Here's my dispatch on Barack Obama's acceptance speech, first posted at MotherJones.

It was a historic speech on a historic night--in a remarkable setting. A crowd of tens of thousands of Americans, filling an entire stadium in the middle of the country, waved American flags and signs calling for "Change." Never in the nation's history had more Americans attended such an event. Never before had an African-American accepted the presidential nomination of a major party in the United States. And the speech of Barack Obama matched the moment.

He connected his own history--the history of a not-quite-ordinary American family--to the mythical promise of America. His rhetoric soared--as usual--but it was tethered to reality: in particular, the stark differences between how Obama would approach the challenges the nation now faces and how John McCain would do so. Obama laced his criticism of the Bush years and the possible McCain years with a dose of populism, which gave portions of the speech a sharp edge. And he brought his pitch for hope and change down to the ground with a succinct description of policy ideas he would work for as president.

Obama, as convention dictates, began with a high-minded theme: America is a land of promise, but, he declared, that promise--especially for hardworking Americans--is in jeopardy, placing the nation at a critical juncture. "These challenges are not all of government's making," he said. "But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush. America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this." Given that polls show that at least seven out of ten Americans--maybe more--believe the country is on the wrong track and a similar number of Americans disapprove of Bush, his criticism was not at all radical.

In one of the more important passages, Obama, taking a populist turn, made the case that his opponent does not understand this:

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives--on health care and education and the economy--Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this President. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisors--the man who wrote his economic plan--was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."

A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement? It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

Obama blasted McCain for embracing the "that old, discredited Republican philosophy--give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else." He proclaimed that it was time for GOPers, "to own their failure. It's time for us to change America. And that's why I'm running for president of the United States."

He did not say--as Hillary Clinton did during the primaries--that he was running to fight for you. His is still a campaign of collective action--us, not me-- and that might continue to make it hard for voters facing tough economic times to identify with Obama. (Some people desire a champion slugging for them, not a movement to join.) But on tax cuts, health care, outsourcing, energy independence, and education, Obama vigorously outlined the stark differences between him and McCain--and he presented those differences in language designed to appeal to working-class voters.

On national security, Obama ceded no ground to McCain. "If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have," he said. None of his arguments were new--he blasted McCain for being overly eager to go to war in Iraq before the job was done in Afghanistan--but he did so with great confidence. "John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell--but he won't even follow him to the cave where he lives," he remarked.

Obama sounded strong; he looked strong. "If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice--but it is not the change that America needs," he said. Obama warned McCain to stop questioning his patriotism: "I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first." And, he said, don't go pulling the same-old, Rove-like stunts, accusing Democrats of being nothing but tax-raisers and national security weaklings:

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America--they have served the United States of America.

Throughout the entire speech, Obama's delivery was powerful. He stuck with his now-familiar message of hope and change. He reiterated his call for a politics that transcends pettiness and distractions. But he really took it to the other side--issuing specific charges and offering specific ideas for policy changes. Obama still has one failing as a great speaker: he does not quite step out of the moment of the Grand Speech to talk directly to the individual on the couch who is watching and weighing. He seeks to inspire and attract support with political poetry--but there's a touch of abstraction to the exercise.

Nevertheless, what was in the speech was far more important than what might have been missing. Anyone watching could see that Obama has an economic vision. He showed he had no reluctance to challenge McCain on national security. He linked the policy debates of the moment to the noble currents of American history, noting that this day was the fortieth anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech of Martin Luther King Jr. He soared high. He punched hard. He was tough without being mean. It was a near-perfect--or maybe perfect--blend of positive and negative.

Can an acceptance speech make a difference in an election? This was one with the potential to do so. And as the Democrats' convention concluded with fireworks exploding at Denver's Invesco Field and stately orchestral music playing from the loudspeakers, Democrats were entitled to look at their once-improbable leader and say, Mission Accomplished. But the Republicans will have their chance to rip Obama apart at their convention next week--and in the weeks following that. This will be a fierce and bloody election. There will be no more big speeches for Obama, though the debates between the candidates could end up mattering much. Yet on a night when the fast trajectory of Obama's extraordinary life intersected with the slow trajectory of American history, Obama made a passionate and forceful case for himself, for his campaign, and for his view of America and what must be done to serve its citizens. He gave his supporters cause for hope.

Soon after I wrote yesterday's posting--in which I questioned whether the Democratic convention was producing enough red-meat attacks against John McCain--I ran into Senator Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat and No. 2 in the Senate. I asked whether the Obama people planning the convention had made the slightest of strategic errors by not striking at McCain in a harsher manner. No, no, no, said Durbin, who has been one of Barack Obama's most enthusiastic supporters in Democratic officialdom. "They're cutting ads right now that will be a lot sharper," he noted, referring to spots that would come out after the convention. "We need to come out of here with a positive message."

