David Corn

"This is a meme just waiting for MSM attention."

I'm sure MSM wil be on it later this afternoon. Can't McCain's writers control him. It's really disheartening to see a presidential candidate (no matter which party) who can't keep the facts straight. He can't even keep what he believes straight. When you start insulting blocks of voters with what you say and with the way you word things, you know you're in trouble. It's sad.

People who post "MSM" identify themselves as right-winger who have fallen for this myth.

Goebbels did the same thing with his followers: convence them that they couldn't trust any of 100s of media outlets (who are in competition with each other for stories and thus working for DIFFERENT views, not the same). His followers could only follow the media outlets he deemed "not biased against them". In this case, if it's not on Fox (any Rupert Murdoch enterprise), Rush Limbaugh, the Washington Times, and a few others, it can't be trusted, because it's the MSM!

Could be that McSame is just getting old, can't remember things from one day to the next (like Czechosolvakia hasn't been a country for 15 years!).

I personally yearn for the John McCain of 2000, because he WAS different (told the religious right to go away). McSame is just that... he drank the Republican Kool-Aid for a chance at the brass ring.

MSM, my butt.

-- John, with a brain to think things out and not get fed "the party line" from either side.

It is truly extraordinary how incompetent McCain's campaign is turning out to be. He is clearly a terrible manager and profoundly undisciplined individual. It's hard to imagine how he could win. I don't intend any age-related insult here, but watching his candidacy is liking watching the sun go down below the horizon... it gets smaller, smaller, smaller, and you find yourself waiting for that last fragment of a second when it winks out completely...

That moment will obviously be in the first week of November. What else is there to say?

I think it's time to turn our attention to the future...

What are the prospects for victory in Afghanistan if we send two more brigades there (as all candidates and current President agree). In that spectacularly under-resourced war, does such a "mini-surge" have any prospect for success? And how will President Obama address our opponents' sanctuary in Pakistan? Is there really any military solution to our festering conflict and presence there?

How will President Obama deal with our economic challenges? The Bush Administration will leave behind an extraordinary fiscal poison pill.... A fiscal black hole deficit of profound depth... His proposals don't come within a light year of adding up... Will he cut programs or raise taxes? Will he raise taxes on the upper-income and highly-educated middle class folks who've been loyally sending him contributions?

Will he wait until Jan. 20, 2009 to tell Americans just how out-of-sync our current material lifestyles are with global climate realities? If he doesn't do it in the campaign (implying instead that there's some magic technological and job-creating fix that will protect our current comforts), will he do it when he's President? And is just supporting Obama's candidacy really a sufficient act of responsibility for each citizen on this issue?

Will he be truthful with Americans about the direct links between middle-class comforts and working poverty in America? Does he believe the President has any responsibility or role at all to lead and implementing policies that directly make creating and protecting good-paying American jobs a top national priority, or will he continue to rely on the market magic theories of Goolsbee and his other Chicago school mates from the economics department?

(Sorry, no YouTube link included for capt cackle. Am I in the wrong venue for the kind of discussion I'm seeking?)

DC,

Great catch, as always.

Obviously the McCain train is off the tracks when the Moonie rag has to rag him.

I think he is lacking any real support from the Bush crime family other than to read the script they hand him.

Thanks for all of your work and a very interesting topic.

McCain POW bud: Muslims 'going to kill us'

One of John McCain's fellow POW's in Vietnam defended the war in Iraq, saying, "The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us.''

In a phone call with reporters arranged by Republican Party of Florida, Colonel Bud Day added: "I don't intend to kneel and I don't advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn't advocate to anybody that we kneel.''

Muslim leaders have complained that they have been villified as terrorists since the Sept. 11 attacks.

http://tinyurl.com/5skflp

*****

Another new narrative or will Bud go under the bus?

lololo

you find yourself waiting for that last fragment of a second when it winks out completely...Diff July 18, 2008 1:47 PM

Love reading your posts.
Very thought provoking and you seem to ask all the right questions. You're right to ask those questions, because we really don't know what Obama will do. Not much to judge from.

Read today he had 300 foreign policy advisor's.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/us/politics/18advisers.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin.

The poster that originally linked it thought it was impressive because he has a foreign policy team already in place, that will be there on day one. But I guess it depends on how good a team it is.

I almost forget!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWQ5ZMnz25I

A special one . . .

