality by repeating whatever it is they want the public to believe over and over until it finally is truth.

I will conceded these points:

John McCain has a great finish to that speech. Classic and will definitely fire up his base.

John McCain will get some kind of bump from that speech. I don't think he catches up to Obama in the next week though.

The 'uniter' McCain is showing up too late to this party. He may even destroy and remaining chance he's got if he tries to do that. I thought things like this were real dangerous for him given how much he's cozied to the right:

Instead of rejecting good ideas because we didn't think of them first, let's use the best ideas from both sides. Instead of fighting over who gets the credit, let's try sharing it. This amazing country can do anything we put our minds to. I will ask Democrats and Independents to serve with me. And my administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability.

The right doesn't care for that stuff. The right wants partisan. That's some dangerous stuff to try to woo back the middle! You might just lose the right along with the middle if you keep that up!

Bottom line: we heard nothing new here. He is a war hero. He deserves our respect and admiration for his service to our country. There were no specifics in this speech. He paid lip service, barely, to helping the middle class. Again, absolutely no specifics.

At least Barack Obama put some numbers on things and had better fleshed out proposals in his speech.

I think he gets a little bump, but they better have some much better specifics ready for the debate or he's in trouble. Obama won't even have to call him on it. The moderators will.

UPDATE: In case you didn't see the speech, and you still want too despite my comments ;-), here is the full video of Senator John S McCain III acceptance speech:

(Note: I orginally posted the official RNC video of the speech. But since UStream, what they use instead of YouTube, likes to behave funny, like play automatically instead of having to be manually started, I have replaced it. I apologize for any annoyance. I will never trust the Republicans to use modern technology again.)

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Palin Video

2008-09-04T22:59:00.005-04:00

The Sarah Palin Introductory video that didn't get to air last night:

(Note: I orginally posted the official RNC video of the speech. But since UStream, what they use instead of YouTube, likes to behave funny, like play automatically instead of having to be manually started, I have replaced it. I apologize for any annoyance. I will never trust the Republicans to use modern technology again.)

My first thought is that this looks like a spoof. Part of the problem is the production values. It's a glorified slide show/powerpoint presentation.

My second thought is, this isn't getting any better.

Third thought, maybe having to drop this 'video' from the prime network slot of 10-11 EDT wasn't any accident last night. If it was, I think that John McCain and Sarah Palin benefited from it not airing.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Palin's Address to the Alaskan Independence Party Convention

2008-09-04T14:52:00.005-04:00

OK. First we'll do the sensationalist part. Here is the address Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin made to the Alaskan Independence Party:

(Clarification: I am not responsible for the annotations (blurbs) in the video. I do not necessarily agree or disagree with them.)

Now. To be fair. The current platform of the Alaskan Independence Party does not call for independence:

Platform

We pledge to exert our best efforts to accomplish the following:

To effect full compliance with the constitutions of the United States of America and the State of Alaska.
To support and defend States' Rights, Individual Rights, Property Rights, and the Equal Footing Doctrine as guaranteed by the constitutions of the United States of America and the state of Alaska.
To advocate the convening of a State Constitutional Convention at the constitutionally designated 10 year interval.
To reinforce the unalienable rights endowed by our Creator to Alaska law, by eliminating the use of the word "privilege" in the Alaska statutes.
To amend the Constitution of the State of Alaska so as to re-establish the rights of all Alaskan residents to entry upon all public lands within the state, and to acquire private property interest there in, under fair and reasonable conditions. Such property interest shall include surface and sub-surface patent.
To foster a constitutional amendment abolishing and prohibiting all property taxes.
To seek the complete repatriation of the public lands, held by the federal government, to the state and people of Alaska in conformance with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, of the federal constitution.
To prohibit all bureaucratic regulations and judicial rulings purporting to have the effect of law, except that which shall be approved by the elected legislature.
To preserve and protect the Alaska Permanent Fund, Permanent fund earnings, earnings reserve fund and individual Permanent Fund Dividends.
To provide for the direct popular election of the attorney general, all judges, and magistrates.
To provide for the development of unrestricted, statewide, surface transportation and utility corridors as needed by the public or any individual.
To affirm and assert every possible right-of-way established under R.S. 2477 of July 26, 1866, before its repeal by the Federal Land Management Policy Act of October 21, 1976.
To support the right of the individual to keep and bear arms.
To support the complete abolition of the concept of sovereign or governmental immunity, so as to restore accountability for public servants.
To support the rights of parents to privately or home school their children.
To support the privatization of government services.
To oppose the borrowing of money by government for any purposes other than for capital improvements.
To strengthen the traditional family and support individual accountability without government interference or regulation.
To support the right of jurors to judge the law as well as the facts, according to their conscience.
To support "Jobs for Alaskans...First!"

