Gregarius » Crooks and Liars

Crooks and Liars (19 unread)

Open Thread

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 11:30pm EDT by bluegal

One hundred and fifty five more days. (big hat-tip to Dependable Renegade) Open thread below.
Late Night Music Club with Barenaked Ladies

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 11:30pm EDT by bluegal

Enclosure: [download]

From their lovely series of YouTubes, “The Bathroom Sessions“.
Countdown Special Comment to McCain: Senator, grow up!

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 9:53pm EDT by Logan Murphy

Enclosure: [download]

Keith Olbermann takes on John McCain and his campaign managers with another powerful Special Comment on Monday’s Countdown. McCain has consistently voted against our troops, but he and his campaign continue to spread lies and distortions about Barack Obama, painting him as unpatriotic and anti-military, while glossing over his own betrayal of our military on the floor of the Senate.

Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heather)

Now as promised a Special Comment on the remarks of the Senior Senator from Arizona about Senator Obama at the VFW Convention, and about NBC News and MSNBC.

Four times in just two days, Senator McCain’s campaign managers have, simply, hung him out to dry.

First, trying to scapegoat the media, in the exact way that has spelled doom for other presidential candidates already watching from the sidelines.

Second, doing so with a petulant statement so full of holes that it virtually **confirms** that which was reported, and which set off this pointless temper tantrum in the first place.

Third, sending the candidate out to speak before the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, even as the millstones of a series of disastrous, anti-veteran votes, still figuratively dangled from around his neck.

And fourth, encouraging Senator McCain, while there, to address his opponent in the language of unseemly contempt, undignified calumny, and holier-than-thou persiflage unsupported by reality… near-nonsensical bluster that — at best — makes the speaker look like a dyspeptic grouchy neighbor shouting “Hey you kids, get out of my yard.”

Transcript below the fold.

“Though victory in Iraq is finally in sight,” you told the V-F-W today, Senator McCain, “a great deal still depends on the decisions and good judgment of the next president. The hard-won gains of our troops hang in the balance. The lasting advantage of a peaceful and democratic ally in the heart of the Middle East could still be squandered by hasty withdrawal and arbitrary timelines. And this is one of many problems in the shifting positions of my opponent, Senator Obama.”

The shifting positions of Senator **Obama**?

Senator McCain — on the 22nd of May, 2003.. you said, of Iraq, **on** the Senate floor, quote:

“We won a massive victory in a few weeks, and we did so with very limited loss of American and allied lives. We were able to end aggression with minimum overall loss of life, and we were even able to greatly reduce the civilian casualties of Afghani and Iraqi citizens.

Senator — you declared victory in Iraq, **five years and nearly three months ago**.

**Today** you say: “victory in Iraq is finally in sight”?

The victory you already proclaimed five years ago?

Are we going back in **time** Sir?

If that had not been enough, in **June** of 2003, with even **Fox News** noting “many argue the conflict (in Iraq) isn’t over,” you answered:

“Well, then why was there a banner that said ‘Mission Accomplished’ on the aircraft carrier? Look, the — I have said a long time that reconstruction of Iraq would be a long, long, difficult process, but the conflict — the major conflict is over, the regime change has been accomplished, and it’s very appropriate.”

In 2003, your war was won, because somebody was putting up a… banner.

In 2008, your war might finally **be** won, because **you** are putting up… a campaign based on the mirage that Iraq **is** winnable.

And yet it is **Obama** shifting positions on Iraq?

Even if this country were to forget, Senator, the victory lap you and President Bush took five years ago — just on their face, your remarks today at the V-F-W, Senator, are nonsensical.

“Senator Obama commits the greater error of insisting that even in hindsight, he would oppose the surge. Even in retrospect, he would choose the path of retreat and failure for America over the path of success and victory.”

This construction, Senator, is extremely simple.

If your surge worked, the troops would be home from Iraq.

Or **most** of them, would be.

Or all of them who **were** surged, would be.

Or at least we’d have the same number of troops in Iraq now, as we did then.

Or… maybe one or two guys would be out of harm’s way.

Please, Senator McCain, stop!

This is **embarrassing**.

Whether on his own impetus or an advisor’s…

The Senator also foolishly invoked his **opponent** in that speech today.

Previous political **careers** have foundered on the rocks of the V-F-W Convention:

The Republican majority in Congress and the Senate — the very viability of Secretary of Defense **Rumsfeld** — began to unravel at this convention two years ago — that was the venue for the first of Rumsfeld’s two references to Bush critics as Nazi Appeasers.

Prudence and judgement, demanded that Senator McCain tred lightly.

