David Corn

Warmonger AND spinner AND liar. Definitely NOT presidential material.

"Economics by John McCain"
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1185304443/bctid1726720229

Cat Osterman is pitching again for USA softball. The bottom of the 1st inning just ended after the US scores NINE runs against China.
Go USA!

DC,

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

Maybe a little slower but "suffer" - hardly!

I still enjoy the posts and commentary.

IAG

Thanks for blogging while on vacation.

"Cat Osterman is pitching again for USA softball"

I don't think I could get a hit off of her. The girl is good!

Admissions of error by a Republican are as common as hen's teeth. No one in the GOP will admit anything about errors other than the Democrats make them.

Unfortunately, the sudden revival of the Cold War isn't going to help Obama much. And this is the "silly season," after all, when the campaign falls (sinks) to courting politics-challenged "undecideds."

We all may know, chapter and verse, the absurd failings and foolishness of Bush and McCain's neo-con foreign policy...in particular, their needlessly provocative and triumphalist policies toward the former Soviet Union...

...but for Obama to bring that up will lead right into the trap of being a "blame America first" liberal.

People will say he's blaming America for Russian's naked aggression...and that it's time to show "strength!"

We may have a sophisticated definition of what real strength is...but, at this stage of the game, it's all about posturing for the peanut gallery...

If it's any comfort (dubious), the likelihood of Putin withdrawing even one inch until the day after Bush leaves office is just about zero. (In my humble estimation). Only if Bush clearly signals that he's going to politically abandon Saakashvili will Putin consider it.

Obama is going to stick to McCain like glue. There will be NO daylight between him and McCain (the "warmonger") on Georgia.

LOL The H-town Chronicle today has a op-ed 'toon showing a lady holding the paper that mentions Obama will be letting supporters know by email and phone text, when/who he picks for VP. Her husband in the picture has apparently returned from the mailbox telling her mcsame has sent them an...........
8-track tape. hahahaha

Memo to: John McCain.

From: Five million thirst-crazed Coloradans.

Subject: Forget about winning our nine electoral votes next November. We don't vote for water rustlers in this state; we tar and feather them!

Yes, fellow citizens of the state whose official motto is "Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting," John McCain has thunk the unthinkable — and proposed renegotiating the 1922 Colorado River Compact.

To quote from Charles Ashby's story in the Friday Pueblo Chieftain:

"The water compact that Colorado and other upper basin states have with California and Arizona should be renegotiated," U.S. Sen. John McCain said Thursday.

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_10218277?source=rss

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek3jAkx9m10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I47pUEOJeuo

Contrast and compare?

August 22, 2008

John McCain choses Dick Cheney as his running mate. "Why not, the defib is paid for"

January 20, 2009

President McCain crashes Airforce One into the White House.

Some things just lose their shock value.

Geof01,

lolololo

Mr. Musharraf's resignation came near the end of an hour-long live telecast. He said the country didn't need the confrontation and further instability that his pending impeachment would bring even though he said he was confident that an impeachment effort would fail. "Not a single charge in the charge sheet can stand against me," he said. "I haven't done anything for personal gain. Whatever I have done, I've done for Pakistan."

Instead, he turned over the presidency to the speaker of Pakistan's Parliament.

"I have decided to resign from the presidency," Mr. Musharraf said. "Please accept this decision. I am not thinking on personal levels, but Pakistan first. Take care of Pakistan."

(WSJ)

Pervez = Paki-tricky-Dick?

McCain Steals Credit For GI Bill
That would be the one he OPPOSED, of course. In a speech to the VFW, he worms around making it sound like he took care of veterans. * gag * There's quotes from the VFW leadership, but I wonder how many non-thinkers fell for it.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/18/mccain-vfw-response/

"cone of silence" ? Like mcsame was in some soundproof room when Obama answered Warren's questions. Ahh, but it turns out mcsame was really in a motorcade on the way to the church. He had time to go over the questions with staff to get his answers down pat.
more dishonest lying and cheating

Despite Assurances, McCain Wasn’t in a ‘Cone of Silence’
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/us/politics/18mccain.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

And the M$M will yawn. . .

UGH!

"Aug 18, 2008 ... Obama Political Mentor Emil Jones Retires."

"April 10, 2007 ... CHICAGO (CBS) ― The wife of Illinois State Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) is under scrutiny after state documents revealed she got a $70,000 raise soon after becoming a state employee, and getting married to Jones.

Lorrie Rickman Jones became the mental health program director for the state Department of Human Services in September 2005.

Two months later, she got married to Emil Jones, and two months after that, she received the $70,000 raise.

State documents say the governor's administration created a special salary class for her position alone, which allowed her pay to jump from $116,000 to $186,000."