Here's a link to their "Issues". The items in red did not make the platform.

On the other hand. The stated goal of Alaskan Independence Party is:

The Alaskan Independence Party's goal is the vote we were entitled to in 1958, one choice from among the following four alternatives:

Remain a Territory.
Become a separate and Independent Nation.
Accept Commonwealth status.
Become a State.
The call for this vote is in furtherance of the dream of the Alaskan Independence Party's founding father, Joe Vogler, that Alaskans achieve independence under a minimal government, fully responsive to the people, and promoting a peaceful and lawful means of resolving differences.

Again, to be fair, this is not an out and out call for Independence, although that is the philosophy under which the party was founded. It is really a call for the ability to vote on one of the four options. And, no, the option for Alaskans to vote to become a separate nation in 1958 was not on the ballot.

Still, for John McCain, a person running with a "Country First" theme, it seems very odd that the vetting team would let this pass muster. At the very least they should have had some counterattack at the ready. I have seen no such effective counter as of yet. Of course, this also assumes that she was vetted. That, apparently, depends on what your idea of vetting for the next in command of the free world entails.

I am getting to the point where I think that the "Oops, we didn't really vet her properly!" strategy may cause less damage here for McCain. If you did vet her, and you knew all of this stuff, and you still picked her, then everyone has to start wondering about your ability to make decisions Senator McCain.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Sarah Palin and the Gender Card

2008-09-04T14:19:00.004-04:00

Watching the conventions, it can be difficult to watch Jon Stewart and other shows. Apparently, I missed this last night, I strongly encourage you to set aside the 5 and a half minutes to watch this. A masterful showing of the hypocritical double standards of the right and the McCain campaign in the last week:

If you just watched Karl Rove, Dick Morris, Bill O'Reilly, Nancy Pfotenhauer, and, of course, Sarah Palin than you too are saying, "Wow." If you didn't, well, OK, be the sheep the Republican Party thinks you are.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

The Rebuttals and Debunks

2008-09-04T11:45:00.002-04:00

I said last night:

She attacked on a lot of fronts with a lot of inconsistencies and inaccuracies. I wonder if the McCain camp is hoping to swamp the Obama-Biden camp, the media and the blogs so much with refuting and debunking her speech that they take some time off from digging in her past.

For those of you interested in the details of the numerous inconsistencies and inaccuracies in Governor Sarah Palin's speech, Hilzoy has one very good post at Political Animal and Mark Kleiman has an even more complete post over at The Reality Based Community.

Heres a little taste on a subject I have not yet touched upon:

PALIN: “Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.”

REALITY: UNDER PALIN, WASILLA GOVERNMENT SPENDING & DEBT SKYROCKETED.

Total Government Expenditures Increased 63 Percent Under Palin. In fiscal 2003—the last fiscal year Palin approved the budget—the total government expenditures of Wasilla, excluding capital outlays, were $7,046,325. In fiscal 1996—the year before Palin took control of the
budget—the expenditures were $4,317,947. The increase was 63 percent. [Wasilla Comprehensive Annual Financial Report 2003, Table 1]

Palin Supported Increasing Wasilla Sales Tax From 2 to 2.5 Percent to Build $14.7 Million Sports Center. “Wasilla residents have given the go ahead to building a new multiuse sports center in town and to raising the city sales tax to pay for it. With the final votes counted
Friday, residents voted 306 to 286 in favor of a measure to raise the city sales tax from 2 percent to 2.5 percent to pay the estimated $14.7 million cost of building the center…Mayor Sarah Palin, who supported the measure, said the tight vote will motivate city officials to keep a close eye on the budget for the center.” [Anchorage Daily News, 3/9/02]

Palin Left Behind Almost $19 Million In Long-Term Debt, Compared to None Before She Was Mayor. In fiscal 2003—the last fiscal year Palin approved the budget—the bonded long-term debt was $18,635,000. In fiscal 1996—the year before Palin took control of the budget—there was no general obligation debt. [Wasilla Comprehensive Annual Financial Report 2003, Table 10]

Have fun reading if you wish. I will not waste too much time detailing it here. After all, we have a whole new fish to fry tonight!