Instead he told the convention, quote:

“I suppose from my opponent’s vantage point, veterans concerns are just one more issue to be spun or worked to advantage. This would explain why he has also taken liberties with my position on the GI Bill…. As a political proposition, it would have much easier for me to have just signed on to what I considered flawed legislation. But the people of Arizona, and of all America, expect more from their representatives than that, and instead I sought a better bill. I’m proud to say that the result is a law that better serves our military, better serves military families, and better serves the interests of our country.”

Senator McCain spoke out **against** that very bill last May — on the asinine premise that the rewards to our heroes were so good that it didn’t encourage them to stay in the service.

Or perhaps **force** them.

More over, Senator McCain missed 10 of the 14 Senate votes on Iraq up to the middle of last year.

This year, he has missed them **all** — including one to honor the sacrifice of the fallen.

He has voted to table or oppose:

20 million dollars for veteran’s health care facilities.

322 million dollars for safety equipment for our troops in Iraq.

430 million dollars for veterans outpatient care.

One billion dollars in new equipment for the National Guard.

And, in separate votes: One billion, 500 million dollars in additional Veterans’ medical care, to be created by closing tax loopholes.

And one billion, **800** million dollars in additional Veterans’ medical care, to be created by closing tax loopholes.

And yet, Sir, you have the audacity to stand in front of the very Veterans you repeatedly and consistently **sell out**, and claim it is your **opponent** who has put politics first, and country second.

“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-thousand dollars 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!

Going back to the beginning of this sad 48 hours of paranoia from the McCain Campaign…

We have manager Rick Davis’s unfortunate letter to NBC News, about Andrea Mitchell’s reporting on the possibility that Senator McCain violated the so-called “Cone of Silence” for the Rick Warren Presidential Forum over the weekend.

The coverage of this detail, and that forum in general, is, to start with, overwrought.

But Mr. Davis has elevated them to the ridiculous.

As Nate Silver at the website ‘Five-Thirty-Eight-dot-com’ noted, Andrea’s reporting — reporting of what the Obama camp claimed — included two essential observations:

“McCain may not have been in the cone of silence”… and that he

“May have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama”.

Rick Davis writes to NBC: “The fact is that during Senator Obama’s segment at Saddleback last night, Senator McCain was in a motorcade to the event and then held in a green room with no broadcast feed.”

As Silver astutely notes, for roughly the first half of Obama’s participation, his own campaign manager places McCain in a **car** — where he could have been made aware of the questions to Senator Obama. “In a motor vehicle,” Silver writes, “one may use the radio, a cellphone, a Blackberry, Bluetooth Wireless, a Slingbox, and perhaps a satellite TV feed. Whether McCain actually used any of those devices, we have no idea. But he absolutely had the ability to use them, which is all that Mitchell had reported.”

Silver also tripped over Mr. Davis’s strange observation that for roughly the second half of Obama’s participation, his own campaign places McCain, quote, “in a green room with no broadcast feed.”

Not a green room without cell service or internet, nor without a closed-circuit feed, nor, for that matter, without a guy running back from the audience with notes, written in crayon.

Rick Davis’s argument is, in short, illegitimate.

It is an attempt to pick a fight with the media, over the journalistic equivalent of chewing gum in class.

“This is irresponsible journalism and sadly, indicative of the level of objectivity we have witnessed at NBC News this election cycle,” he writes.

“We are concerned that your News Division is following MSNBC’s lead in abandoning non-partisan coverage of the Presidential race. We would like to request a meeting with you as soon as possible to discuss our deep concerns about the news standards and level of objectivity at NBC.”

What Davis is **really** saying here, of course, is that he wants **no** level of objectivity, that the only campaign he wants questioned is Obama, and that “partisan coverage” consists of questioning whether McCain or his campaign support the stage whispers branding Obama as somehow ‘foreign,’ or whether McCain is to be inoculated from all criticism by dint of his military service.

Senator McCain — did you pay **any** attention to the **Democratic** primaries?

Did you notice the hair-pulling frenzy of some of Senator Clinton’s supporters who could not face the possibility that her loss might have been **her** fault — or **theirs** — and thus it must be **ours**?

Do you remember the apoplexy of a washed up Republican operative named Ed Gillespie, writing a furious letter to NBC on behalf of President Bush?

Mr. Bush’s support has since dropped.

And **Senator Clinton’s** supporters have now relocated to such a degree that her “eighteen million voices” first re-counted themselves as “two million” and were then unable to get even 250 people to show up at a meeting.

The public sees through this nonsense, Senator — they see through it quickly.