Just for the Hill shills and the PUMA's - maybe it will remind them what they are supporting. (they still don't get it, eh?)

Bill to Obama: Call me

NEW YORK -- Former President Clinton said Thursday he is eager to campaign for Barack Obama whenever the Democrat needs him, but has not given any thought to whether he wants to speak at the party convention in Denver.

''I told him that whenever he wanted me to do it, I was ready, and so it's basically on their timetable,'' Clinton said. ''He's got a lot of things to do between now and the convention, of which this is simply one, so I'll do whatever I'm asked to do, whenever I can do it.''

RELATED STORIESObama rakes it in -- can he keep it up? Obama: The $52 million man Welcome to the Lollapalooza stage ... Obama?! Special section: Barack Obama

Relations between Clinton and Obama have only just began to thaw since Obama defeated the former president's wife in the bruising Democratic primary that ended last month.

Since Obama clinched the nomination, it has remained an open question as to what role Clinton would play in the campaign.

http://tinyurl.com/5bvjgw

"I predict that they will make an attempt as we get in to the election season to make more of these spectacular kinds of attacks which they're still capable of doing," he said. "The suicide bombers, et cetera, would not surprise me and we've already found out that they're going to try and step up their attacks and try and do things in a more spectacular fashion so that they can erode the support of the Maliki government."

http://tinyurl.com/6jadnb

*****

... memo to our enemies ...

You too can hold sway over our elections, all you have to do is attack on command, er um I mean attack on your own volition right before the election, er um I mean at a time of your choosing. .

Signed

John McCain

McCain's no liar, he just can't believe he can make a mistake. And he doesn't have a head for details!

In some respects the above quote would apply to Bush or at least to his defenders. We all remember the months of "stay the course" followed by "it was never about stay the course."

Bush the inerrant is followed by McCain the forgetfully inerrant.

Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan - magazine

BERLIN, July 19 (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a German magazine he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months.

In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.

"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

http://tinyurl.com/6sbf8e

*****

It's called judgment.

I think al-Maliki's statement is excellent news. Another nail in McCain's coffin.

But it's still atmospherics. Al-Maliki's party is gearing up for elections in Iraq and his statements are attunted to political realities there.

And it's also incontrovertible that the Iraqi Army is still massively dependent on the US for logistics, training and emergency firepower support.

I don't know any credible observer who believes the Iraqi Army will be completely self-sufficient in 16 mos. Remember that Obama always qualifies his statements about "withdrawal" with the phrase "combat" troops, and ending "combat" operations.

One of the bloodiest battles of the first Gulf War, involving the 24th Mechanized Division, occurred AFTER "combat" operations had supposedly ended in 1991....

Again, the point is, no matter who is President, the US military presence and expenditures there are going to continue at a high level well past 2013. The only point in contention in this election, on Iraq, is what Presidential rhetoric will accompany the policy...

"Drawdown after a great victory" (McCain) or "Careful extrication from Bush's disastrous war..." (Obama)

Do you think Obama is going retract strategic military support for Iraq's fledgling democracy? That the US won't militarily defend al-Maliki if his government is in danger of overthrow in the wake of a US drawdown? That we'll standby for civil war or genocide? Not a chance.

Nancy Yousef of McClatchy newspapers just spent some time embedded with the Iraqi Army. She discussed her experience, along with some other very savvy reporters and analysts, on the Diane Rehm show a few days ago...

http://tinyurl.com/5ltvza

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flLdaKHflxc

So who are we to believe? The first lie or the second (third, fouth, etc?)

McCain: "Could I mention the presence of my friend, Congressman Steve Pearce, who I believe will be joining me in the United States Senate?
(Applause)
Steve, thank you."

(Politico via Kos)

I said it before by the time this is over even McCain will vote for Obama if McCain really wants what is best for the country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lu4dcxl4GY

More youtube fun! Well not so much for the McCain supporters. Hill shills and anti-Obama types . .

lolololololo

Hillary Clinton's revealing purchase: A website called HRC2012

Sometimes a website name is just a website name.

Maybe the move by a company that's worked closely with the former first lady is just what it seems: yet another step by Hillary Rodham Clinton to prepare for another run for the Senate from New York in four years. Or another run for the White House. We won't know, of course, for some time.