If you would like a taste of the consistency of John McCain please, avail yourself of this link to The Carpetbagger Report.

A tiny taste of that one:

Foreign Policy

7. McCain was for kicking Russia out of the G8 before he was against it. Now, he’s for it again.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Reform?

2008-09-04T01:46:00.004-04:00

I hate re-posting in entirety, but this needs it:

NEXT
Starting tomorrow, the Democrats can and must come back hard on this issue of "reform". McCain/Palin reform is just ... well, there's nothing. It's an overused phrase but it is all rhetoric. Not only has their party been in power for 8 years. But every policy pushed by John McCain is the one embraced by George Bush. Economic policy, tax policy, Iraq policy, social issues, Bush style politicking, everything. I'm not sure how many people agree with me. But I think the rhetorical 'reform' of McCain/Palin is like a big, imposing and very brittle vase. A few good hits and it'll break apart in a thousand pieces.

They've been in power for eight years. They support all of Bush's policies. And they say they're bringing reform? Smack it with ridicule and an undertone of contempt and it will fall right apart.

--Josh Marshall

Joshua Micah Marshall is first and foremost a journalist. He may have a leaning that is "hard-a-port", yet, it would do many, especially those to port, good to follow his lead.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Which Party Is Sexist?

2008-09-04T00:56:00.003-04:00

Jae C. Hong/AP Photo
The Hottest VP from the Coolest State.

That is not sexist? You want to level generic charges at Barack Obama's campaign, which has not challenged you on any sexist level, saying they have challenged whether you can raise a family and run for and serve as VP.

Meanwhile your minions are wearing these buttons on the convention floor?

Who is really the sexist here?

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

First Impressions

2008-09-03T23:23:00.005-04:00

Governor Sarah Palin was much stronger than I thought she'd be. Problem: I had my bar set pretty low.

She attacked on a lot of fronts with a lot of inconsistencies and inaccuracies. I wonder if the McCain camp is hoping to swamp the Obama-Biden camp, the media and the blogs so much with refuting and debunking her speech that they take some time off from digging in her past.

What the heck is with the Harry Truman reference? Do you want to remind us that McCain could croak and you might be behind that desk in the Oval Office? Doesn't strike me as a great image to bring up for you, yet.

What is this about Russia's objective in Georgia being the pipeline? Yes, that is a valid point if you are a pundit or if you are a politician not in the White House or running for President/Vice President. It is a very dangerous thing for the official nominee of a major American political party, to one of those offices, to publicly state in a very public speech. Tread carefully here.

Overall, came across well. Style was well suited for the base that they are aiming for. Chris Matthews said it well when he said that he was not reminded once during the speech of Hillary Clinton. She will not attract those voters. That the McCain camp seems to understand that is all well and good for them.

I thought the loss of the mini-movie intro might have been bad but she acquitted herself well.

Some others thoughts:

Talking Points Memo - Josh Marshall
David Schraub: Sarah Palin: Can You Feel The Energy?
You absolutely have to read Andrew Sullivan's live Blog on the speech: Live-Blogging Palin
Over at Donklephant: Game on.

I'll will, I am sure I will have more thoughts over the next day or sixty.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

I Love Them Earmarks!

2008-09-03T20:16:00.004-04:00

The Washington Independent via TPM:

Every once in awhile, though, something pops up and grabs your attention. Take, for example, Wasilla City Council Informational Memorandum 99-62, prepared on June 14, 1999. This little gem outlines some of the state-funded projects that Wasilla City secured that year, including $1.2 million for storm water treatment and $605,000 for pedestrian pathways.
Then, slapped in the margin, former Mayor Sarah Palin — reformer extraordinaire — scribbled the following message:
FYI This does not include our nearly one million Dollars from the Feds for our Airport Paving Project.

We did well!!!

Yes they have evidence.

Great reformer credentials? No doubt more evidence of her zeal for earmarks, when she was Governor of Alaska, before she was against them, will turn up. Obviously, she didn't greatly dislike them as mayor. Great work.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Not exactly the environmentalists choice

2008-09-03T16:27:00.003-04:00

America's newest Vice-Presidential candidate was involved in instituting a "cash payment", as opposed to using the term bounty, which would have been overtly illegal, to those who "bring in the left forelegs of wolves taken from any of several designated control areas." She and the State of Alaska had to be taken to court to end this.