Well, we'll have to see how strong those ads are. But on Thursday night, the main speakers at the convention generally stuck to the usual practice: praise McCain's heroism, courage and service to the country and then say the problem with him is that he has a few bad ideas. Joe Biden, who as veep-mate is supposed to be the lead attack dog, went on about how McCain's courage "amazes" him and noted that his friendship with McCain transcends politics. As I've written before, this strategy of heaping praise on McCain the man and then questioning McCain's ideas may place the Dems in a corner. McCain attacks Obama for being a traitor. He says Obama is so ambitious he is willing to lose a war to win an election. That's a damn ugly charge. It's a vicious indictment of Obama's character. What do the Obama-ites do? They say McCain is a man of solidity but they disagree with his policy notions. Not very even, right?

So don't the Dems then have to ratchet up? Show voters he's a phony maverick or a warmonger or completely out of touch (with the Internet, the economy, take your choice)? After all, if the choice for the voters is a good man with some bad ideas or a bad man with some good ideas, wouldn't many choose the former?

Hours after Biden's speech, I found myself in a hotel restaurant at closing time with an assortment of reporters and political ops. I raised this point, and a Democratic political consultant (not the one I mentioned yesterday) disagreed. This person said that there had been a loot of private polling done on the Democratic side that indicates that on-the-fence voters would not buy a direct slam on McCain and that they would not absorb any negative information about him unless the attacker paid tribute to McCain's military service. The consultant was adamant on this point. S/he maintained that the polling did show that voter perceptions of McCain could be changed to benefit Obama, if the attack was crafted the right way and McCain was not merely blasted.

I don't have access to this empirical data. It could be overwhelmingly convincing. (My table-mate did not reveal who had done this polling.) But if the Democratic assault on McCain has to be nuanced and tempered with praise, that could be quite tricky for the Obama campaign to pull off. It's clear that the McCain attack on Obama ain't gonna be subtle. Not next week in St. Paul. And certainly not in the weeks after that.

For my review of the third night of the convention, click here.

Following Hillary Clinton's get-over-it speech on Tuesday night at the Democratic convention, I was at a swanky party, and a political consultant I've known for years--a smart fellow who has been essential to the careers of several prominent Democratic legislators--walked up to me and said that the Barack Obama campaign had made a serious strategic mistake. "We've had two soft nights," he complained.

The first evening was the warm-and-fuzzy celebration of Michelle Obama. Then came Hillary Night. Throughout both evenings, some shots had been taken at George W. Bush and John McCain, but no real fusillade had been launched against the two. (Ohio Governor Ted Strickland had a good line on Tuesday when he quipped, "It was once said of the first George Bush that he was born on third base and thought he'd hit a triple. Well, with the 22 million new jobs and the budget surplus Bill Clinton left behind, George W. Bush came into office on third base, and then he stole second.") This consultant noted that four years ago he had argued against the stay-positive approach of John Kerry's convention. The Kerry crew's decision to not pummel Bush throughout the four-day convention is now regarded by many political pros as a major error. And this consultant was worried that the Obama camp was repeating history. "We've lost two nights," he said.

He knew that on Wednesday night, Senator Joe Biden would take after McCain. That's what veep candidates do. They play the attack dog. And every Democrat and journalist in Denver was expecting Biden to do so with enthusiasm. But regardless of how well Biden would do in this role, it did seem that the Obama campaign had relegated its assault on McCain to something of an "attack hour," rather than integrate it fully into the convention's narrative. (And Biden's attack would have to compete for attention with Bill Clinton's much-anticipated speech that night.) Though the Obama campaign did have to go through several compulsory exercises on the first two evenings--"humanize" Michelle, hail Teddy Kennedy, and pacify Hillary Clinton--it's not hard to imagine an alternative schedule that would have featured speakers or films that ripped into McCain to make the point that this election presents a fundamental choice and that a vote for McCain would be one damn serious mistake.