NBC and MSNBC do not have the power to seriously impact an election.

If we **did** — Senator Pat Buchanan would already be serving **with** you.

Besides which, Senator, who in your camp thought it was a good idea to take a shot at NBC and MSNBC… **during the Olympics **on** NBC and MSNBC?!?

**During** the Olympics, Senator McCain, on which you have already run millions of dollars’ worth of McCain Campaign **commercials**… on NBC and MSNBC!?!

Senator, let me wrap this up.

You — and your campaign — need a serious and immediate attitude adjustment.

Despite what you may think, Senator McCain, this is not a coronation.

Despite how you have acted, Senator McCain, you have no automatic excuse to politicize anything you want.

Despite how you have whined, Senator McCain, you have no entitlement to only sycophantic, deceptive, **air-brushed** coverage in the media.

And despite how you have strutted, Senator McCain, you have no God-given right to the Presidency.

Let’s have an adult campaign here, in other words — and I am embarrassed to have to say this to a man who turns 72 at the end of this month — Senator, grow up!

Good night, and good luck.
The New York Times makes Bill Kristol look even stupider than usual

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by SilentPatriot

Boy, this is great. On the same day Bill Kristol says this:

“NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported on “Meet the Press” that “the Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context. […] ‘What they’re putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama.’

“That’s pretty astonishing, since there seems to be absolutely no basis for the charge.”

The newspaper in which he said it says this:

“Senator John McCain was not in a “cone of silence” on Saturday night while his rival, Senator Barack Obama, was being interviewed at the Saddleback Church in California. “

What’s even worse is that his editors were forced to change the online version of the article and make a note at the bottom that a different version was published in the print version. How many more times does Bill Kristol have to be proven completely and utterly wrong before the Times fires him?
McCain camp is whining because Andrea Mitchell reported that he was not in the “cone of silence”

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 8:00pm EDT by John Amato

Enclosure: [download]

The McCain camp is whining today and attacking NBC and Andrea Mitchell because she had the nerve to make an accurate observation about Rick Warren’s forum. Andrea Mitchell said this Meet the Press:

The Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because that–what they’re putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama.

Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Silent Patriot)

This is completely accurate, but McCain’s camp is acting like they are part of the Nation of Whiners:

“The level of objectivity at NBC News has fallen so low that reporters are now giving voice to unsubstantiated, partisan claims in order to undercut John McCain,” Davis fumed. “Mitchell did what has become a pattern for her of simply repeating Obama campaign talking points.”

During the televised forum broadcast from Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., Warren told viewers that McCain would be in a “cone of silence” during the questioning of Obama. Davis confirmed that “McCain was in a motorcade to the event and then held in a green room with no broadcast feed.”

Via FOX News—Rick Warren is back pedaling since McCain is obviously his pick for president:

Meanwhile, Warren told FOX News Radio that the allegations that McCain heard Obama’s questions ahead of time were “total bogus.”

“Cone of silence is a silly term I used from Maxwell Smart,” Warren said. “We had him a green room in a totally different building. Somebody said there was a monitor in that room, yeah, but it was disconnected at the source. If he’d tried to turn it on, all he’d have gotten was fuzz, because it wasn’t even connected. So the Secret Service picked him up, brought him straight to that room, put him in that building. Somebody is systematically calling up all the media the media and trying to create, I don’t know, I guess they didn’t like the format or whatever.

So now it’s a silly term that he pulled from “Maxwell Smart!” Is he kidding me? This is unbelievable. Why would he mislead the American public like that? I believe McCain was not even in the green room for the first 30inutes of Obama’s time. It looks like Warren got caught and has to cover up for Rick Davis and McCain. Nice job, Rick.
Is Joe Biden the VP choice?

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 7:30pm EDT by John Amato

Well, I was against Kaine, Bayh, Hagel and Nunn. I haven’t thought too much about Biden yet. He a pretty smart guy, but doesn’t help Obama win in any area of the country so what’s the point? Duncan is cool on him, but not really bothered. I’m hoping he picks someone that will uplift the convention. Why is he waiting so long? I can dream, can’t I?

What are your thoughts?
This Week: In Memoriam

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 7:00pm EDT by Bill W.