Here is the full original press release from Defenders of Wildlife:

March 27, 2007
Defenders of Wildlife Asks Judge to Shut Down Palin's Wolf Bounty Program

Bounty Law Repealed in 1984 – Alaska Does Not Have Regulatory Authority to Impose New Incentives

Anchorage, AK -- Today Defenders of Wildlife, the Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Alaska Chapter of the Sierra Club asked the Alaska Superior Court to shut down Governor Palin's $150-per-wolf bounty program citing the fact that Alaska's bounty laws were repealed in 1984 and the State has no current legal authority to implement the bounties.

"The Governor is overstepping her legal authority by offering cash payments for each wolf killed by aerial gunners," stated Tom Banks, Defenders of Wildlife's Alaska Associate. "That's a bounty by anyone's standards regardless of what they call it."

Hoping to boost the number of wolves killed this year by permitees, Palin announced the state would pay $150 for each kill. According to an Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) news release, the bounty was instituted to "motivate permittees to redouble their efforts and to help offset the high cost of aviation fuel, ADF&G will offer cash payments to those who return biological specimens to the department." The state's press release, issued last Wednesday, indicates that "Permittees will be paid $150 when they bring in the left forelegs of wolves taken from any of several designated control areas."

"Governor Palin needs to take a close look at wildlife management practice in her state and restore the use of sound science," concludes Banks. "She said would heed the will of the public, but it's increasingly clear she's only listening to that segment that is willing to sacrifice Alaska's natural heritage for the benefit of a few."

The judge is expected to make a decision fairly quickly.

Defenders and the co-plaintiffs expressed an additional concern that the bounty offered by the State will encourage the illegal killing of wolves outside the control area.

Defenders of Wildlife is represented by Mike Frank of Trustees for Alaska, a public interest law firm, and Valerie Brown, an Anchorage attorney in private practice.

Couple of weeks later:

April 13, 2007

Defenders Pleased As Alaska's Wolf Bounty Ends; Concern as State Targets Black Bears

Statement by Tom Banks, Defenders of Wildlife

Anchorage, AK -- In a status report filed by the state with the court on April 6 and received by Defenders of Wildlife and the other plaintiffs earlier this week, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) stated it had immediately terminated the bounty program in response to the temporary restraining order and had decided not to pursue any further “incentive- type” payments such as aviation fuel for the remainder of this predator control season. The report also stated that the Board of Game has given no indication that it intends to meet to adopt emergency regulations to allow bounties. Following is a statement from Tom Banks, Defenders of Wildlife Alaska associate.

“Defenders of Wildlife is very pleased to learn of the state's action. The Commissioner of ADF&G and the Governor violated the law in implementing the bounty program. While we are pleased with this victory, we are deeply troubled by the recent expansion of the predator control program in Unit 16B, an 11,000 square mile area north and northwest of Anchorage, to allow hunters to kill up to 1,400 of the estimated 1,500 to 2,000 black bears in this area. Most troubling is that sows and cubs are being targeted for the first time and the timing of the hunts could mean that cubs born this year could be left to starve if their mothers are killed. Lastly, airplane use is already outrageous. It'll be even more so if this expansion goes forward."

Nevertheless, George Miller (D-CA) felt compelled to introduce legislation to close the loopholes that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was trying to exploit in the 1984 law.

And, apparently, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game still is having problems following the law on this score.

Statement by Tom Banks, Alaska Representative, Defenders of Wildlife - Regarding the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's illegal killing of 14 wolf pups in Game Management Unit 9

I'll spare you the full text this post is getting long enough. Click through though.

Finally, so you can get a feeling for exactly what this entails, here is a Defenders of Wildlife video on aeriel wolf hunting in Alaska:

So there you have it. Yet another example of the leadership qualities of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Haven't we had enough of administration that have to be taken to court to do the right thing?

I think she may not get the wolf vote.

(Yes, I realize that just about everything is sourced from one site/organization but it is easy to read and follow and also easily verified.)

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Pawlenty: Not just a "base" pick

2008-09-03T11:17:00.004-04:00

I am rather amused by the tag line for this video clip on MSNBC. Their line? "Pawlenty: Palin was a base choice" Why is this amusing? Listen to the first twenty seconds of the video:

"I challenge the premise that this was a base pick." Seems a little counter to what the headline was. Yes, he does, properly, acknowledge that it is a good pick regarding the base. But, much like a lot of Republicans, he then tries to recast Palin as someone who will appeal to masses.

This is what is getting the Republicans in trouble. She isn't a pick that will appeal to the masses. This is exactly why she excites the base. She is an extreme right wing pick. Trying to recast her will damage everyone's credibility. Scratch that, is damaging everyone's credibility.