Obama did win the nomination by promising to rise above partisan potshots. But not every shot has to be a cheap one. The Republicans and their allies, of course, are doing what they can to make Obama seem like The Other. They question the American-ness of Obama and his wife. They lie about his tax plan. Their goal: to delegitimize Obama. The Obama campaign should not follow the GOPers into the gutter. But it does need to persuade those I-don't-know-yet voters that McCain is not only an ex-POW and self-proclaimed maverick but a fellow who--due to his conservative policy positions, connections to corporate lobbyists, cluelessness about the Internet, combustible temperament, eagerness for military confrontation and more--would be a bad president for the country. Up to now, much of the Obama campaign's assault has focused on tying McCain to Bush. (Hillary Clinton's one zinger against McCain played off this point.) But this line of attack will only go so far. On Election Day, voters will be deciding between Obama and McCain. For Obama to win, voters will have to believe McCain himself--because of his own views, his own traits--is dead wrong for the job.

Has the Obama campaign blown it? Hyperbolic questions like this cannot be answered until after the votes are cast and counted. But let's consider another question: will the Republicans at their convention next week begin with two soft nights and not try to rip the hide off Obama from the start? Perhaps. But if I were an Obama adviser, I wouldn't count on that.

Among the politerati gathered in Denver for the Democratic convention there is a question some are whispering: do you have a sinking feeling?

There has certainly been a profound mood shift for Democrats and journalists who fancy Barack Obama since the days of early summer when Obama, having vanquished Hillary Clinton, seemed a dragon-slayer with a clear path toward the White House, never mind that old guy who kept saying dumb things and whose campaign was undisciplined and disorganized. This week, at parties and receptions, in the hallways of the Pepsi Center (and does anyone else think it is odd that a major political party picks a possible next Leader of the Free World in an arena named after a beverage?), and on the street corners of Mile High City, people are asking if the Democrats--yet again--can blow it.

There is reason for worry. Recent polls have been not so hot for Obama. One CNN survey found that the number of Hillary backers who say they will vote for John McCain over Obama in the fall has increased in recent weeks. (That number was supposed to decrease.) A Quinnipiac poll out today shows McCain ahead of Obama in Florida 47 to 43 percent. Obama had a two-point lead there in late July. Yet that poll also found that Florida voters say they prefer a Democrat over a Republican in the White House by a 44 to 39 percent margin. That is, a generic Democratic candidate beats a generic Republican in the Sunshine State. Yet McCain leads Obama. Any theories? (Race--there I said it.)

In Ohio, according to the Quinnipiac survey, Obama has a one-point advantage over McCain. In Pennsylvania, he holds a seven-point lead, the same as it was in late July. In both of these states, there is also a tremendous yearning for a Democrat in the White House. In Pennsylvania, the poll found a 50 to 32 percent margin, and in Ohio, it was 44 to 35 percent. It seems that throughout Swing-state-land, voters want a D to reside in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But that desire is apparently not translating into strong support for Obama.

There's more: pundits keep punditing about Obama's inability to connect with working-class Americans (meaning, white working voters). Such talk--which may have validity, given these polls--is spooking Dems and Obama fans who know that for years the Republicans have been able to succeed in part by slamming Democratic candidates as out of touch, elitist, and effete (even when the GOP's candidates were plutocrats and handmaidens of the well-to-do). These Dems and journalists say--apparently rightfully--that Obama has not yet passed the I-feel-your-pain test.

And there's more: the ghost of John Kerry. The Democrats' 2008 convention is only one day old and already Dems and journalists are wondering if it will be a replay of last time. As the 2004 convention ended, the Kerry campaign and Democrats were on a massive high. Many believed the convention had been a success and had placed Kerry on practically an undeniable route to the White House. It didn't turn out that way. This time around, there's hypersensitivity on this front.

No doubt, there's plenty cause for concern (but not panic--not yet) for Obama fanciers. The race, as depicted in the polls, is much tighter than might be expected, considering the external circumstances (a lousy economy, a lousy president). And the Obama magic does seem less magical these days. A nineteen-month-long campaign has taken its toll. But there's much to happen in the next ten weeks that could determine the outcome. This could end up a blowout in either direction, or a narrow win by either side. Which is why, despite the hoopla of convention week, some Obama-ites within the political set appear to be preparing themselves for the possibility of déjà vu all over again.

For my take on the first night of the Democratic convention, see this dispatch here.

Too much Clintons at the convention?

There will be a lot--perhaps more than needed. On Tuesday, Senator Hillary Clinton will have her time at the podium. But first, reportedly, convention-goers (and viewers at home) will be treated to a film about her, presumably in the style of the Man From Hope biopic shown at the 1992 convention. Then she will speak. No doubt, she will talk about her historic run for the presidency. The question for a Clinton-cynic is how much of her address will be about her and how much will be about Barack Obama?