Enclosure: [download]

Download | Play Download | Play

This Week with George Stephanopoulos marks the passings of Issac Hayes, Bill Gwatney, Jerry Wexler, Leroy Sievers, and the pentagon released the names of 9 service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to icasualties, the total fatalities for the Iraq coalition is now 4,460, and per Iraq Body Count, there were 138 Iraqi civilians killed this week.
New Ad Slams McCain Post-Saddleback

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 6:00pm EDT by bluegal

Enclosure: [download]

While John McCain and Barack Obama met with Rev. Warren at the Saddleback Church this weekend, the progressive Christian PAC Matthew 25 unveiled a new ad featuring religious leaders supporting Obama. In the ad, Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell - the Methodist minister who married Jenna Bush - takes a not-too-subtle dig at McCain over what McCain acknowledged to be his “greatest moral failing” at the forum - the failure of his first marriage.

h/t Dan Manatt at techPresident.

More background at Strategy ‘08.
McCain Helped Break It, So He Owns It

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 5:20pm EDT by Cernig

Who has the better judgement, the man who advocated a Surge that had a minor role in saving Iraq from being an even bigger disaster or the man who said we shouldn’t embark on that disastrous war to start with?

Matt Duss writes: “The good news is we have Al Qaeda on the ropes in Iraq. The bad news is we allowed Iraq to become a sanctuary (and recruiting poster and training ground and sectarian killing field) to start with, by invading Iraq.”

McCain helped create the war in Iraq and, like many another war-booster, predicted it would be a cakewalk. He wants us to ignore his terrible judgement of 2001-2003 and is careful to only talk about 2007 onwards as if the rest happened in a different dimension. Now that better COIN tactics and a lotof help from folks who used to shoot at US troops have reduced violence but done nothing to usher in a new era of Iraqi reconciliation, he wants us to ignore all that and credit a small increase in troop numbers which he happened to support for “victory”.

The mainstream media seem willing to do just that, but that’s no reason why he and they should get a free ride.
McCain lied about being in the cone of silence at Warren’s Forum… And where is Rick Warren’s outrage?

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 4:45pm EDT by John Amato

Enclosure: [download]

Check out our video for the proof. John McCain had a chance to say on TV that he wasn’t in the “cone of silence” when he came out and started his interview with Rick Warren.

Warren says he’s going to ask identical questions and has placed McCain in a cone of silence. McCain’s response was:

McCain: I was trying to hear through the wall.”

Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Silent Patriot)

He was not in the cone of silence.

Senator John McCain was not in a “cone of silence” on Saturday night while his rival, Senator Barack Obama, was being interviewed at the Saddleback Church in California.

Members of the McCain campaign staff, who flew here Sunday from California, said Mr. McCain was in his motorcade on the way to the church as Mr. Obama was being interviewed by the Rev. Rick Warren, the author of the best-selling book “The Purpose Driven Life.”

McCain was supposed to not be able to hear any of the questions before he went on or it would have given him an unfair advantage and a way to mold his answers. Driving in a car is a lame excuse to say he couldn’t hear any of the questions. We get all sorts of information these days in numerous ways. And why was McCain even late for the event? It was promoted like crazy.

Mr. Warren started by asking Mr. McCain, “Now, my first question: Was the cone of silence comfortable that you were in just now?”

Mr. McCain deadpanned, “I was trying to hear through the wall.”

Interviewed Sunday on CNN, Mr. Warren seemed surprised to learn that Mr. McCain was not in the building during the Obama interview.

Andrea Mitchell said on Meet the Press that:

The Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because that–what they’re putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama.

And Rick Warren was told about it by CNN’s Rick Sanchez. Warren responds:

Warren: Well, that’s true. He was in a cone of a secret service motorcade.

Sanchez called the McCain camp and said that he would have to go on the honor system. Yea, right. If John McCain can lie about his whereabouts during an evangelical presidential forum on TV, what does that tell you about his honesty and morals? And why isn’t Warren outraged by this breach of trust by John McCain? If Obama had not been in the cone the media would be in an uproar about it. Drudge would have had a huge headline on it and he would have been hounded. Well, you know the rest. Please email and call Rick Warren and ask him why he let John McCain lie about not being there on time or in the “cone of silence.” He should have been excluded from the forum completely.

Here’s his website. Rick Warren.