Republican's are really good at sticking to the talking points. So good, it is starting to scare me. I am now convinced that they will say anything that you put in front of them, over and over and over.

It makes no sense that Tim Pawlenty can defend her as a pick from an intellectually honest point of view. All he is doing is repeating talking points.

Speaking of just blathering the same talking points. Here's Rudy Giuliani on the Today show:

It simply does not get more ideologically different within the Republican party than Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani folks. Nevertheless, here he is defending her as a selection at every turn. Do you, yes YOU, honestly think Rudy Giuliani privately thinks that she has the national security credentials to be President? Now...be honest. Of course not!

Yet, here we are. And every, I mean EVERY, point that Pawlently, Giuliani, Tucker Bounds et al. are defending and/or saying are off limits are EXACTLY what they would be attacking if the roles were reversed.

The idea that 1 year and nine months as Governor of Alaska and six years as mayor of a small city, that has a population of just over half of what any ward in my own small city of 60 odd thousand people has, makes you more experienced than either Barack Obama or Joe Biden, is insulting the intelligence of the American people.

Haven't we let the Republican party and their unprincipled talking points insult our intelligence enough over the last eight years. Do we really need this too?

BTW, Bristol Palin's pregnancy is fair game because of her mother's staunch pro-life position on abortion, abstinence only teaching in school, and general opposition to contraceptives. All of this has some bearing on Bristol's current condition.

Also, and I will revisit this at greater length at some point, but who puts their kid through this? You are really going to blame the media? You have some seriously flawed judgement if you think that the media is to blame here.

Sarah Palin should have seen this coming from the media. If she didn't, she isn't fit to be running for Vice-President. If she did, what kind of mother is she that she did this knowing full well what her 17 year old would have to go through?
John McCain should have seen this coming from the media. If he didn't see this coming or if he didn't know about this before asking her to run, he isn't fit to be running for President. If he did, what does it say about him that he would willingly allow a woman to put their child through this by asking her to be his running mate.

I cannot imagine putting my child through this. I would have had to refuse the offer. I would have expected this to happen if I were in Sarah Palin's situation, even being a man. Does that make me more cynical or more realistic? Either way, I think that my decision would have been the mark of a better parent.

Who knows. Maybe I have this all screwed up. I think not though.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Define "masculine"

2008-09-03T09:32:00.005-04:00

I have a feeling tonight will not go as well with independents and wobbly Dems as John McCain and Sarah Palin might hope. One reason? Well, how about this from MSNBC:

Not anticipating that McCain would choose a woman as his running mate, the speech that was prepared in advance was "very masculine," according to campaign manager Rick Davis, and "we had to start from scratch."

Is was so masculine that you had to start from scratch? I still don't think these people get it. When you have to completely rewrite a speech because the gender giving it is not the same gender you wrote it for originally, then you haven't gotten past your own gender issues.

Exactly how much would you have to rewrite a generic, assumed to be for a male, Democratic stump speech for Hillary Clinton? Nancy Pelosi? Dianne Feinstein? Usually not much. What? Was it peppered with references to football playing and wrestling and such, I suppose?

So why do the Republicans need to completely rewrite a speech that ostensibly was written for a Tim Pawlenty or Mitt Romney? How masculine was this speech?

Within the answer to that lies the difference between a Democratic female and this Republican female. I say this because I cannot imagine that it would have to be changed extensively for an Elizabeth Dole or Christine Todd Whitman either.

I would love to get my hands on the original speech. I am not sure that will be necessary because I think we will be able to tell a lot about that speech from the one given tonight.

The Republican leadership does not know how a strong female political leader should act. They didn't watch the Margaret Thatcher that Reagan so admired. They will screw this up.

Democratic, and even most Republican, women politicians are not a whole lot different than their male counterparts. The article says:

Palin is likely to emphasize her areas of policy expertise -- particularly energy and political reform -- rather than focusing on her biography or gender

.

That would be good, except that if you have to rewrite a speech because it is too "masculine" it tends to undermine that concept.

I have privately commented that Sarah Palin gave me the distinct feel of Dolores Umbridge of Harry Potter fame when I watched her give her introductory speech. If I get that feeling again tonight, well, the conservative, particularly the religious right, base may get excited, but I have a feeling it will turn off a whole big chunk of the middle that John McCain needs to win this.