Change we can live with?

Cheers.

"Behind all of these claims and positions by Senator Obama lies the ambition to be president," you said -- with a straight face -- today. "What's less apparent is the judgment to be commander in chief. And in matters of national security, good judgment will be at a premium in the term of the next president -- as we were all reminded ten days ago by events in the nation of Georgia."

Senator, three points:
One -- is your increasingly extremist and reactionary language towards Senator Obama really the method by which you want to try to achieve the Presidency -- or perhaps split the country if you succeed?

Two -- criticizing a man for having quote "the ambition to be president"? Seriously? You do realize you are currently running for president, as well, right? That either you also have "ambition to be president" or, what?, somebody's blackmailing you into it?

And three -- you might want to ask somebody -- somebody other than say, your Foreign Policy Advisor, Randy Scheunemann -- whether or not you are making a jackass out of yourself every time you bring up the conflict between Georgia and Russia.
The Georgians have paid Mr. Scheunemann and his companies $800,000 over the last several years to lobby for them.
It's pretty clear the Georgians have bought Mr. Scheunemann.

And, Senator McCain, it sure as hell looks like the Georgians thought they had bought you.

When you had the tastelessness to paraphrase the rallying cry of 9/11 and say that we are now all Georgians, that nation's President called you out...

He said that your words were very nice, but he needed action -- not a verbal receipt from a lobbyist and his pet Senator!

http://tinyurl.com/55uw86

****

Pwnd by KO!

The real problem with the Saddleback debate was that McCain's answers were far more concrete and forceful than Obama's usual nuance and thoughtfulness. And far better attuned to please that particular audience.

A religious audience doesn't want nuance and complexity... It wants black & white, good vs. evil... There was no way Obama was going to avoid getting sandbagged in such a venue...

"confront evil" vs. "defeat evil".... how are you ever going to win such a useless abstract debate... "we are all soldiers..." vs. specifically saluting "our fighting men and women in uniform..."

By whining that McCain cheated (and that NYTimes article hardly proves that), it only calls extra attention to the debate and telegraphs that even Obama staffers realize he "lost" it.... They should have just let it disappear into the past and obscurity without comment...

Here's a couple good explanations as to why Obama's lead is so narrow and getting narrower...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/opinion/18krugman.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/opinion/18kristol.html

"By whining that McCain cheated (and that NYTimes article hardly proves that), it only calls extra attention to the debate..."

Well, I can see the point sailed right over your head. The problem is that both warren and mcsame LIED about this so-called "cone of silence". Now warren is saying that the Secret Service would've reported if mcsame cheated. Yeah, right. Have you EVER seen the S/S comment on politics??? Me neither.

K, so noone can PROVE he heard the questions, but noone can PROVE he didn't either, only that they LIED about it... which means you should take anything else they say about it with a large grain of salt.
There are radios in cars, all staff have cell phones and/or Blackberries... there are many ways they could've told mcsame what the questions were and then gone over with him how to answer.

Now, one last thing. The Obama campaign has NOT accused anybody of cheating. Your bias is showing and you're spinning for proven LIARS.

National Embarrassmints

http://www.misspoppy.com/catalog/xcart/customer/product.php?productid=16402

Superpower-ful breath mints. Your breath will be so fresh you'll be greeted in the streets with flowers!

haha the picture on the tin is worth the price alone

The "mints" seem to go with Mmmm peach-mint ice cream?

lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP-0pedQeGw

From Barack’s prepared remarks for the VFW (via Time.com)

[...]

Six years ago, I stood up at a time when it was politically difficult to oppose going to war in Iraq, and argued that our first priority had to be finishing the fight against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Senator McCain was already turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, and he became a leading supporter of an invasion and occupation of a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, and that – as despicable as Saddam Hussein was – posed no imminent threat to the American people. Two of the biggest beneficiaries of that decision were al Qaeda’s leadership, which no longer faced the pressure of America’s focused attention; and Iran, which has advanced its nuclear program, continued its support for terror, and increased its influence in Iraq and the region.

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, I warned that war would fan the flames of extremism in the Middle East, create new centers of terrorism, and tie us down in a costly and open-ended occupation. Senator McCain predicted that we’d be greeted as liberators, and that the Iraqis would bear the cost of rebuilding through their bountiful oil revenues. For the good of our country, I wish he had been right, and I had been wrong. But that’s not what history shows.

*****

You gotta read the rest:

http://thepage.time.com/obamas-remarks-to-the-vfw/

I think Barack is rested up and ready to RUMBLE!

vietnam veterans against songbird mccain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MUY9S6iCvk

"vietnam veterans against songbird mccain:"

And yet the M$M will never air anything against their Johnny boy.