Here’s some contact information for Saddleback below the fold:

Corona
Citrus Hills Intermediate
3211 South Main Street Corona, CA
Phone:
(951) 239-6633
E-mail:
corona@saddleback.net
Directions:
Turn-by-Turn Directions
Irvine
4782 Karen Ann Lane
Irvine, CA, 92604
Phone:
(949) 235-4979
E-mail:
irvine@saddleback.net
Directions:
Turn-by-Turn Directions
Lake Forest (Main Campus)
1 Saddleback Pkwy
Lake Forest, CA 92630
Phone:
(949) 609-8000
E-mail:
info@saddleback.net
Directions:
Turn-by-Turn Directions
San Clemente
700 Avenida Pico
San Clemente, CA 92673
Phone:
(951) 239-6633
E-mail:
sanclemente@saddleback.net
Directions:
Turn-by-Turn Directions
Above Obama’s ‘pay grade’

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 4:00pm EDT by Steve Benen

Enclosure: [download]

When I watched the presidential candidate forum at Saddleback Church the other night, I took notes with a certain perspective in mind: which of Obama’s responses were going to be used against him by the right? Maybe I haven’t been reading enough conservative blogs lately, because I didn’t see the angry response to this remark coming:

Obama went on to explain how (and why) we can reduce the number of abortions in this country, and why he’s pro-choice.

And yet, it was that “above my pay grade” line that seems to be getting all the attention. To hear Obama’s conservative detractors tell it, there’s no one above a president’s pay grade, so the answer didn’t make any sense.

Maybe the right is being deliberately coy here, and looking to manufacture another controversy, but I thought it was pretty obvious Obama was referring to God

Over at BeliefNet, Steve Waldman understood the message, but seemed to think Obama’s response was confusing.

[Gary Bauer] hated Obama’s line that determining when life begins is “above my pay grade.” I agree that this was a poorly framed answer. If he was going to make this argument, he should have been more direct and say, “Only God really knows that. But since we have to pick someone to make this choice, I believe the choice should rest not with the legislature or the courts but with the women in consultation with her pastor.” He was too clipped and cryptic.

Maybe. Obama has a bad habit of treating voters like adults, and not talking down to them. He assumes, perhaps incorrectly, that Americans want to be spoken to as if we’re grown-ups. He doesn’t spell things out for us, because he believes his audience is fully capable of understanding what he’s saying.

But given the response, that’s apparently not the case. When dealing with weighty philosophical, scientific, and moral questions such as when an embryo or fetus is a “person,” with “human rights,” Obama suggested God knows more than a policy maker, but went on to talk about abortion policy in a more practical way.

Ann Althouse criticized Obama’s response on Sunday, but took a more measured line today. (emphasis in the original)

[T]hinking about it this morning, I’m pretty sure he meant to refer to God.

“Above my pay grade” is an expression of humility and submission to God: I don’t purport to answer the question that belongs to God. He’s trying to be folksy, coining a phrase akin to “the man upstairs.” When someone says “the man upstairs,” you don’t start railing about how we’re on the top floor, but that’s because we know we’re dealing with a folksy expression. People are too touchy on the subject of abortion to process the less common “above my pay grade” as an expression.

Obama may have thought that, in a church, talking to a pastor, with religion hovering around every question, listeners would understand that he was putting himself beneath God. But I didn’t pick that up last night….

How did all of you perceive this when you heard the line?
Afghanistan suicide attack at US military base

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 3:30pm EDT by John Amato

This is not going well:

A suicide car bomb blew up at a US military base in Afghanistan and killed nine civilians Monday, as the country marked Independence Day amid warnings of possible attacks.
The blast did not penetrate the base in the eastern town of Khost and Afghan security forces were able to prevent a second suicide attack moments later, the US-led coalition and Afghan officials said.
“Insurgents detonated a vehicle-borne IED (improvised explosive device) outside a US base in Khost province today, killing nine Afghan local nationals and wounding another 13 according to initial reports,” the coalition said in a statement.
Romney Misses Stephanopoulos Gaffe: Pwnd By Daschle

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 3:00pm EDT by SilentPatriot

Enclosure: [download]

Heather writes:

Tom Daschle manages to get in a dig after George Stephanopoulos mis-speaks and confuses Poland for Czechoslovakia and gets in a shot at McCain for not remembering that the country does not exist any more in response to Romney touting McCain’s worldly experience with his response to the Russia/Georgia conflict.

Download | Play Download | Play

It really is a shame that Mitt’s $35 million investment for President didn’t pan out; it’s pretty obvious that he would have been the weakest candidate of the bunch. And his “experience = judgment” argument re: McCain is laughable. Just as is true with Rumsfeld and Cheney, so-called “experience” is worthless when 30+ years of it leads you to believe that, say, a war with Iraq will be a cakewalk with no negative repercussions. For all his naivete and “inexperience,” Barack Obama predicted rather accurately what an invasion would entail.
Warren Asked Obama and McCain Different Questions

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 2:13pm EDT by Jon Perr

Two days after the fact, questions continue to surround John McCain’s surprisingly strong performance Saturday at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. The mainstream media and blogosphere alike are abuzz with rumors that McCain pierced Warren’s so-called “cone of silence” and, more serious still, may have purloined his legendary POW “cross in the dirt” story from the late Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.