This will be her night--which she deserves. But then the Clintons get a second night. On Wednesday, Bill Clinton will get his turn. He is supposedly disappointed that he has been relegated to "Securing America's Future" night, when speakers are supposed to tout Obama's potential as commander in chief. Clinton would rather speak on a wider range of issues. I can understand the Obama camp's concern. Remember his convention speech in 1988? (Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton's communications director during her campaign, argues that the Obama campaign still must soothe the hurt feelings Bill Clinton has after the campaign. What is this? High school? Wolfson adds, "President Clinton has his part to play as well. He needs to offer a strong argument in favor of Barack Obama's candidacy on Wednesday night, and remind everyone why he is one of the most gifted campaigners in our generation between now and November.")

Also on Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton will again be in the spotlight, when her name is placed into nomination, thanks to the munificence of the Obama campaign. So of the four nights of the convention, the Clintons will have major roles on two. Not bad for the second-place finisher. Even though Hillary Clinton racked up a lot of votes, pundits can--and will--wonder if this is excessive, given that the whole point of the convention is to move forward with Obama. Wouldn't one night have sufficed? Start with a film on HRC. When it's done, the lights go up and...there's Bill Clinton. He introduces her. And then she comes on. A nice package--all in one. Then for the next two nights, the convention would concentrate on Joe Biden and Obama.

That's not how it's going to be. Perhaps all this Clinton programming will help ease the resentment of the Hillary Hold-ons (whom I wrote about here.) If so, it will be worth it. But is it possible those die-hards cannot be satisfied and that a Clinton-drenched convention will deliver a less-than-consistent message (Obama, Obama, Obama)? Your guess--or calculation--is as good as mine.

A piece on Biden I posted at Mother Jones.....

In the end, Barack Obama used unconventional means to announce a conventional choice for his running-mate.

Via a three A.M. text message sent to the cell phones of his supporters, donors and volunteers, Obama's campaign declared that he had chosen Senator Joe Biden, the Delaware Democrat, to be "our" veep nominee. (Three in the morning--was this a dig at Senator Hillary Clinton or just a coincidence?) With this I'll-let-you-know-first gimmick, Obama had snagged millions of cell numbers and email addresses his campaign can use in the weeks ahead to motivate voters and push them to the polls on Election Day. So in purely tactical terms, his running-mate rollout was indeed pioneering and widely successful. What remains to be seen, of course, is whether he made a smart pick by attaching his campaign for change to a fellow who has worked Washington's ways in the Senate for 35 years.

Sometimes going conventional is not the wrong course. During the past weeks of veep-frenzy, Biden's assets and liabilities have been dissected repeatedly. He possesses extensive foreign policy experience (which Obama does not). He can do straight-talk relatively well for a senator (while Obama has been accused of not fully connecting with working-class voters). Then again, Biden has suffered in the past from both verbal diarrhea and gaffe-itis. I've attended many committee hearings in the Senate when Biden turned a question into a long-winded monologue that drove people in the room to want to shout, "Question, Senator, do you have a question?!!" And there are times when Biden's mental filter has switched off and he has said the dumbest thing, such as when he famously called Obama "the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." (The Daily Mail headlined its account of Obama's pick this way: "Obama names 'gaffe-prone' Joe Biden as his running mate.")

But Biden is a smart legislator who has shown that he can suppress his own faults when he must. He had a good campaign this past year as a presidential candidate. He won few votes but performed well at the debates and demonstrated he could keep his infamous verbosity under control. At the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, while other Democrats got bogged down in legal jargon practically indecipherable to the average person, Biden peppered Roberts with straightforward questions about Roberts' claim that he merely wanted to be an umpire on the bench who calls constitutional balls and strikes. "Much as I respect your metaphor," Biden countered, "it's not very apt, because you get to determine the strike zone. The founders never set a strike zone." It was the best moment of the hearing.

On foreign policy, Biden has always been an activist, thinking and engaging with the issues and crises generating headlines and those that don't make the evening news. He has a fancy for cooking up proposals. And even if he devises ideas that may raise objections--such as his plan to partition Iraq--he often deserves credit for the effort. (He issued his proposal for splitting up Iraq at a time when the Bush administration was doing nothing but "staying the course.")