UGH!

NYT forced to run its fourth correction to a Kristol column.

In yesterday’s New York print edition of the New York Times, columnist Bill Kristol attacked Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), based on inaccurate information about Saturday’s Saddleback Civil Forum. The Times then quietly revised the column — without a correction — in time for the national print and online editions. Today, Times has published a correction:

In some editions of his column on Monday about the presidential forum at Saddleback Church in California, William Kristol said that there seemed to be no basis for charges that John McCain was not in a “cone of silence” during Barack Obama’s interview with the Rev. Rick Warren, and could therefore have heard questions posed first to Senator Obama. Senator McCain was in a motorcade for part of Senator Obama’s interview. A statement from his campaign said that he “never heard or saw any of Senator Obama’s appearance.”

Yesterday’s column was the fourth time that Kristol has had to correct factual errors since he debuted in January. (HT: Brendan Nyhan)

http://tinyurl.com/55hcvg

Obama To McCain: Dignify Your Campaign

[...]

"Yesterday, Senator McCain came before you," said Obama. "He is a man who has served this nation honorably, and he correctly stated that one of the chief criteria for the American people in this election is going to be who can exercise the best judgment as Commander in Chief. But instead of just offering policy answers, he turned to a typical laundry list of political attacks. He said that I have changed my position on Iraq when I have not. He said that I am for a path of "retreat and failure." And he declared, "Behind all of these claims and positions by Senator Obama lies the ambition to be president" -- suggesting, as he has so many times, that I put personal ambition before my country. That is John McCain's prerogative. He can run that kind of campaign, and -- frankly -- that's how political campaigns have been run in recent years. But I believe the American people are better than that. I believe that this defining moment demands something more of us."

http://tinyurl.com/5vqvl4

****

Maybe Barack is overestimating the "American people" but I bet most of us get it.

The claims that McCain was in a "cone of silence" simply imply that McCain did not hear Obama's answers to the questions. Whether he was in a limousine on the way to the studio, or in some back room or another off stage is irrelevant. By claiming he was in the "cone," then he and Warren are vouching that he didn't hear Obama. Period. If he heard them, then he's a liar, and if he didn't then he isn't. That's the issue.

But, by the same token, all the questions and commotion raised by Obama staffers and supporters (and citing the "correction" to Kristol's column) ARE, in fact, explicitly calling McCain and Warren liars... AND implying that he DID hear the anwers....

But worst, of course, is the craven evading of the obvious fact that McCain's answers, for that particular audience (both inside and outside the studio), were much better than Obama's...

In the "God" and "Values" debate...for that audience... Obama got his clock cleaned.

(...and Obama, of course, has been promoted repeatedly as precisely -- supposedly -- the new kind of Democrat who might actually hold his own in that kind of venue... Well, maybe next time...)

For ME...NOT being part of the target audience, I thought Obama's answers were WAY better... By a country mile...

The last thing this country needs is another black & white, good vs. evil commander-in-chief... GOD help us...

I'd suggest attacking McCain on the substance.... i.e. what outlandish hubris on the part of a candidate to claim he can "defeat evil..."

...and what kind of doltish, and, in fact, HUBRISTIC audience would actually fall for that? ...would actually intoxicate themselves in some fantasy that that's actually America's purpose!?!?! To "defeat evil?" HOLY s***!

Watch: Fox News' hour long Obama documentary... In a Minute

Monday night, Fox News Channel aired the first of two presidential candidate documentaries called "Character and Conduct." First up: Barack Obama, whose documentary pretends really hard that it's not full of stereotypes and insinuations! Couldn't stomach it Monday evening? We've got it for you in a minute.

http://tinyurl.com/5qltod

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of "long-time standing" that victims of Bush's torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely "enhanced interrogation."

[...]

...in the Military Commissions Act, McCain acquiesced to the use of these techniques against terror suspects by the CIA. And so the tortured became the enabler of torture. Someone somewhere cried out in pain for the same reasons McCain once did. And McCain let it continue.

http://tinyurl.com/6r5u2g

Democrats Slam McCain on Oil Ties

Reporters joining Sen. John McCain on a visit to an oil rig off the coast of New Orleans today received a special campaign kit from the DNC including a "limited edition Exxon-McCain '08 stress ball" in the shape of an oil drum.

From the included note: "Since we know how stressful it has been to watch your access to the candidate diminish under Steve Schmidt's new rules, we hope you'll accept this oil barrel-shaped stress ball along with some additional Exxon-McCain '08 paraphernalia. It is the least we can do."

http://tinyurl.com/5hhddl