But on one point, there is no dispute. Despite CNN’s assurances to the contrary, Rick Warren simply asked Barack Obama and John McCain different questions.

From the very first question, Warren treated McCain with biblical kid gloves, editing out scriptural references that might have proven uncomfortable for the religiously reticent Republican:

QUESTION TO OBAMA: These first set of questions deal with your personal life as a leader and I’m not going to do this with any other segment, but as pastor I’ve got some verses that have to do with leadership. The first issue is the area of listening. There is a verse in Proverbs that says fools think they need no advice but the wise listen to other people. Who are the wisest three people you know in your life and who are you going to rely on heavily in your administration?

QUESTION TO MCCAIN: This first question deals with leadership and the personal life of leadership. First question, who were the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration?

Chuck Todd of MSNBC was quick to note the strikingly different answers Obama and McCain offered, but not the clearly different questions they were asked:

“Take the VERY first question Warren posed to both candidates: who are three people you’ll depend on for wisdom in the presidency. Obama seemed to answer this in a very personal way, talking about his wife and grandmother. McCain went right to this message, checking boxes on Iraq (Patraeus) and the economy (Whitman) for instance. Now, I’m betting Obama’s answer came across as more authentic but McCain’s was probably more effective with undecided swing voters.”

Given the very different framing of the question Warren posed, it’s no surprise that Barack Obama and John McCain produced strikingly different responses in both substance and style. Obama took Warren’s personal question personally, and cited his wife and grandmother as both “wise and honest” before moving on to a litany of political figures on both sides of the aisle. (Obama’s mention of the radical social conservative Tom Coburn (R-OK) was transparent pandering to his audience.) For his part, McCain responded to Warren’s political question and pointed to General David Petraeus, Obama supporter Congressman John Lewis and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. (McCain was quick to return to his stump speech and extol the glories of eBay as America’s economic future.)

But Warren’s divergent paths for Obama and McCain split further with the very next question on leadership and moral weakness. Again, Warren turned to the Bible for Barack Obama, but to Dr. Phil for John McCain:

QUESTION TO OBAMA: Let’s talk about personal life. The Bible says that integrity and love are the basis for leadership. This is a tough question. What would be looking over your life, everybody’s got wings [sic], would be the greatest moral failure in your life and what would be the greatest moral failure in America?

QUESTION TO MCCAIN: We had a lot leaders because of their weaknesses, character flaws, stumbled, become ineffective [and] are not serving anymore, serving our country. What’s been your greatest moral failure and what has been the - what do you think is the greatest moral failure of America?

Again, the different framing of the question put Obama at a distinct disadvantage. After admitting his own troubled, selfish youth as his personal failing, Obama turned to scripture to highlight America’s failure to live up to its own ideals:

“I think America’s greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we still don’t live by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you for the least of my brothers, you do for me.”

In contrast, McCain killed two birds with one stone. He dispensed with his own marital infidelity in a single sentence, “my greatest moral failing, and I have been an imperfect person, is the failure of my first marriage.” (The issue never surfaced again, and Warren’s admission Friday that he “absolutely” would have compunctions about voting for an adulterer never became an issue for McCain.) More important, McCain highlighted America’s greatest shortcoming as a failure to “serve cause greater than yourself.” That theme - “country first” - is the rhetorical cornerstone of the McCain campaign. And the contrast of his response with Obama’s discussion of his own battle with what Warren termed “fundamental selfishness” couldn’t have been more strategic for McCain.

Warren’s different framing of the inquiries he posed and the tailored, selective follow-ups continued in his discussion of marriage. Warren asked Obama and McCain alike to “define marriage.” But while Obama was then asked, “Would you support a constitutional amendment with that definition,” Warren instead offered John McCain an opportunity to weigh in on a hotly contested ballot measure being pushed by the religious right in California:

“Let me just ask a related question to that. We got a bill right here in California, Proposition 8, that’s going on because the Court overturned this definition of marriage. Was the Supreme Court of California wrong?”

It’s no secret that the foes of same-sex marriage see Proposition 8 as essential to fueling Republican turn-out in November.