One of Biden's better moments came in the run-up to the war with Iraq. In the fall of 2002, the Bush administration, claiming Saddam Hussein had amassed loads of WMDs that he could hand to al Qaeda for attacks against the United States, was demanding that the House and Senate grant Bush the authority to invade Iraq whenever he wanted. Rather than cave to Bush, Biden, the chairman of the foreign relations committee, worked with Republican Senators Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel to craft an alternative: a resolution that would allow Bush to attack Iraq only for the purposes of destroying Iraq's WMDs and only after seeking UN approval. If the UN withheld permission, Bush would have to come back to Congress and prove that the threat was so "grave" that only military action could eliminate it. This was a wily legislative maneuver that could have averted a war. (And Biden told me and Michael Isikoff during an interview for our book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, that he had received backdoor encouragement from Secretary of State Colin Powell.) But Biden's bipartisan measure was ultimately derailed by a fellow Democrat: House minority leader Richard Gephardt, who essentially accepted the White House's blank-check approach. After Gephardt did that, Republican senators told Biden, How can we be to the left of Dick Gephardt? "I was so angry," Biden later said. "I was frustrated. But I never second-guess another man's political judgment."

Biden went on to vote for the Iraq war resolution. Which demonstrated his Washington-ness. He had tried for something better. When that failed, he, too, accepted the prevailing notion. But his pre-vote effort to create a much more limited resolution will afford the Obama-Biden ticket a small measure of cover when its foes point out that Obama's main charge against John McCain (he supported the Iraq invasion) can also be applied to his running-mate.

The main rule in veep-picking is this: First, do no harm. Among Obama's conventional options, each had obvious problems. Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana stood side-by-side with McCain in fervently advocating the war in Iraq prior to the invasion. Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia is another political newbie on the national stage with no foreign policy cred, and he has yet to rack up many accomplishments. As for Senator Hillary Clinton, with her on the ticket, the election would be as much about the Clintons as about Obama and McCain. Depending on your view, that's either a big winner or political hell.

Biden comes with decades of baggage. There are thousands of Senate floor votes for GOP oppo researchers to sift through. He's had more than one plagiarism scandal. Hailing from a solidly Democratic state, he brings no Electoral College votes with him. But he has the talent to be both Obama's attack dog and his top foreign policy adviser. And though vice presidential nominees tend to have no true impact on the final results, Biden has the potential to be a fierce campaigner for and with Obama--that is, if he can be the better Biden for the next ten weeks.

By tapping Biden, Obama does little to reinforce his core themes of change and hope. He does not amplify his Washington-is-broken and postpartisan messages. He does not boost his claim that his campaign is a movement. He does not increase the excitement factor or accentuate the historic nature of his candidacy. But then Obama himself has already provided much of that. And it's possible that the American electorate can only absorb so much unorthodoxy in a presidential election. With Biden, Obama may have passed the do-no-harm rule. But that won't be known until the election is over.

On Thursday, two Obama-ites asked me if John McCain's inability to recall how many houses he and the missus own is a "game changer." This suggested to me that the conventional media wisdom that Barack Obama was either slipping or not doing as well as he should be doing against McCain had taken hold within Obamaland. And perhaps the Obama-ists should be fretting, for polls are not always wrong, and voter surveys do seem to show McCain holding nearly even when external circumstances (a lousy economy, an unpopular war, $4-a-gallon gas, a populace that overwhelmingly believes the nation is on the wrong track) ought to give the fellow from the non-incumbent party a major advantage.

Thus, the desire within the Obama camp to change the game.

McCain's house--make that, houses--moment certainly is a boost for Obama. But it's unlikely to alter the fundamentals. This election is, as another piece of conventional media wisdom puts it, about Obama. Much more so than McCain. The GOPer is a known quantity. Many voters, correctly or not, believe they know the guy. Obama, even after campaigning for a year and a half, remains the new kid on the block. His challenge is to forge a bond with those in-the-middle voters, many of whom tend not to pay close attention to the details of political debate. Consequently, many of them are easily swayed by misleading or false attacks--the specifics of which they might not absorb, even as they develop an impression shaped by the attacks. (Yeah, I heard there's something about Obama's Muslim background......)

During the nomination battle, Obama was able to reach many Democratic primary and caucus voters directly--through campaign appearances, through direct voter meetings, through surrogates. And he connected. Now that he's playing to a bigger, more diffuse, and less engaged audience, it's tougher for this fresh face to forge a bond.

The pundits keep saying that Obama has to demonstrate to voters that he feels their economic pain and knows how to relieve it. That's true. But he also has to make a direct connection. He cannot just release solid economic plans and give well-written speeches on economic matters. He can indeed best McCain in issuing economic proposals. But that's not the same as getting a voter to feel that he or she knows--really knows--Obama.