But that comes with the news, as reported in The Ticket early the other morning, that Clinton has urgently requested her 2008 general election supporters to approve transfer of their unusable donations for this year's presidential race over to her 2012 Senate campaign.

(And then, potentially, into a new presidential campaign fund, as she did with $10 million of her surplus 2006 Senate campaign funds).

(LATimes)

Top Dem Party Officials Send Sharply-Worded Email Demanding That Hillary Donors And Supporters Get Behind Obama

In a sign that senior Democratic officials remain deeply concerned that post-primary bitterness could imperil Barack Obama's chances, two top Democratic officials have emailed a sharply-worded letter to major donors and other leading Dems confessing "fatigue and irritation" at those withholding full support from Obama and demanding that they get behind him "without conditions or demands."

"I supported Hillary Clinton and am proud and pleased that I did," reads the email, which was written by Donald Fowler, a former DNC chair and DNC member-at-large who was one of Hillary's most prominent supporters. Alice Germond, the Secretary of the DNC, is also a signatory.

"But she lost," continues the email, which was sent our way by a source. Barack Obama won. It's over."

http://tinyurl.com/6z8ujy

I have read about our 2 presidential nominees fundraising.
McCain is relying on big donor special interests money. Obama is relying on individual citizen donations. One big special interest donor has one vote. Individual citizens have one vote. Who do you want controlling you next year - another 8 years of special interests (many of whom have landed in jail for shady dealings and lying to you with your tax dollars) or do you want you as "We the People". Think, think, think before you cast stones and try not to blindly back those who are only interested in paying back special interests

Activists' choices

Barbara O'Connor, a longtime observer of California politics and a Democrat, said Democratic groups are coming around to Obama, including feminist activists who backed Hillary Clinton.

"All those bloggers from California - where are they going to go, vote for McCain?" asked O'Connor, who heads the Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media at California State University-Sacramento.

O'Connor points to a Field Poll, released Wednesday, that shows Obama with a 24-point lead in the state, and the backing of 80 percent of Clinton supporters (8 percent favored McCain). Three times as many Obama voters (51 percent) as McCain voters (17 percent) said they were "very enthusiastic" about their candidate.

As of June, there has been no drop-off in donations. The Obama campaign took in $52 million last month.

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_9939610?nclick_check=1

*****

Gobama!

I wouldn't take the PUMA's and Hillbots seriously.

They are just McCain sheep in DINO clothing.

Who needs 'em?

They can vote for McCain and more power to them but when you see some of them posting BS - it has zero credibility and will have zero net effect on the election.

In short:

JITA it only makes sense.

McCain Unraveled by 'Gay Sweaters'? haha

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2007/07/mccain-unraveled-by-gay-sweaters.php

Alan,

No self respect gay person would be caught dead wearing those sweaters, those look more like "my circulation is bad so I get a chill" gramps sweaters.

Good stuff!

Thanks

This campaign is in complete disarray. Schmidt thinks he's in control, but no one is following his lead. They are all over the place on message. So confused. And thats not an age swipe. All of his surrogates are confused too. At least the ones who have not been forced underground.

When Lieberman and Lindsay Graham are your two top surrogates you are in big trouble my friends. Make a list of the hundred or so Republicans who could be speaking out in support of McCain but are choosing not to and you geta some idea of how bad it really is.

By the time we get to November this will be so embarrasing for the GOP they will likely give the Dem's a filibuster proof majority in Congress. At that point the remaining GOPers will be so demoralized and marginalized they will start resigning from Congress by the dozens.

This paragraph really caught my attention:

"He's not a detail person," said Donald J. Devine, a former Reagan administration official who is editor of Conservative Battleline. "He's not a liar. I think he just can't believe that he would ever do anything wrong. He would think that would be some kind of moral failing, and he just figures there's got to be something that isn't right with what the other person said."

It scares to me to have a leader be so uninformed or reliant on others. We are not voting for the person McCain picks as his chief of staff or intelligence director. The president has to be accurate and knowledgeable.

So what Devine is saying is that if McCain believed the sky to be purple, he would disregard others who "advise" him that the sky is really blue. McCain would think that only he knew the correct color and that everyone else is wrong.

How will this translate to foreign policy? the state of the economy? and many other issues. If McCain is not an expert at economics, that's tolerable, as long as he will accept and believe what his experts are telling him.

I don't think that this is the case.