A Spork in the Drawer

Strained

McCain and Graham and Lieberman
Of whom you know I'm not a fan
Take to some pages
To declare that they're sages
And crow, "What clever boys we am!"

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Mandatory Reading

RS's Matt Taibbi writes the definitive obituary for McCainPalin '08.

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Even Dumber Than We Thought

While I'm trying to make this place a Sarah Palin-free zone as quickly as possible I can't pass this up. No, Sarah, Africa isn't a country, it's a continent:

Fox "News" trashing Palin. Who woulda thunk it?

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Weird

Hacking:

At the Obama headquarters in midsummer, technology experts detected what they initially thought was a computer virus—a case of "phishing," a form of hacking often employed to steal passwords or credit-card numbers. But by the next day, both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system." The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: "You have a real problem ... and you have to deal with it." The Feds told Obama's aides in late August that the McCain campaign's computer system had been similarly compromised. A top McCain official confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the campaign's computer system had been hacked and that the FBI had become involved.

Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps' policy positions—information that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration. The Feds assured the Obama team that it had not been hacked by its political opponents. (Obama technical experts later speculated that the hackers were Russian or Chinese.) A security firm retained by the Obama campaign took steps to secure its computer system and end the intrusion. White House and FBI officials had no comment earlier this week.

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Blast From The Past

Things change:

Exactly two years ago, SurveyUSA completed interviews with 600 voters in every state (30,000 total interviews), asking them how they would vote in a 2008 Presidential Election between John McCain and Barack Obama. Based on those interviews, SurveyUSA was able to report that:

In November 2006, Obama carried …

1. His home state of Illinois.
2. His birth state of Hawaii.
3. The District of Columbia.

In November 2006, Obama got 28 total electoral votes.

In November 2006, John McCain carried 48 states, and rolled up 510 electoral votes.

Heh.

[Via attaturk.]

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Dixville Notch For Obama!

The tiny new Hampshire hamlet gives Obama 15 votes to McCain's 6.

It's not predictive of anything but still.

Exciting!

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Mittens!

Gearing up for his inevitable run for the White House in 2012 the square-jawed Romney doesn't want defend McCain's sinking ship:

VIEIRA: So, let me ask you, would you characterize John McCain’s campaign as dignified and honest?

ROMNEY: Well, what I’d characterize the entire campaign as is extraordinarily negative on the part of Barack Obama. […]

VIEIRA: So you think his campaign was dignified?

ROMNEY: Well, I think it’s going to come down to this, and I think that is, who is going to be able to keep America safe and who is it that’s going to add jobs. […]

VIEIRA: Governor, not to beat a dead horse here, but once again, do you believe that the campaign was dignified?

ROMNEY: Was it dignified? It was presidential.

Squiiiiiiiiirm.

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Brutal

McClatchy's Joseph L. Galloway offers some commentary:

High tide arrived with the unlikeliest occupant of the Oval Office in our history, the beady-eyed, smirking, tongue-tied, counterfeit cowboy George W. Bush, and a Congress that after 9-11 was run by runaway Republicans who were too busy enriching themselves and their friends to care what their president was doing to the country, the Constitution and even their own party.

Little wonder, then, that Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin will go down to defeat after a campaign of sheer desperation that’s been nasty, brutish and long.

Bush and his clutch of unindicted co-conspirators will leave Washington at high noon on January 20, 2009, two months and a few wakeups from now, and good riddance to bad rubbish.

Ouch.

Read the whole thing.

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Theology

Republican Jesus:

The supporters, too, tend to feel the polls are either wrong or they're rigged: McCain is right where he should be.

"I'm very optimistic," says William Scott Maxwell, 52, a computer programmer and self-described "paleo-con" from Middletown, Pa. "Why? Because God wouldn't do that to us. This country is built on freedom. Obama is not basing his platform on freedom."

Will all of these people who claim that their god won't allow an Obama victory rethink their beliefs if he wins? I mean, given that their god is infallible and omnipotent, an Obama win would necessarily mean that their entire belief system is flawed, yes? And further, if an Obama win is a sign of their god's will then they'll have no choice but support him to the hilt, right?

Yes, I'm shooting ducks in a barrel.

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Maybe DeFib Dick Hates McCain And Wants Him To Lose

Obama has some fun with St. John's latest endorser:

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