So while watching the Olympics, I was surprised to see the Obama ad that has run repeatedly. It's darn conventional. The spot touts his plans for creating millions of jobs and advancing alternative energy. Wind generators are pictured. And Obama gazes in a leader-like fashion into the wonderful future. I wondered why Obama in this ad wasn't speaking directly to whoever was watching it. A commercial that claims he's great and has great ideas is not going to do much on the forge-a-bond front. Such an ad follows the conventions of standard commercials: talk at the viewer. Obama has to talk to voters. And that's more difficult in the general election than in the primaries. And the main way to reach undecided, swing, independent, or whatever-you-call-them voters is, alas, by the media and advertising.

Obama's people obviously understand this. And who knows what they have planned for the coming weeks. Still, I keep waiting for a breakthrough. Maybe that's an unfair expectation. But as the general election contest now stands, the Obama campaign cannot rely on McCain slip-ups--of which there have been many. It must create the game-change it seeks.

One of my favorite sub-subplots of the presidential campaign is John McCain's continuing exploitation of Representative John Lewis, the civil rights icon and hero. This has been such a strange episode, and I wonder what it means about the GOP presidential candidate.

First, in April, McCain went to Selma, Alabama, to deliver a speech about patriotism and courage--and expropriated the patriotism and courage of Lewis. Speaking at the site of a historic civil rights clash, McCain recounted how hundreds of civil rights activists, led by Lewis, had marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and peacefully confronted state troopers who brutally attacked them. McCain hailed Lewis and quoted him. ("When I care about something, I'm prepared to take the long, hard road.") McCain did not cite any action he himself had ever taken to advance the civil rights cause--presumably because there were none to cite. (McCain had even opposed establishing the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. as a holiday.) McCain, as I noted at the time, was trying to wrap himself in the bloody shirt of John Lewis. Moreover, a Lewis associate told me that McCain had never been close to Lewis, that McCain did not invite Lewis to attend this event, and that McCain had not even informed Lewis he would be making this speech.

McCain had served in the U.S. Congress with Lewis for 21 years. But in all that time, McCain had not established any relationship with Lewis. If McCain really was so impressed with Lewis, why had he not reached out to him? Yet McCain, looking to grab a piece of civil rights history, was claiming Lewis was a leader to emulate. And in the same speech, McCain bashed Barack Obama, who had been endorsed by Lewis, as a panderer and peddler of "false promises."

This was odd; McCain was attempting to sell himself by praising a fellow who was campaigning for Obama. Then the story got more bizarre. At the presidential forum hosted by best-selling mega-pastor Rick Warren on Saturday, McCain was asked to name the "three wisest people" he would call on were he to become president. His list: General David Petraeus, Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, and, yes, John Lewis.

The following day, we at Mother Jones asked Lewis for a comment, and the Georgia congressman said, "I cannot stop one human being, even a presidential candidate, from admiring the courage and sacrifice of peaceful protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge or making comments about it." But Lewis added, "Sen. McCain and I are colleagues in the US Congress, not confidantes. He does not consult me. And I do not consult him."

Think about this. McCain said Lewis would be one of the three wisest people he would rely upon for advice in the White House. But McCain has not asked Lewis for any advice in the two decades he has been in Congress with him. How else then to read McCain's references to Lewis other than as crass pandering and exploitation? After all, since Lewis entered the House in 1987--and even before that--McCain has had the opportunity to pick up the phone and say, "Hey, John, can you help me out with some advice." But he has not done so.

McCain is lucky that Lewis is a class act. He could make an issue out of this and cause McCain to look like a fool. Lewis has chosen not to. But for voters looking for authenticity, this is an indicator that McCain can be as phony as any non-maverick politician.

I'm still on vacation. Be back soon..

In a front-pager on Sunday, The New York Times took on the question, is John McCain a warmonger? The paper did not put it in such an indelicate manner. But that was (and is) essentially the issue at hand. The story reminded readers of McCain's bellicose rhetoric after 9/11. In October 2001, he appeared on David Letterman's show and said that Iraq might behind the anthrax attacks. He also claimed that Mohamed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, had met with Iraqi intelligence--even though the evidence at the time was unclear. (The entire charge was eventually debunked by U.S. intelligence.) And on an aircraft carrier in January 2002, he yelled to sailors, "Next up, Baghdad!"

None of this trip down memory lane was surprising, given that McCain months ago was joking about bombing Iran. McCain is a guy who despite his own military service and POW experience has been too eager in recent years to play the war card. Not only was he among those who made false claims about Iraq to win popular support for a U.S. invasion of that country; he seemed eager for the war. The Obama campaign might consider reminding voters of his excessive enthusiasm for military confrontation with Iraq and Iran.