There has also been some speculation that maybe McCain is throwing this. I don't think so, but he may have done so accidentally. There are a number of sources that seem to indicate that McCain wanted Joe Lieberman or, failing that, Tom Ridge as his VP. The right wing said 'no' to any pro-choice pick, which both of them represent. McCain said 'no' to the plain vanilla/supposedly safe picks of Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney. So, instead McCain said, "Hey Right! You wanted a rabid social conservative? Here you go! Let's see how this dog hunts!"

Judging from what appeared to many to be pained expressions during Sarah Palin's speech last Friday, he may have been regretting his decision even last Friday. He has a history of making quick decisions, not necessarily right, but quick. McCain on decisions from his book, Worth the Fighting For:

I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can. Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.

This is the John McCain we're going to have America. Expect a whole lot more of this in the future. If that's what you want from your commander in chief, by all means elect this guy. I, personally, might feel safer with GW. At least the advisors to tell him to do stupid things think for a moment before acting.

He didn't intentionally sabotage his own candidacy. He may, nevertheless, have sabotaged it.

Sarah Palin may recover some from the last week. Tonight's speech could go real well. But, no matter what, she has views, opinions and a record that is very far to the right of your average American. If everything else goes well, the McCain campaign still has to make the working class and independents and disaffected Hillary voters swallow that record. We won't even touch the experience thing.

I don't see it happening.

Of course, I didn't forsee the American people electing a over aged frat boy who couldn't even pronounce 'nuclear' in 2000. Nor did I forsee them reelecting a guy who, very obviously, misled them into a war that costs us $120 BILLION dollars a year to this day, and still can't pronounce nuclear, in 2004.

So, of course, maybe I'm way off base. I hope not. Please, God, I hope not!

The fact the the Republicans had to rework a speech for it's masculinity? Well, that gives me hope that I'm not off base.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

McCain v CNN

2008-09-02T17:25:00.005-04:00

Apparently, John McCain has cancelled an appearance on Larry King tonight. It apparently has something to do with spokesperson Tucker Bounds' inability to hold his own with Campbell Brown on CNN last night:

Fun stuff! She kept pushing for exactly what it is that Sarah Palin does in her role as commander of the state National Guard that actually qualifies as foreign policy/national security experience. It was actually fun watching a reporter do their job and not just swallowing the line of BS with a smile.

Of course, as was reported by AP via TPM, just to make it more official:

Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, considers Palin "extremely responsive and smart" and says she is in charge when it comes to in-state services, such as emergencies and natural disasters where the National Guard is the first responder.

But, in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, he said he and Palin play no role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations.

This is something that is generally well known. It is, however, ignored when you are trying to dig up credentials for your unqualified yet 'ready to step in on day 1' Vice-Presidential choice.

Still going with the just Wow! reaction.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Pledge of Our Fathers

2008-09-02T11:58:00.006-04:00

Here is a George Bushesque answer by Sarah Palin to a questionnaire from Eagle Forum Alaska for the 2006 Alaskan gubernatorial candidates (note that SP=Sarah Palin):

11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
JB: No.
SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

Of course, as is pointed out at ThinkProgress:

"....the words “Under God” didn’t appear in the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954; the founding fathers had nothing to do with them. The Pledge itself, in fact, wasn’t even written until 1892."

Oh goodie! Maybe she did go to Yale and Harvard Business School! Her answer certainly has the ring of some president or something who did.

There are also some other interesting answers here. Such as this:

1. Complete the sentence by checking the applicable phrases (you can check more than one).
Abortion should be:
Banned throughout entire pregnancy.
Legal to save the life of the mother.
Legal in case of rape and incest.
Legal if the baby is handicapped.
Legal if the baby has a genetic defect.
Legal in the first trimester.
Legal in the second trimester.
Legal in the third trimester.
Other:__________________

JB: Banned throughout entire pregnancy.
Legal to save the life of the mother.
SP: I am pro-life. With the exception of a doctor’s determination that the mother’s life would end if the pregnancy continued. I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society, we cannot condone ending an innocent’s life.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

Aside from what should be my obvious disagreement on her position, it is apparent she could not even follow simple instructions by selecting from the list, which opponent John Binkley (JB) was capable of doing.

Of course, her running mate has a habit of not answering in a straightforward manner as well, "Well, Jay, in all seriousness now, I spent five and a half years without a house, or a bed............"

They may be made for each other.