And so it went all night. And so it went all night. Thanks in no small part to Pastor Warren’s biblical guidance, Barack Obama spoke in a personal, conversational style, making a point throughout to refer to the principles of his Christian faith in the misguided attempt to please an audience indifferent to him at best, downright hostile at worst. So while Barack Obama talked of “trying to do God’s work,” John McCain did the work of his campaign advisers. Despite Warren’s feeble requests not to do so, McCain just repackaged his stump speech and made purely political appeals. In so doing, John McCain probably had the best night of the campaign.
Jerome Corsi wrote that group tied to al-Qaeda supports McCain

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 1:00pm EDT by John Amato

Obama smear author and swiftboater Jerome Corsi is a very sick guy indeed. Not only has he been debunked by almost everybody, but now people are starting to look at his insane articles over at World Net Daily.

madasheck over at DKos has more:

And the first paragraph:

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has enjoyed strong support from a lobbyist group that backs the Kosovo Liberation Army despite allegations the KLA is a Muslim terrorist group with ties to criminal drug networks and al-Qaida.

You think the Republicans will continue to support this jerk?

Actually I do. They don’t care who does the smearing as long as it helps their cause.
McCain jokes: $5 million a year is a good definition of rich

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 12:00pm EDT by SilentPatriot

Enclosure: [download]

When asked by Rich Warren last night how he would “define rich,” McCain did his very best to avoid the question and instead started rambling about the DNA of bears and Congress’ vacation time. Although he said “$5 million” jokingly, it’s pretty clear he didn’t want to offend the fat cat base of the Republican Party. This is pretty ironic coming from a man that once bashed the Bush tax cuts as disproportionately skewed towards the wealthy. Maverick no more, indeed.

Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heather)

“Some of the richest people I’ve ever known in my life are the most unhappy. I think that rich is — should be defined by a home, a good job and education and the ability to hand to our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one that we inherited. I don’t want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich. I don’t believe in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth. But I can tell you for example there are small businessmen and women who are working 16 hours a day, seven days a week that some people would classify as, quote, ‘rich,’ my friends, who want to raise their taxes and raise their payroll taxes. Let’s have — keep taxes low. Let’s give every family in America a $7,000 tax credit for every child they have. Let’s give them a $5,000 refundable tax credit to go out and get the health insurance of their choice. Let’s not have the government take over the health care system in America.

“So I think if you’re just talking about income, how about $5 million. But seriously, I don’t think you can — I don’t think, seriously that — the point is that I’m trying to make here seriously — and I’m sure that comment will be distorted, but the point is — the point is — the point is that we want to keep people’s taxes low and increase revenues. And my friend, it was not taxes that mattered in America in the last several years. It was spending. Spending got completely out of control. We spent money in a way that mortgaged our kids futures. My friends, we spent $3 million of your money to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Now I don’t know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue, but the point is — but the point is it was $3 million of your money. It was your money.

“And you know, we laugh about it, but we cry and we should cry because the Congress is supposed to be careful stewards of your tax dollars. so what did they just do in the middle of an energy crisis when in California we are paying $4 a gallon for gas, went on vacation for five weeks. I guarantee you, two things they never miss, a pay raise and a vacation. And we should stop that and call them back and not raise your taxes. We should not and cannot raise taxes in tough economic times. So it doesn’t matter really what my definition of rich is because I don’t want to raise anybody’s taxes.”

John Amato: I thought McCain was pretty good Saturday night except in some crucial areas which I discussed here. Most of the media said McCain was just magnificent last night. He hit a HR. I guess they forgot about this answer. What the heck was McCain talking about?

Steve Benen has more.
Mike’s Blog Roundup

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 11:00am EDT by Mike Finnigan

The Evangelical Panderfest: The Political Carnival, Corrente, Romenesko

TBogg: Easily the top Christianist pander. This is film script material a la those old Victor Mature, Chuck Heston sandal and shield flicks.

Prometheus 6: Krugman joins the chorus

gin and tacos: We’re Number One!

Scott Horton: Military judge finds political manipulation in Gitmo - again

OK, see if you can wrap your head around the concept of this blog! In the linked post, he’s still upset with those cheese-eating surrender monkeys. As J.C. Watts’ father famously remarked, “a black person voting Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.”
McCain, judgment, and a response to the attacks of 9/11

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 8:30am EDT by Steve Benen

The NYT’s David Kirkpatrick had a very strong piece yesterday on John McCain’s foreign policy worldview, his embrace of neoconservatism, and his response to the attacks of 9/11. It applies a little more scrutiny than McCain is probably accustomed to receiving.

[By the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001], Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria.

“There is a system out there or network, and that network is going to have to be attacked,” Mr. McCain said the next morning on ABC News. “It isn’t just Afghanistan,” he added, on MSNBC. “I don’t think if you got bin Laden tomorrow that the threat has disappeared,” he said on CBS, pointing toward other countries in the Middle East.