But that's not why I'm writing this posting. What stood out in this article was McCain's response to a query posed to him by the Times. Asked about his support for the war in Iraq, McCain replied via email:

Given Mr. Hussein's history of pursuing illegal weapons and his avowed hostility to the United States, "his regime posed a threat we had to take seriously." The attacks were still a reminder, Mr. McCain added, of the importance of international action "to prevent outlaw states -- like Iran today -- from developing weapons of mass destruction."

Okay, when will the war backers stop spinning? As it turned out, Saddam posed no immediate treat to the United States. He was, of course, a problem--but not a threat. And the war did not prevent his outlaw state from developing nuclear weapons because Iraq was not developing nuclear weapons at the time. Saddam's nuclear program was kaput. In fact, the international inspections program that was ended by the U.S. invasion was itself effectively preventing Saddam from developing nuclear weapons and other WMDs.

McCain would not admit that he had gotten Iraq wrong. He said that his pre-invasion remarks about Iraq's WMDs were misleading because of "Iraq's opacity under Saddam." But that's a convenient CYA excuse. The weapons inspectors had gotten it right at the time and were saying there was no evidence of major WMDs in Iraq. McCain, like others legislators (Republicans and Democrats), simply chose not to believe them.

On this crucial issue, there's no straight talk from McCain. Then again, there cannot be. For any admission of error might make it harder for him to rush into the next war.

I'm still on vacation. Posting will suffer for a few more days.

I'm still on vacation, but I cannot escape The New York Times. Thus....

One perpetual problem of the MSM was illustrated by The New York Times on Wednesday: the inability to call plainly a lie a lie. Or a liar a liar.

In an front-page article on this year's Swift Boat attack--a best-selling anti-Obama book written by Jerome Corsi--the Times defined the story as Corsi's attempt to do to Barack Obama what he did to John Kerry (with his 2004 book challenging Kerry's Vietnam War record). It did not make Corsi's demonstrably false charges the main focus of the piece. To be sure, the article did include examples of Corsi's misleading and untrue allegations. But his (presumably) purposeful mangling of the facts was not in the lead:

In the summer of 2004 the conservative gadfly Jerome R. Corsi shot to the top of the bestseller lists as co-author of "Unfit for Command," the book attacking Senator John Kerry's record on a Vietnam War Swift boat that began the larger damaging campaign against Mr. Kerry's war credentials as he sought the presidency.

Almost exactly four years after that campaign began, Mr. Corsi has released a new attack book painting Senator Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumed presidential nominee, as a stealth radical liberal who has tried to cover up "extensive connections to Islam" - Mr. Obama is Christian - and questioning whether his admitted experimentation with drugs in high school and college ever ceased.

The next paragraph noted that "significant parts" of the book have been "challenged." And the piece said, "Fact-checking [a book like this one] can require extensive labor and time from independent journalists, whose work often trails behind the media echo chamber."

Wait a minute--isn't the Times able to do such a fact-checking job? After all in 2004, the Times did publish a front-page article that thoroughly debunked the case of the anti-Kerry Swift Boaters. This piece, though, noted that Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog, has done the most aggressive fact-checking of Corsi's latest hit job. And then the Times, repeating some of Media Matters work, did report that "several of the book's accusations, in fact, are unsubstantiated, misleading or inaccurate." But it gave only two examples. (For instance, Corsi claims Obama has "yet to answer" whether he used marijuana and cocaine after college. Obama has indeed said he has not used any drugs since he was 20 years old.)

The thrust of the Times piece was the controversy over the book: Corsi makes charges about Obama; others cry foul. And calling Corsi a "gadfly" hardly captured the man who has decried Islam as a "dangerous Satanic religion," has accused John Kerry of being secretly a Jew, and who has implied that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian. (None of Corsi's more coarse observations were mentioned in the Times article. See here for more.)

The Times could have covered this story in a different fashion. Consider this alternative lead:

A new best-selling book by the co-author of the 2004 book that falsely accused John Kerry of exaggerating his Vietnam War record contains significant allegations about Barack Obama that are false, according to an extensive Times review of the charges.

The Times took the easy path. It zeroed in on the fuss over the book--and in typical he said/she said fashion allowed Corsi and Media Matters to each accuse the other of mugging the truth to serve a political agenda. But the evidence is clear: Corsi is the offender here. Certainly, the article led reasonable readers to that conclusion. But this was an instance when the newspaper of record could have served the truth more by fully concentrating on Corsi's false charges. Within this bastion of the so-called liberal media, Corsi got off easy.

I'm still on vacation--lucky me--but I've managed to watch a bit of the Olympics. The opening ceremony was rather impressive. Talk about organization and competence: two thousand and eight Tai Chi practitioners forming a perfect circle and maintaining it through a series of elaborate moves.