Hat tip to Plunderbund.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

New Rules: John Edwards

2008-09-01T19:41:00.002-04:00

I really have no idea if this video will stay up. Also if something of better quality comes along I shall add on but, in the meantime, here are Bill Maher's New Rules for Aug 29, 2008:

I have made no secret of my early support for John Edwards here or on the now defunct wanderingdonkey.com. I have posted on this earlier here and with the video of his Nightline interview. You can believe the guy or not. That's fine. The choice is up to you.

I was really happy that Bill Maher, libertarian stalwart, though he has been leaning liberal as well the last few years, call out the Democratic Party on their exclusion of this populist. They need populists for Jefferson's sake!

Look. What he did was really crappy. Really crappy. I would not expect, nor could I expect to be forgiven by my wife or my circle of friends or family for what he did, were it myself.

Nevertheless, his wife has come to terms with this! (I won't say forgive because I can't find her using this word.) She has stood by him.

Why?

Well, the guy is undeniably attractive. And, assuming he actually believes in the causes he actually champions, he is their greatest champion.

I can only assume she actually believes in him just as the rest of us would like to believe in him. Why aren't we taking her lead?

The poor, as Bill Maher suggests, are getting the short shaft in this election. This is because of him and because of his absence.

It was his issue. Hillary and Barack are afraid to touch on the subject because it was his issue. They are afraid of the potential taint.

Meanwhile, it is those most in need who lose out.

Leave it to a self-described Libertarian to point out that the Democrats are failing to use what Bill Maher described as, "the strongest voice on poverty since Robert Kennedy."

Ouch! That does sting. And it stings all the more because he's right.

Heck, you could even describe the guy as the greatest Democratic populist of the last thirty years before Barack Obama.

I listened to this man, four years ago, in person, in Mentor, Ohio, my current hometown. Until then, I had liked him. Afterwards, I wanted to elect him president. He wasn't running for that spot, but, I figured he would have a shot by that point, in either four or eight years. He is that magnetic in person.

He spoke to the hopes, and yes, the fears, of ordinary Ohioans and Americans at a time when the economy wasn't even as scary as it is now. Maybe that was the problem.

Now, the Democratic Party has tossed him aside, as he tries to rebuild his life and credibility.

I agree. His credibility on the issue of poverty has not suffered incredibly. Having him speak, as well as his wife, would have brought a whole range of issues not adequately adressed at the convention into focus. You could have dovetailed Elizabeth with healthcare VERY nicely.

Anybody who has ever been within five feet of this man knows he will return. He is just too charismatic. Heck, Gary Hart has returned, this guy may have even more to offer.

I know the scandal was real fresh. But I agree with Bill that the Democrats missed an opportunity here, and the poor of this nation lost a voice, because of one man's mistake.

I look forward to a time when John and Elizabeth can put all of this behind them and continue to speak for those with no voice in this country.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Obama: People's families are off limits

2008-09-01T17:25:00.004-04:00

Exactly what else would you expect Barack Obama to say.

He cannot say anything other than that. He, I am sure, truly believes that. I would love for today's media to be like that.

This story will keep going though. It doesn't need any fuel from the Obama campaign. It doesn't even need the blogosphere of the left to fuel it. The media, for better or worse, will pursue it.

Again, as I said at the end of my previous post, I cannot understand how John McCain and Sarah Palin could not have understood this. These are professional politicians. They don't understand that the media is going to grab and hold on to the pregnant 17 year old daughter of the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate presumptive? Have they ever heard of Jamie Lynn Spears?

Sure, you say, that's tabloid crap! Um, this is a presidential election. The mainstream media let the National Enquirer beat them on the John Edwards affair. They aren't going to let the tabloids be the only ones with stories on this.

Sad, but true, this will be an ongoing story. Again, if McCain-Palin didn't know this, they have bad judgement. If they did, well, it is worse than just bad judgement.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

OMG WTF?!

2008-09-01T13:48:00.008-04:00

Most of you will get what the headline means and, yes, it does have to do with Sarah Palin, her pregnant seventeen year old daughter and John McCain.

(For those who dont: OMG=Oh My God! WTF=What the F&*%!)

Yes, you read that right. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin confirmed that her seventeen year old unwed daughter is pregnant. See here, here, here, here and here.

John McCain knew about about this before he selected her!

From MSNBC:

Senior McCain campaign officials said McCain knew of the daughter's pregnancy when he selected Palin last week as his vice presidential running mate, deciding that it did not disqualify the 44-year-old governor in any way.

Let's keep going with the confess to the press on Labor Day fest, shall we?

Fox News/AP:

News also broke Monday about Todd Palin being arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol in 1986 when he was 22. Sarah and Todd Palin were high school sweethearts so they were dating at the time.