Within a month he made clear his priority. “Very obviously Iraq is the first country,” he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: “Next up, Baghdad!”

Just to clarify, by October 2001, McCain was already a cheerleader for invading Iraq. This was his reflexive response to the terrorism perpetrated by al Qaeda.

It’s an anecdote that reminds us of so many questions surrounding McCain, including his temperament, his judgment, and his “hothead” personality.

“He has the personality of a fighter pilot: when somebody stings you, you want to strike out,” said retired Gen. John H. Johns, a former friend and supporter of Mr. McCain who turned against him over the Iraq war. “Just like the American people, his reaction was: show me somebody to hit.”

And while that may strike some as appealing, the problem with McCain’s approach is its indiscriminate attitude — he looks for somebody to hit before he actually thinks about the merit and/or consequences.

Looking back at this period also reminds us of just how wrong McCain has been.

While pushing to take on Saddam Hussein, Mr. McCain also made arguments and statements that he may no longer wish to recall. He lauded the war planners he would later criticize, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. (Mr. McCain even volunteered that he would have given the same job to Mr. Cheney.) He urged support for the later-discredited Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi’s opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, and echoed some of its suspect accusations in the national media. And he advanced misleading assertions not only about Mr. Hussein’s supposed weapons programs but also about his possible ties to international terrorists, Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 attacks. […]

[A]fter Mr. Bush declared he would hold responsible any country condoning terrorism, Mr. McCain called his leadership “magnificent” and his national security team the strongest “that has ever been assembled.” A few weeks later, Larry King of CNN asked whether he would have named Mr. Rumsfeld and Colin L. Powell to a McCain cabinet. “Oh, yes, and Cheney,” Mr. McCain answered, saying he, too, would have offered Mr. Cheney the vice presidency.

Even during the heat of the war in Afghanistan, Mr. McCain kept an eye on Iraq. To Jay Leno in mid-September, Mr. McCain said he believed “some other countries” had assisted Osama bin Laden, going on to suggest Iraq, Syria and Iran as potential suspects. In October 2001, when an Op-Ed page column in The New York Times speculated that Iraq, Russia or some other country might bear responsibility for that month’s anthrax mailings, Mr. McCain interrupted a question about Afghanistan from David Letterman on that night’s “Late Show.” “The second phase is Iraq,” Mr. McCain said, adding, “Some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.” […]

[W]hen the Czech government said that before the attacks, one of the 9/11 hijackers had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence official, Mr. McCain seized the report as something close to a smoking gun. “The evidence is very clear,” he said three days later, in an Oct. 29 television interview. (Intelligence agencies quickly cast doubt on the meeting.)

On Friday, McCain told the NYT, “I believe voters elect their leaders based on their experience and judgment — their ability to make hard calls, for instance, on matters of war and peace. It’s important to get them right.”

That would sound more compelling if McCain hadn’t been so wrong for so long.
Musharraf Announces Resignation

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 5:19am EDT by Cernig

President Musharraf of Pakistan has announced his resignation this morning, in an address to his nation in advance of impeachment charges which were expected to be filed tomorrow.

In a one-hour long televised address, Musharraf defended his nearly nine-year rule and rejected accusations against him, but said he was leaving office.

“After consultations with legal advisers and close political supporters and on their advice, I’m taking the decision of resigning,” a somber Musharraf said.

“My resignation will go to the speaker of the National Assembly today.”

His resignation had been rumored for weeks and speculation peaked yesterday, with the new civilian government in particular pushing it as an alternative to messy court proceedings, although until today Musharraf had insisted he would stay to fight the charges. There’s little doubt that his Western allies have pressured him to accept a deal, seeking to keep Pakistan a little more stable at a time when it seems in danger of falling apart at the seams.

I was highly sceptical that he would step down as it implied a level of complicity by the military and ISI intelligence that I believed was more touted than real. It seems I was wrong. It remains to be seen whether the new government’s further claims that it has complete control over the military and intelligence agencies now are also real following some very embarrassing setbacks - and whether it will curb the ISI from using Islamist terror groups as foreign policy proxies against its traditional bugbear India.

The other interesting question is “what will Mushie do next?” Exile seems likeliest and there have been rumors that the US, which has long backed the former dictator, would offer him asylum. But it appears that the Saudis have stepped in, as major mediators of the resignation deal, and so Musharraf will probably retire there. Which is ironic, in that it will put the man who was ultimately in charge of the intelligence agency that was pulling Al Qaeda’s strings prior to (and post) 9/11 in the country that furnished most of the hijackers - and both Musharraf and the Saudi rulers are staunch Bush allies.