That was some counterpoint to George W. Bush. Later that night, during the parade of nations, he was practically slumped in his seat, toting a small American flag--was it made in China?--with a bored expression on his face. Prior to the games, there was a debate over whether he should attend and further legitimize the repressive Chinese regime. But as he sat there, that debate no longer seemed so relevant, for he looked irrelevant. There was no one next to him but his wife. And the question was, didn't he have anything better to do with his time? The apparent answer: no.

War was breaking out between Russia and Georgia. The economy in the United States was continuing a downward slide. Negotiations between Washington and Iraq over an agreement governing U.S. troops had seemingly failed. And his presidency was running out of time. Yet he seemed like not such a busy guy. He even stayed in China to watch events. I, too, would have enjoyed witnessing Michael Phelps first gold-medal victory of these Olympics, but, then again, I don't have a superpower to run. At least, Bush was able to hobnob with Henry Kissinger at that event. (He did meet with Chinese President Hu on Sunday for what he described, of course, as a "constructive" conversation.)

This all raised the question in my mind: what does Bush want to get done before the W. years are over. Not much, it seems. He has not pushed a major domestic issue since his Social Security flop. He has not addressed the climate change crisis. He has not taken any decisive steps regarding the sliding-into-a-quagmire war in Afghanistan. He has taken no significant moves regarding health care. It's as if he is not merely a lame duck but the clockwatcher-in-chief. And is it possible that the last major overseas action of the president who during his second inaugural address said that the mission of the United States was to stand with "democratic reformers" against their "oppressors" will be waving a mini-Stars and Stripes at the Chinese games? How harmonious, as the Chinese say.

Now isn't it about time for Bush to take his vacation in Crawford?

I'm on vacation, so posting will suffer this week and the next. But I was impressed by the responses--okay, some of the responses--to the previous item, in which I asked, Can a black man be elected president? Note the wide range of replies--from it's irrelevant to it's the main thing. Thus proving that we are indeed in the midst of a grand political science experiment, yet one with tremendous real-life consequences.

One noteworthy reply came directly to me in an email from Jeffrey Hart, a veteran conservative who has been a senior editor at The National Review since 1968 and who wrote speeches for Nixon and Reagan. He's an Obamacon, one of the rightwingers who are hot for Barack Obama. He writes:

I've read you Blog on maybe we can't elect a black president. But three weeks ago Obama was ahead in Gallup by 4-6 points. Obama was black then too. Then there came his trip to the Middle East, Iraq, Germany. Apparently successful. Now he and McCain are about equal in the national poll.

What explains that?

Only very recently Obama might have brought race into the foreground when he said "They will try to frighten you with etc. and the fact that "I don't look like those other presidents" on the currency.

McCain seized on that. Hoped that race would not be part of the campaign. Sure. He's delighted to have race in the foreground. In the Sat. NYT Bob Herbert cites earlier McCain innuendoes about race.

But those weren't taking hold as Obama's polls remained very good. Did Obama make a big mistake in that "not looking like other presidents"? Or have McCain attack ads about flip-flopping been enough to pull Obama's polls down?

That is, I think Obama's polls sank before the recent race business. What to do? Obama should attack (and run TV spots):

1. McCain supported a hugely expensive war sold with lies. Be specific.

2. McCain wants to make Bush tax cuts permanent -- "Hood Robin" tax-cuts. Robin Hood took from the rich and gave to the poor. Bush-McCain Hood Robin cuts give to the richest and take from the rest.

3. McCain would appoint Judges "like Roberts and Alito." There goes Roe. Women Alert.

4. McCain would renew Bush's attempt to attach Social Security to the stock market. The stock market drops about 200 points every time you look.

5. McCain has no national plan for medical care.

6. Play clips of Gramm saying people are "whiners" about lousy economy. That was a "gaffe," defined as when a politician tells you what he really thinks. Gramm was McCain's economic guru until he let it out what McCain really thinks.

7. Play TV clips of McCain hugging and kissing Bush. That absurdity sez it all. It may be that Obama is too nice. But to win he must go on the attack, but with comic touches.

8. The three presidential debates will be devastating for McCain: Pericles vs. Donald Duck.

Wow. It's not every day that Obama gets such advice (and cheerleading) from a National Review editor and former Reaganaut. Whether Hart is correct or not--and his plan sounds good to me--the fact that a fellow with his pedigree is rooting for Obama and hoping for him to hit McCain damn hard shows that this sure is one different election--and not just because of the race of the candidates.

In the meantime, while I'm gone, feel free to continue discussing the race factor in the comments section--or anything else.