Now, I'm not big on punishing anyone for what they did in their youth. So the last part doesn't really get me all that much. There are, however, people to whom that will matter some.

The same, all around, largely goes for the first part as well.

Now, onto the bigger problem.

This is not about Sarah Palin or her family. I am sure they are good people. I do not blame her for accepting when John McCain asked. When the gold presents itself you should grab it!

John McCain has nominated a person who:

was mayor of a town of 8,471 (2005, although the 2000 census total of 5,470 is probably more accurate for her term) for six years from 1996-2002
was Chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, a pretty powerful appointment, for about a year from 2003 until she resigned in protest in Jan. 2004
has been Governor of the State of Alaska for 1 year 8 months and 29 days, counting today
had a scandal upon becoming mayor of Wasila because she fired the Chief of Police who claimed she did so because he supported her opponent, and subsequently sued her. The court ruled in her favor but only because it said she did not have to have a reason to fire the Chief.
is involved in a scandal involving the firing of Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan which, he claims, was due to his failure to bow to pressure to fire Gov. Palin's ex-brother in law who is a state trooper
has a daughther who is seventeen, unwed, and five months pregnant (so much for abstinence only)
well...we just won't touch the husband thing, there is more than enough other stuff

Sen. John McCain would have us believe that he believes the person above is qualified to step in and be commander in cheif should anything happen to him. He is not a spring chicken, having just turned 72, is a cancer survivor, and both his father and grandfather, good admirals that they were, never made it past 70. (To be fair, his great-grandfather made it to 83.)

John McCain has made, to many people, an obvious error in judgement with this pick for his running mate. He either did know about all of this and still thought this was the most qualified person to serve as backup commander in chief of the most powerful country in the world. Or..his campaign didn't thoroughly vet this candidate for vice-president and Sen. McCain picked her without knowing a whole lot about her.

Either way, this is a tremendous failure in judgement. Sen. George S. McGovern got ripped apart for picking Thomas Eagleton. Sen. John McCain is, from what it appears, just beginning to get ripped apart for his pick.

Again, this isn't about Sarah Palin and her family. It is about the judgement and competence of a Senator who wants the American people to elect him President of the United States.

Thus far, his judgment seems to have landed him in the middle of a three ring circus. If he can change that perception, he is a magician.

I don't think John McCain is all that magical.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

P.S. - McCain spokesman Steve Schmidt:

"warned Democrats not to try to use the revelations to their political advantage: "If anyone tries to politicize this, there will be a backlash. One thing I think everyone agrees on is let the kids alone."

In case Mr. Schmidt has forgotten, Karl Rove changed politics. Before 2000, maybe, but this will get politicized. Does Mr. Schmidt expect us to believe that he would not politicize this if it were a 17 year old daughter of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, John Edwards, Al Gore or Joe Lieberman (2000 version)? I think not. I am not saying it's fair but gimme a break. Nice try though.

This is yet another reason that McCain should not have selected Palin if he knew. It is also a reason that she should not have accepted the offer. Both of them were willing to put the child through this? They had to know they would get pounded on this. If they didn't, that tells you yet more about their collective judgement. (I won't even get into what their morals are if they anticipated a firestorm and decided to put a seventeen year old through it.)

Wonder what these numbers will mean for the bump?

2008-08-29T21:38:00.005-04:00

You have to wonder what these ratings will mean for the 'convention bounce?' From Reuters:

Over 38 million Americans tuned in for television coverage of Barack Obama accepting the Democratic nomination for U.S. president on Thursday in what is believed to be the most watched convention speech ever.

and

By comparison, 24.4 million viewers saw the 2004 Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, give his acceptance speech, and fewer still, 21.8 million, tuned in for the final night of the 2000 convention when then-Vice President Al Gore was nominated as the party's standard bearer.

Makes you kind of go WOW! The average Gallup bounce is 5 points. One wonders if for reasons of both quality and quantity Obama's might be bigger?

We'll find out for sure Monday with the release of the regular Gallup Poll.

So far Rasmussen has Obama up 46-43 in their daily tracking poll which does not yet include the speech. It's 49-45 when 'leaners' are included.

Gallup's daily has Obama up 49-41! It also was conducted almost entirely pre-speech.

Those seem to indicate a pretty sizable bounce. One has to wonder what, if anything, Sen. John McCain's selection of Governor Sarah Palin as a running mate will do to affect those numbers.

Wait and see. Wait and see.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern